My read was that
by AquinasDomer (2024-01-16 14:07:31)

In reply to: We are in an age of hyper partisanship combined with  posted by wpkirish

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It normally takes a religious or ethnic panic and something more concrete.

We had more great replacement fears/political chaos in the late 1800s to early 1900s but never fell into a strong man. Mussolini took off on the chaos of the post ww1 era. Hitler was aided by austerity fueled unemployment/resentment over WW1. I'm just hopeful that without incumbency and a reasonable shot at economic normalcy Trump does worse in 2024 than 2020.

I think erosion of institutions has obviated the need
by ravenium  (2024-01-16 14:42:34)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

for an actual panic. The economy is ostensibly good now, but you'd never know it by the way a lot of social media personas talk.

"young people can never hope to own a home!"
"historic inequality!"
"the system is rigged for the rich and failing us! We need to blow it up"
"I paid $200 for eggs and a gallon of gas!"

Now that's not to say there aren't some problems that need addressing - we have an issue with homelessness that is fueled by drugs and a rising cost of living in some areas, for example. But if you only read social media (and ugh, a lot of people do) you'd think the sky was falling every day.

60...even 40 years ago we had a relatively stable news system that, even if you think they were "liberal media", formed a general public consensus of thought that was trusted. Now people just write whatever they want and believe whatever they want.