People act like this is the first time there has ever been vitriol in politics and that it’s all the fault of one side or the other. People you don’t even have to study history just watch the History Channel once and awhile.
As for unbiased news, you all are kidding right? Historically news papers often had direct affiliation with a political party. Often being named in accordance with their political beliefs like the “such and such Democrat” or how about the “The Arizona Republican” now “The Arizona Republic.”
From the U.S. entry into WWII into the 1960 U.S. media was decidedly right of center (Hollywood too) with the changes accelerated in U.S. culture by WWII (civil rights, exposure of many American to foreign cultures, mass higher education (GI Bill), mass migration to the suburbs, the coming of age of the baby boomers) much of the media swung decidedly to the Left. For the longest time there was really only one national conservative voice William F. Buckley.
With the success of the Republican “Southern Strategy” in the later half of the last century the Republican Party became for the first time a truly national, not just regional, party.
It was inevitable that with nationalizing of the Republican Party and large conservative and “right wing” (not the same to me) segment of the population feeling voiceless at the national level that someone like Rush Limbaugh et. al. would tap into it (markets abhor a vacuum) and bring the voice of the “Right” to the national stage. However, rather than a swing back to the “Right” being the main national political view we have moved back to what has been the norm for most of U.S. history, a news media that is divided between two major political ideologies. Though I would say that the rise of the “right wing” on the national stage has pulled the rest of the mainstream media back from the Left as they try to stave off loosing market share. MSNBC being the exception.
People this is nothing new. It’s much more like the norm but everyone is biased by the times they live in to think that’s how things just are, or should be. The post WWII world is an aberration in the history of the world especially the Western World. Things are changing and it will be interesting to see how the various players in the Western world adapt to their continuing loss of dominance. Things are going to get a lot worse if we continue with policies that stop growing the pie bigger for everyone as more and more of us turn to fighting each other for our “fair share.” Much worse, methinks.
I take solace that I no matter who’s in power I’m on the side with the biggest guns.
