pqmonk
1mo ago
I don't know, maybe what I'm seeking with this post is more understanding about my frustration than actual guidance. It's very hard for me to want to be invested in politics when it seems like all everyone wants to do is yell and scream at each other.
I know you didn't ask for guidance but how you're feeling is clearly a function of how plugged in you are. Do you use social media? Watch news daily? How much and for how long? I ask because...
it seems like all everyone wants to do is yell and scream at each other
all the personal attacks and inflammatory rhetoric and lack of mutual respect
...this is not unprecedented in American politics. The best (and frankly the funniest) examples are Jefferson v. Adams (1800) and Jackson vs. Adams (1828). That's not to say I condone it, but rather that it's not unique to this election, or even to American politics and history. For all our technological and scientific progress we're still human.
You're not wrong, but I would expand your frame because just being white isn't the whole picture. Trump is the figurehead antithesis of the ideals of the Democratic party and a large portion of their voter base. He's a white man concerned with his own image as the alpha male, he chiefly trusts his own intuition is skeptical of institutions, he believes there are innate differences between races and sexes, he's bombastic and boastful, he sleeps with models, and so on. These are just observations, I say none of them to be denigrating, though some may warrant it.
Contrast this with Obama, the eight-year darling embodiment of the democratic party, then amplify it by the proliferation of ubiquitous and profitable rage-bait media, and you get the vitriol and hostility of 2016 which will never cease until he retires or dies.
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