America’s Objective Political Discourse Is Dead
Instead of debating the merits of policy, today's American political discourse is down to calling people "libtards".
Over the last few months, I have been considering whether I want to continue writing about American politics, at least for the foreseeable future. The reason why this has been floating in my head is because the quality of political discourse has sharply declined in this country. Instead of well-thought-out arguments that were delivered with some level of nuance, today’s political discourse is dominated by one-sided arguments that don’t allow for any slightly differing views.
Another problem that I’ve encountered is that the extreme emotion-based tribalism that controls today’s political discussion is so red meat driven, that political arguments are simply reduced to “owning the libs” or “owning MAGA”. Instead of a sharp quip to put someone in their place, it’s now down to calling people fascists, snowflakes, libtards, or whatever the newest nonsensical word is. It’s almost as if the issues aren’t even being discussed.
I noticed this when I started putting videos on YouTube. I know that many of my videos did well because I was telling people what they wanted to hear. However, once I started to say something that didn’t agree with their world view, they suddenly turned. When I said that Democrats were in trouble in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, those in the comments said, “you aren’t accounting for all the Republicans that will vote for Harris.” When I said that there wouldn’t be any more Republicans voting for Harris than had voted for Hillary or Biden, they said “you don’t know what you are talking about.” At the end of the day, my analyses were spot on.
Still, when I go to YouTube nowadays, I just see clickbait thumbnails that were created to bring in the primal, red meat political observers (if I can even call them that…more like spectators). For example, the channel MeidasTouch has clickbait after clickbait thumbnails just to bring people in. They do National Enquirer-type titles like “this is the worst thing Trump has ever done”, and then it’s a video of him scratching is ass in public. The hyperbole that these channels engage in has, again, reduced American politics to a primal, emotion-based spectator sport with very little intellectual conversation.
This also goes to another point, that a lot of YouTube channels and Substacks that are on the left, or at least anti-Trump, seem to be more focused on calling Trump a fascist and overall name calling than talking about how his policies are affecting people. This is why someone like Adam Kinzinger has gone from being someone who I respected to being someone who has engaged in red-meat politics, probably so that he can get a little bit of coin on Substack. He’s really done down hill.
Yes, there are those like Pod Save America which are partisan and work within the realm of intellectual conversation, but unfortunately, they are becoming the exception instead of the norm. The order of the day is now to provide political theater that is some form of vitriolic entertainment for the masses instead. I expect Russell Crowe to come out asking people “are you not entertained?”
This is one of the reasons that I’ve been focusing a lot more on international elections than what is happening here in the United States. When I wrote or made videos about the Germany election, the comments were significantly better. When I talk about Canada, it’s the same thing (though some “Americanism” is starting to float into their political waters as well).
The commenters when talking about other countries weren’t trying to score some sort of YouTube “gotcha” points, but were instead engaging in conversations and debates that were constructive. Even if they were critical of what I had said, they provided their opinion in a way that was open and even made me reconsider what I had recorded or written.
If I did the same thing with an American video, I’d be called a “libtard”. Hell, even with the most basic things, like talking about the latest poll numbers, I would have conservative saying this was “fake news” and they are going to “report it to YouTube”. Seriously, you’re going to report me for talking about the crosstabs in a YouGov poll? Good luck, bud!
American politics has gone off the rails.
Now, I might do something for the elections in November, and I will come back for the midterms. But right now, American political discussion is just absolute garbage. Hopefully it will get better, but I fear that it has forever flushed down the toilet.