Are you sick of the US media saying the American people are divided?

Not really. Glossing over it and ignoring it will not make it go away.

It does seem to be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s also often used as a means to sell centrism. (i.e. the left and the right are both wrong, what we need is something centrist and moderate). I am, for the most part, a centrist, but the answer to division is not necessarily to throw out or embrace both sides. Sometimes one side is wrong. The problem isn’t necessarily ideological but practical.

I find it sad that we have become so divided. I have hope that this division is something that we can fix

There isn’t enough disagreement. The “division” narrative is a fiction that serves power.

Even the premise is absurd and is built on a bunch of myths. It proposes that there are 2 sides that have the same goals but can’t agree on how to get there. And these goals have everyone’s best interest at heart. This “divided” myth allows us to continue to avoid any talk of class conflict, and is pure propaganda.

There are conflicts among “the american people”. But they are largely class-based and unrepresented in the corporate media and cultural myths.

It’s ironic that the news media is claiming this, when there’s actually more of a divide between the establishment and everyday people.

Yes I am sick of it. It seems to me like the media plays a large part in keeping our country divided.

No, I’m sick of the United States being divided. As we see here on Fluther, it’s definitely the truth.

You can’t fault the media for this, any more than cuss at the weatherman as you sit in your sweat drenched wife beater listening to him blare on about the record temperature. At least it’s the truth.

The media is part of the reason we are divided. I saw an interview with Obama yesterday and I was glad he laid some blame on the media. It’s a vicious cycle of the media reporting what is true, that America is divided, and the media helping to cause division either on purpose or inadvertently. I’m sick of it. I have been saying this for 4 years and it is baffling that so many people can’t see it.

Today there was an explosion in Nashville, it happens to be just a few blocks from the building where my husband works (my husband is in Florida with me because of covid) and I saw reports that possibly the police were baited to the scene before the explosion. A Republican friend of mine mentioned the explosion on her facebook, no other details, and one of her more obnoxious fanatic facebook friends wrote, “Democrats.” I’m so disgusted, but how is that different than seeing the WS’s demonstrate and march and Democrats call all Republicans racist and WS. Neither is correct or good.

The TV media is missing all sorts of opportunities to bring us together because of bias and an agenda. Part of the effort is killing people with the covid situation. If they are not going to be balanced journalists they could at least try to save lives, but they go after ratings instead.

The media definitely could propagate more of a message of being united if they wanted to.

Do you want them to? That is a question I don’t expect to be answered on this Q for everyone and anyone, I don’t aim that at the OP. I am not asking for answers, because I do not want to derail the Q, just something to think about.

During my Navy days, I had boring duty nights spent on the pier. This was every five or six days, and you go to sleep according to what time your watch is, and whether the next day is on a weekend. Summer nights I sometimes entertained myself by catching a couple of crabs. That is easy. You tie a piece of string to a piece of raw chicken. Throw the chicken in the water, and immediately a crab grabs it. One yank, and he’s on the pier. One more time, and now it is a legal cockfight. I poke one with a stick, and they go at it.
Outsiders are doing that online. Pretend to be an American, or caring Canadian, Brazilian, etc. Feed people some opinions, sound highly motivated about current events. Boom. That’s one side. Now on another profile, oh yeah, poke!

With discord, there are so many ready to take advantage of that.

I am so done! I want to go dancing with Stanley, throw an angry cephalopod at loli (because that is like, his/her kind of thing), have tea and hamantaschen with JLeslie, and KNOWITALL… ? , rockfan, how do you feel about The Hu? I hope to see them in concert when they can safely tour again. Join me? I have part of that song learned, and I’m working on throat singing. I can do it some, but not in harmony. (Yuve yuve yu is fun to hear, but tough as hell to sing along with.)

Who else? Anybody ready to be friends again?

RDG, You have remained middle road in all this, but I still would love to have a chicken dinner, with lots of gravy. Gravy is important.

Well?

So ready to be friends.

Thankfully where I live mostly everybody is friends or at least friendly even with different politics. All of my long time friends politics has never mattered.

No. It is the truth.

We are not divided, regardless of what people here say!
We are united! Don’t listen to them!

@filmfann: “We are united!”

What does that mean?

@Patty Melt lyrical

Well it’s not that there isn’t some truth to it… what I dislike about people saying that is that it’s too simplistic, and as @_____ wrote, it tempts people to think there is only one divide, and that that one divide is real and the only thing to think about. As @rockfan and others mentioned, there are other things going on.

And as @Patty_Melt and others mention, I think many/most Americans still do have a lot in common, and a general wish to get along…

but I think the “divide”, as in people aligning against each other in D vs R camps, is more the symptom and the distraction. There are worse things going on, which that D vs R story is being used to distract people from. Like the pandemic, environmental disasters not getting attention, most of our government being corrupted by corporations, and the two parties and the media intentionally creating the division narrative and keeping people focused on intractable issues and not really trying to reach any workable solution since they’re such a great distraction and validation of the supposed conflict. Meanwhile the corporations white our laws for us, and our democracy only offers mostly bad D vs R choices.

They’ve spent the last couple decades making sure there is as much division in our nation as possible…why stop now?

@Zaku Seems the country needs a new deal, a new social contract and elected leaders have no new visions to offer the people.

Everyone is distracted and drowning in waves of animosity and the most dire of economic, social and global problems certain to arise in the near future are not being addressed.

So what are these leaders being paid for?

It seems we vote for them to be our gladiators us cheering when they slaughter. We all know what happened to that empire eventually. lol

@mazingerz88 Well, Biden is hoping to unify the country. Let’s see if people will give him a chance. So far he’s being called a leftist and a socialist by the right and a Republican by the progressives so let’s see what happens here.

Maybe what we need to unite on Fluther is a six month moratorium on political questions but I don’t even see that happening.

^^How long before the American people’s “division” get old before they turn on their own elected leaders and demand them to make as many necessary new policies moving us forward?

Soon I hope.

Running a big country is complicated enough sans political distraction by those on top and the people below enabling it or falling victim to it.

This question has been bothering me since its appearance here. And there are several reasons why. Foremost, sick of it or not, the essential question is whether or not what the media is telling us is true. Next comes the question about what we should consider the legitimate function of the media. Will we prosper as a nation if only the media backs off complaining about our growing divisiveness? Is it rational that you should be annoyed with your doctor because with every visit you are told that your cigarette habit is killing you?

@janbb The worry with Biden is (a) his story changes depending on circumstances and who he is talking to and (b) when he was VP, the administration did as much as it could to target anyone that held different views from themselves, so there is a past history that disagrees with his professed desire to unify us. Unless he is talking about some dictatorial view of “unification”. And the last part about Biden that makes me believe that is a pile of hooey is that he has made strong efforts to avoid press conferences and actually take questions and has done absolutely nothing towards reaching out to conservatives at all.

Thanks to Mimi’s question, I have been revisiting our country’s revolution details.
Our government, and the constitution it arms itself with were presented to the world as our cure for freedom seekers, when in fact, they considered it an experiment, likely to experience changes.

We have made changes. Some have been improvements, some mistakes.
However, I find that Congress has always been the morning breath of our democracy, fighting and puffing for power standing often in the way of solutions. The bigger it gets, the longer are delays, and the greater the crowd where individual transgressors might hide. It became it’s own entity long ago.
Frequently we see the checks and balances keep the president curtailed, but little can be done to control them.
There have been cries of late to defund and “defang” police, but I see Congress as a much toothier foe.
Two hundred years was a good run, but we have repairs to do.

Congress is free to pay themselves and approve raises. They have lifetime incomes. And most of them suck, even publicly. We need a major restructuring, and in other areas too.
That will take a unity this nation nas not seen in several decades.
Can we achieve it?

What made us so quick to become innovative?
When we colonized north America, the rest of the world was primarily established, including the indigenous people. There were wars, skirmishes, changes of power, but mostly life was established in one area as nomadic people there, cities there, social status established, leadership following mainly established rituals. Property was owned, for centuries. Property changed hands by sale, theft, or inheritance. People came to America, and land was for grabs. Some understood the way natives used and identified with land. Many did not understand native people at all, and didn’t care. Some learned from natives, some only wanted them exterminated. Others were not brutal enough to kill, but believed changing how natives lived would improve both their futures, and our future with them. Lessons were learned. Mistakes were made. Social status saw major reflection and change. The availability of manageable land, the new ideas perceived from natives, new challenges faced, it spurred increased advancement in several areas. Ben Franklin is an excellent example, but certainly not alone. Understanding of established cultures, and exposure to the concept that other options could exist, prompted huge inspiration for attempts of change.

Long story I know, but here is what I’m leading up to. We are now a primarily established culture. We have a political structure, education established, blah blah blah. We are ignoring that we must make changes, or we will stale, and decline.
Liberals and conservatives will have to come together, as indigenous, and immigrants should have three centuries plus, ago. We need to rethink how government should be structured to best serve the majority. Nobody can be made giddy with perfection, but we surely can do better.

We are not at an end, we are at a point where transition is required to avoid an end.

First, decide what would work better than our present day Congress, and the status of states. Should they be given so much autonomy that it resembles the separate countries of Europe? After determining what we can live with, then we burn Congress in effigy, and run them home. We have to know what will be put in place first, or collapse under lack of structure.

My big fat opinion.
Love or hate it, but don’t attempt to make me defend it. I’m spending no more space on it.

The way I see it the only real, new and extraordinarily intense division between the American people these past few years have been about defining Trump. Whether he’s unfit to be President or not. That’s it.

The rest is still the same issues Americans had been arguing about for decades and never seem to have a plan to settle them with compromises that would last for a long while where both sides just get something and not everything.

I agree with you, but only in part.

I believe the problem people have with him most don’t even understand themselves. Our biggest.division is not him. It is with people, and mega powers. People see him as being a part of that. He is, but not in the way most people perceive. When he was younger, he was relentless, dedicated, and often ruthless. He achieved so very much. He hob mobbed with people who had tremendous influence. That got him favors, cut corners. It also gave him a view of things which offended him, but he felt he needed. Politicians have agendas, and tricks. They begin early on trying to impress the public. They make a huge effort to give the impression that they have talent, and want to improve the world.
Trump wasn’t part of that scene. He had a very different persona he needed to convey. To do business, whether in New York, or in other countries, he had to present as a tough, unyielding developer. When purchasing property, he had to get the deal he wanted. When choosing a place to build, he had to convince the right people that they would benefit from his venture. He is in many countries, and had to learn what behavior worked to his advantage while facing different cultures.
Meanwhile, he had family. With them he was himself. They saw the man most others didn’t.
I was a fan of his from the late seventies.

Anyway, when you take down a massive evil power, it is best if you have help with inside contact.
Haters, bear with me for just a bit.
Look at politics as not individual people, but a beast, which enraptures people, and influences those people. Politics is Voldemort, and there are politicians who are his death beaters. Professor Snape was involved for a while, but he changed his alliance. Nobody knew him. He loved Lilly, but from afar. He came to care about Harry. He was fiercely devoted to Dumbledore.
Trump is Snape. He is devoted to his family, his country, and the people. Because he keeps himself internal, people aren’t completely convinced of where his loyalties are rooted.
What we don’t have is Harry.
Snape can expose Voldemort, but Harry has to step in. We have to trust Snape, leave him to it, but we have to find Harry.
Biden isn’t it. He is Wormtail. He is a weak, sniveling servant of Voldemort.

I know everyone will scoff at me for this, but try anyway to see it.
We have to find Harry, and he will need us all to back him. We have to crush the evil influence in our political population. It is not Trump.

Well, I gave it a shot.
Call me Longbottom.