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Ah yes, who could forget the mid-90s. Truly the peak of political polarization and Brazilianification. I'm glad the country is so much more unified in comparison to those dark times.
You might think you're dunking on me right now but I'm dead fucking serious. As bad as the the current state of polarization is, the early-mid 90s were arguably a lot worse. At the very least sectarian violence was producing a lot more bodies than it is today. Ruby Ridge, Waco, the Rodney King Riots, OKC, Abortion Clinic Bombings, Church Bombings, University Bombings, the DC Sniper Attacks, need I go on?
I think you are right. Back then , the unrest was the real thing, not like the AstroTurf stuff we see now. They were playing for keeps, not just making noise. There has been an uptick in mass shootings though. But people seemed as divided during the Clinton era, such as Hillarycare, which was a huge deal at the time, as they are now. Same for the Lewinsky scandal, which was polarizing. Or the 1995-1996 government shutdowns. The difference now is social media has an amplifying effect on discourse.
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The past decade has its own list of similar tragedies and shocking, violent acts. But if we're talking about political polarization, we have ways we can measure that and the notion that the country is more politically united today than it was in the mid-90s is clearly not true.
Sure, but scale matters. The Blue tribe media basically lost their minds over Kenosha Kyle, imagine their response if there had been multiple running gunfights between "right wing neighborhood militias" and "anti-racism activists" in the way that used to be the norm.
Likewise I don't think that anyone is going to deny that academia and the media have become hopelessly polarized but at the same time academia and the media have been becoming less and less representative of the nation at large so what is actually being measured?
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Not DC Sniper, that's off by a decade (2002). The bombings might be a wash; in the wake of Dobbs, there were a number of arson attacks on churches and crisis pregnancy centers by pro-abortion radicals. Did the 90s bombings have higher body count? Unabomber killed two people in the early-mid 90s.
Eh my bad, you hit middle age and everything that happened before you were 30 just starts to blend together. It came to mind because the political angle of that one (a pair of hardcore Anti-fa types trying to start a race war) always seems to get conveniently memory holed if/when the incident is mentioned at all. My recollection is that abortion activists and anti-abortion activists killed about a dozen between them.
Edit to Add: For such a smart guy Kazinsky was really bad at actually building bombs and as someone who actually kind of sympathizes with his manifesto, I feel dirty for occasionally wishing he'd had more "success".
done in by ego, really . for someone so smart and principled, he was was not immune to these sins.
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