A civil war. You know things are bad when people think we’re about to start killing each other. But for as divided as we are, I have a feeling that there isn’t as much actual disagreement between us as you might think.
I think most of us these days rarely hear where the other side is coming from - and worse, our impressions of the other side are formed by listening to our own side tell us what the other side is all about. If you were to actually sit down and listen to someone from the other side’s genuine concerns, I bet you’d agree with a lot of it.
Our being divided into two camps that rarely communicate with each other is, in my opinion, largely due to the influence of both our news media and our social media. It was President Obama who got me thinking along these lines with some things he said recently:
“We are operating in completely different information universes. If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you listen to NPR.” - President Obama
“Those who watch Fox News and those who read The New York Times occupy completely different realities.” - President Obama
“One of the dangers of the Internet is that people can have entirely different realities. They can be just cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases.” - President Obama
Everyone has to get their news from somewhere, and with many available options it’s only natural that people will pick the news sources that they enjoy reading/watching the most.
As a conservative, I tend to avoid the mainstream media news sources (New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC News, ABC News) because in my experience they tend to paint conservatives/Republicans in a bad light. When I see their headlines or read their stories I get defensive - I can tell based on what I already know about the issue that they’re only covering one side of the story, leaving out what matters most to conservatives.
As an example of this, take the Republican tax bill from last year. This is a bill that cut taxes for the majority of taxpayers for the next 8 years: taxes were reduced for 75% of working Americans, and taxes were reduced on average for every income group in America.1
It meant a raise in take-home pay for millions of Americans, and for the next 8 years! But this is far from the impression you get from looking at mainstream media headlines.
I went back and googled “tax bill Washington Post” and “tax law Washington Post” to find the articles that the Washington Post published the first week after the bill had been signed into law. I then did the same thing for the New York Times and CNN.
I found 93 different WaPo/NYT/CNN articles discussing the new tax law - and only TWO of their headlines said there’d be ordinary Americans (non-wealthy people) receiving a tax cut. Just 2 headlines out of 93!2
Here are some headlines I did see though:
- “The Republican tax bill spurred more than 120 public protests in November”
- “Bernie Sanders: New tax bill a ‘disaster for the American people’”
- “Blue states may get their revenge for the GOP tax bill”
- “New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo: GOP tax law will ‘pillage’ blue states”
- “Quotation of the Day: Homeowners Hurrying to Soften Tax Law’s Bite”
- “With Cuomo Assist, Homeowners Rush to Soften Tax Bill’s Impact”
- “Will Americans punish Republicans for cutting taxes for the rich?”
- “Trickle Down? Not Now, and Not for a While at Best (Wonkish)”
- “2017 was a sensational year for the richest people in the world”
- “Trump Could Save More Than $11 Million Under the New Tax Plan”
- “2017 was a great year to be rich”
With headlines, news outlets can select one or two facts to present (from the full picture) and really sway people’s impressions of that full picture. And people don’t have time to click every headline and read the full article underneath, so the headlines themselves are often what sticks in people’s minds. Given the WaPo/NYT/CNN headlines, it’s not surprising that a poll showed that only 24% of people thought they were getting a tax cut (when in reality it was 75%!).
Your average quick consumer of news could very well think it’s only rich people who benefit from the tax bill. And if you’re somebody on their way to work, and you see that rich people are getting a nice tax break, and you don’t see anything about yourself and your family getting a break, actually you might have to pay more... that will drive you up a wall!
But that’s only getting one side of the story. I suspect many Americans never heard that taxes were being lowered on average for every income group - a help to many people & families who could really use the help. Or how cutting the corporate tax rate will lead to innovation and job growth, meaning better job opportunities for people and more needs being met overall. Or what those rich people will likely do with their tax savings - investing, spending, donating... things that spur economic activity and improve people’s job prospects and people’s lives in general. People all over the place being helped by the Republican tax bill... but rarely will you see it presented that way in the mainstream media.
And if many people think the tax bill only benefits the rich, and does nothing to help the poor and middle class - and that it hurts a lot of ordinary Americans — then what do those people think of Republicans and conservatives who support the bill? How could we support something that gives to the rich (who already have it made) but does nothing to address the needs of those in the lower and middle classes? If we support a bill that has no upsides and only downsides for ordinary Americans, then I guess we’re fine with hurting a lot of people who have real needs in this country... This sort of media distortion has to cause many people to think ill of their fellow Americans for what they think - when they don’t even know what we think & why we support the bill.
When one side of the story is left out, the part you end up hearing can seem outrageous. And every new outrage builds on the last - to the point where people are so fed up with the other side, that when the next controversy erupts there’s no need to hear the other side’s take on things - they’re just wrong, based on everything from before.
I think our news media has been having this sort of effect on us for a long time now - on both sides. And the more one-sided our major news sources become - focusing on different aspects of the story, or on different topics altogether - the less we understand about where the other side is coming from, the more we may even come to despise the other side, and the more we drift apart.
We get a lot of our political information these days from social media rather than from TV and news sites. And I think social media has played a big role in us being divided over politics.
We share our political views on social media because these are issues that affect people’s lives, and often we’re upset about what’s happening to particular people or to the country, and we want to do something about it. We think it’s important for people to know about what’s happening if they don’t already know.
But the nature of social media makes it a bad place to discuss controversial issues. For one, we tend to be a lot harsher to people online / from behind a keyboard than we would be in person. And when an argument breaks out on Facebook over an issue you really care about, and a bunch of people are watching, you feel the need to defend yourself and defend your side and make sure people understand why this issue is so important... and it becomes more about being right than about listening or being respectful or any of that good stuff.
Ugly arguments played out online make you want to avoid the other side instead of talking to them. Even just seeing political posts that anger you or offend you makes you want to steer clear of the other side online.
It’s all too easy to hit Unfollow and be done with it. It’s probably the most peaceful thing you can do for yourself and for your relationships with the people who offend you. But before long, we’re pretty much only seeing our own side’s take on things - which leaves us with a skewed representation of the other side and what they really care about.
I get a lot of my political info from Twitter, and that platform is definitely oriented toward showing you opinions mostly from people on your own side of the political spectrum. You’re inclined to follow the people who like what you say or who followed you first - and then you see the tweets that they like, which introduces you to even more people who think just like you.
And once we’ve reached the point where we’re only seeing our own side’s views on social media, there is nothing to counter the divisive voices of politicians and other groups who have a vested interest in getting you to hate the other side.
And once we’ve reached the point where we’re only seeing our own side’s views on social media, there is nothing to counter the divisive voices of politicians and other groups who have a vested interest in getting you to hate the other side.
As just one example of this, take a look at this tweet from Bernie Sanders on the passage of the tax bill:
Republicans are celebrating raising taxes on working families to give tax breaks to billionaires, corporations, private jet owners and themselves. Remember that. pic.twitter.com/gZX6Iq7C4d— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 20, 2017
That’s a very misleading statement about a bill which lowered taxes for 75% of working Americans for the next 8 years. But to say that Republicans are “celebrating raising taxes on working families” is so inflammatory and divisive - if you see enough of that stuff you’re bound to hate the other side.
I have a feeling though that there’s more agreement between the two sides than you’d think. We’re living in two separate camps - hearing about and focusing on different issues altogether a lot of the time. We’re talking past each other and about each other, but rarely to each other.
We are currently very divided over President Trump - over people’s support of him, and over the things he says and how he says them, which are often incendiary and divisive in nature. But even concerning him I bet there’s more agreement among us than you’d think, if we were to drill down to any particular aspect of it. But our news media & social media present us with such vastly different information about him and his presidency that it’s no wonder we’re miles apart.
I don’t have any grand solution to all of this, and I don’t know where we go from here - I just thought I’d share my thoughts on things as I see it and as I feel it. I’m hopeful that the pendulum will start swinging back the other way soon - away from civil war(!!!) and back towards us being able to see where the other side is coming from. I’ve been seeing signs of that here and there — hope I’m not just seeing things. :-)
1. This is based on the Tax Policy Center report which shows that in Year 1 of the new tax law, taxes are reduced for 80.4% of taxpayers, and in Year 8, taxes are reduced for 75.5% of taxpayers. And in Years 1 and 8, taxes are reduced on average for every income quintile.
2. There were 3 other headlines that hinted at there being tax cuts for ordinary Americans (non-wealthy people), but even these didn’t make it clear that there’d be everyday people who would be paying less in taxes:
2. There were 3 other headlines that hinted at there being tax cuts for ordinary Americans (non-wealthy people), but even these didn’t make it clear that there’d be everyday people who would be paying less in taxes:
- “Expecting a tax cut? Spend it on others”
- “Trump signs sweeping tax bill into law”
- “In signing sweeping tax bill, Trump questions whether he is getting enough credit”
Several other headlines mentioned “tax cuts”, but didn’t say who’d be getting them. “Tax cuts” could very well mean “tax cuts for the rich only”... “Tax cuts” by itself doesn’t tell you that taxes were reduced for a number of ordinary Americans (non-wealthy people).
Also, full disclosure: some of the 93 articles that didn’t say anything in their headline about there being tax cuts for ordinary Americans did mention it or imply it in the blurb right below the headline (the part right below the headline that you can see before deciding whether to click the article, if you’re seeing the article on social media). There were 6 such articles.
3. Some of the 93 articles that didn’t say anything in their headline about most of us getting a tax cut did mention it or imply it in the blurb right below the headline (the part right below the headline that you can see before deciding whether to click the article, if you’re seeing the article on social media). There were 5 or 6 such articles - depending on how you interpret things.
