Several of us on this board have said versions of "It's getting worse" and "Violence is coming" since the Oct/Nov time frame. Why the surprise when it starts to happen? I think it likely to come from the left, simply because they are the ones without hope right now and the hopeless are more likely to resort to extremism.
I think it's likely that we are going to seem more political violence in this country. There are a lot of crazies out there, and a whole lot of people telling them the world is ending. SOME of them are going to believe it.
Ayep.
As always, it's a mix of issues. But yes, we're going back to the good old days of hyper partisan politics and yellow journalism. Think Spanish American War type politics.
People tend to build echo chambers for themselves. Most people on the left get their news from HuffPo, MSNBC, or CNN. People on the right get their news from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Fox News, etc. Accuracy on either side is a joke, and even when accurate it's framed by partisan ideology. The internet offers a huge range of options for news, most of them are not used by most people.
The 24/7 news cycle is also pretty bad 99.9% of the time. Everything is Armageddon, all the time. No context is provided. News by absolutely everyone is fast and generally bad quality. Hence why stories change ten times. Because news agencies push information without actually verifying it.
The other sad aspect of the internet is... Crazy people are being told they're not crazy. No, it's not just people who identify as otherkin transpacific Apache Helicopters. But those types too. Before the interwebz, you had a large number of people with small or large mental issues and they were just crazy. Now, they can and do find other people like themselves. Who tell them they are not crazy. Add in echo chambers, it can get ugly in a hurry. People start seeing other people expressing opinions as Literally Nazis, or Literally Hitler. Or whatever their mind substitutes as being the real world absolutely worst thing that could be created by humans, such as Hawaiian pizza.