I’m Tired of Political Culture Wars
Both sides are guilty of fearmongering and clickbait
I’m getting so very very tired of politics. I’m getting so very tired of the mudslinging and the fearmongering that goes on on both sides of the aisle. I am an avid conservative, just getting that out of the way first. I am tired of living in fear of those who will hate me for my views. I am tired of being afraid of being cancelled. I am tired of clickbait and ragebait. I am tired of being outraged. I am tired of being addicted to outrage. I am tired of being afraid of haters in the comments section. And I am tired of hearing that if the Democrats take the Senate all remnants of freedom will be gone. Even if everything the right is afraid of will come to pass. Even if America is about to lose its freedoms. Even if we are about to turn into a socialist oligarchy. Even so. I am just tired of fear. It’s exhausting and soul-sucking, really, and can easily be a full-time occupation if left unchecked.
The right is afraid of the left, and the left is afraid of the right. The left is afraid of white supremacy and individuals with opinions. The right is afraid of communism and collectives with opinions. Each side attacks each other in ways designed to provoke anger; each side publishes media designed to clickbait and scare; and each side attempts to dismiss and belittle the other. We have reached a point where each side not only is afraid, but each side attempts to remain afraid. Neither side is trying to see good in the other, and neither side wants to be reassured that the other side may not be so terrible. If a right-wing commentator implies that the left isn’t actually so terrible, people in the comments feel like their identity is being threatened and immediately reject the commentator as a traitor. I realized myself today that I would rather have my fear validated, stay afraid, and feel that I’m correct, than be reassured and be wrong. Confirmation bias is a truly astounding thing. The same is true on the left, probably to a much greater extent. I believe a lot of this started with the left years ago, but within the past few months this type of tribalism and identity crises have been afflicting the right tremendously.
We live in an age where information is spread at the speed of light, and there’s just so so much of it! When there are so many people who not only disagree with you, but seem to actively hate you and are convinced that things you hold dear are not only wrong, but laughable, every time you turn on the opposing side’s news you can have an identity crisis. This is true on both sides, but especially true on the right, and is why the right is trying to provide replacements to the “legacy media.”
People are learning to fight fire with fire, and commit to mutually assured destruction. The right is slowly adopting the tactics of the left. We are facing a massive culture war. At least online and on TV it would seem that way.
People on both sides actively encourage demonizing the other, and both believe they are absolutely correct. The right believes the left are all a bunch of irresponsible illogical lazy socialists living off of welfare i.e. other taxpayer’s money. The left believes that everyone on the right are a bunch of insensitive, arrogant, oppressive and pushy racists. The left believes we need major changes in our government in order to rectify perceived systemic racism. I fundamentally disagree with that, but that’s not the point. People on the right, perhaps mostly Trump supporters, also believe we need major changes in our government in order to protect our freedoms from encroaching socialism and authoritarian, corrupted politicians. People will have you believe that politics is black-and-white, good vs evil. I myself half believe that, it’s very hard not to.
Nobody is addressing the fact that each side is becoming more and more extreme. Nobody tries to say “maybe things won’t be so terrible,” “maybe things will work out.” Nobody wants to feel hopeful. Nobody is interested in hearing hope, people are addicted to outrage and fear. Also, hope and reassurance don’t sell papers, or encourage clicks. Outrage simply sells more, and therefore, outrage is the new currency of the internet. The internet is not a place you want to spend much time on if you want to maintain your mental health and internal balance. Being moderate and boring also usually doesn’t help you win in politics, so therefore nobody is actively trying to bridge the gap, and those that call for bridging the gap are seen as insincere (which is probably true). Some people seem to think that we cannot stand as a country if we have nothing in common. Some people are edging closer and closer to some sort of revolution. Maybe we need one, and maybe we will get one.
If we don’t want to devolve into an internal cold civil war, or G-d forbid, a hot civil war, we need to do something about this. If we want to stop living in hatred and fear, we must do something. I don’t know what, though, and neither do our utterly incapable leaders. Polarization and black-and-white thinking with no nuances in between are a major problem facing society today. I tend to blame this on the media (both the right and the left, though mostly the left media), the prevalence of clickbait and outrage culture, increasing usage of social media, a destruction of boundaries between online life and offline life (especially during coronavirus), and on cancel culture. People are processing more and more information at faster and faster rates, and expected to make immediate judgement of right and wrong, fact or truth and then move on to the next bit of information. All of these are major issues that nobody is even thinking about dealing with, nor knows how to deal with.
Maybe we can start by calling that friend of ours who’s on the other side of the political aisle, and having an open conversation. People like to say diversity is a strength. Diversity is only a strength if there are some things that we hold in common. If we can’t find the things that we have in common, we may splinter as a people. I firmly believe that if we all get outside, get off the internet, get out of our respective echo chambers, and honestly try to talk to the other side, we may find out that we really don’t have as much reason to hate them. We are all Earthlings after all, and we do indeed have a lot in common, if we can only learn how to respect each other. Maybe we all just need to calm down and listen. Despite it all.
The information overload, and the constant attacks on each other’s very identities are the biggest problems in my opinion. We need to end cancel culture, on both sides of the aisle. And we need to end censorship on both sides. We need corporations to stop getting involved in political messaging. We need corporations and citizens to actively denounce cancel culture. We need less clickbait, and less attacking the other side for views. And we all need committed breaks from social media and the news. And people need to remember that what you see online does not necessarily reflect the reality of your offline life. The media is not in the business of truth, the media is in the business of clicks. This is true of everyone on both sides of the aisle. We are too connected, and its unhealthy.
Maybe we can’t avoid a culture war. But we can mitigate it, and mitigate its effects on our mental health.
