I’m in the habit of looking at Google News every morning. What I particularly like about it is that, in theory, as long as I haven’t “personalized” my news feed, it should give me a reasonable cross-section of what people are reading today in the news.
Per this description:
Source: North Carolina State University
Sometimes Google News results in some unintentionally ironic pairings of news stories.
But far more frequently, just a casual glance at the top stories highlights the difference between actual news providers, and the Republican propaganda machine. The obvious hint is that if there’s some big and tragic news event, and the headlined stories immediately jump to “It’s Biden’s Fault” and “Democrats are Evil”, you’re not looking at a news organization.
Like so, regarding the latest in Israel. Some organizations report the events. Others report the spin. You decide.
Source: Google news, AM 10/8/2023.
My only point is that half of America only consumes the propaganda. By all appearances, half of them really believe that the other half cheers murder and kidnapping. That last headline really did show up, as representative of what people are reading, about this latest outbreak of violence in Israel. Not as a joke or parody, but as something to be consumed and absorbed by a large fraction of the electorate. Who also are led to believe that the blame for the decision by Hamas, to launch rockets, rests clearly with Joe Biden, personally.
Pundits want to make out like it’s some big mystery why the country appears so divided. It’s not. We’re divided because half the country is being fed a constant stream of hate-based propaganda.
If you don’t believe me, you should take half an hour to scan what’s playing on AM radio these days. It consists of broadcasts in Spanish, Evengelical preachers, and hate radio. (Not my term, that’s what it’s called.) I’ve gotten to the point where I can tell a hate-radio talk show almost instantly, from the sound. Near as I can tell, they turn down the higher harmonics to give the speaker a deep baritone voice-of-authority sound. And they speak v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. Once you’ve heard it a few times, you get to the point where it only takes a few seconds to recognize it.
Weirdly enough, if you look at case studies of the impact of hate radio in other countries, the other shoe immediately drops. It’s the most effective on the least educated (e.g., the role of hate radio in the Rwandan genocide).
I don’t think it really goes an inch deeper than that. Democrats cheer murder and kidnapping. Says so right there, in black-and-white. Not from some bizarro one-off website. Not in The Onion. Brought to you by the dispassionate algorithms of the nation’s premier provider of a news summary service, Google News.
As if that were a perfectly normal thing to say. Today’s forecast is for showers and thunderstorms. And Democrats cheer murder and kidnapping.
Half of American has been absorbing that message for decades now. They don’t read that headline and think “that’s a bit over-the-top, even considering the source”. They read it and think “uh huh, knew it”. They’ve gotten in their daily Two Minutes Hate, and they can now get on with the rest of their day.
The logical conclusion is that there is no point in trying compromising or even acknowledging the opinions of those morally depraved Democrats. Because Biden and his ilk are personally responsible for terrorist attacks. Says so right there, in the headline. Been hearing that for years now.
There’s really no mystery to the “crumbling of the American political system”. It’s in plain sight. It has national prominence. Just compare and contrast the headlines on Google News.
