Does US politics resemble more and more a TV show?

[noname223]

I currently watch a lecture on narrative persuation in mainstream media. I might post a thread dedicated to this when I finished it.

But they talk about how deaths of characters considered immoral (in movies) can evoke a feeling of pleasure in the audience. Or the death can feel meaningful in a grand scheme of things.

I don't want to apply this solely to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Which was celebrated by some leftwingers. At the same time the almost lethal attack on the husband of Pelosi was celebrated and ridiculed by the far right inter alia from Charlie Kirk himself.

Since Trump came in office politics feels like Game of Thrones in some ways. It is entertaining because always new bad, horrible things happen all the time. And sometimes even if you binge watch it 24/7 you cannot cover all of what is happening. Flood the zone with shit.

I mean this is pretty dangerous because people don't realize what is at stake. Democracy is at stake, gets undermined and erodes more and more. If there is no consensus that killing a political opponent is not a legitimate measure we are on a brink of a civil war. Human life should be sacred. (I explicitly don't mean this in a pro-life way). I rather think we are repeating the mistakes of WW2 if this continues. You know what is even more entertaining than political assassinations and murder? Big wars against our enemies from other nations (or maybe even within the own nation). The game can escalate pretty easily if we don't set boundaries of what is acceptable.

 

[Dejected 55]

There are a lot of problems. One of the problems I see is blame. Like the threads we have where there are people trying to blame AI chatbots for the deaths of their loved ones via suicide. Most of us in this forum can come together and see that is not a valid thing. We understand people wanting to find blame, but we understand ChatGPT and the like aren't the problem. Society itself is the problem, and lack of care for human beings and not paying attention to those we love in our lives and being there for them, and so forth.

But all the same people who can come to those conclusions rationally... still want to blame others for other things. Like Charlie Kirk or Trump. Visible people that are out there saying and doing horrible things, and it's easy to blame them. But here's the dirty secret most of us really know deep down but almost nobody wants to admit.

Trump isn't the problem. Trump is merely exploiting the existing problem for his own gain. Trump didn't make people hateful or distrusting or xenophobic or transphobic or uncaring, etc. etc. Trump recognized a lot of people out there being ignored who felt all those things and he waved at them, talked to them, promised them things, pretended to care about them and espouse their ideals. Maybe he even does agree with them on some of the horrible points... but the real power is in the masses of people who think with hate and cruelty and segregation and hurt and harm and in Trump they have a focal point that they voted in to do their bidding... and he does it because of what he gets out of it.

Trump isn't the problem. When Trump is gone, all that hate will still be here. All the horrible. Maybe it goes back in the bottle and hides for a bit... maybe someone else comes right along after him to continue stoking the fire. Trump got a lot of votes the last three elections. Even the election he lost, in most years would have been a huge victory based on the support he had.

Don't forget that!

Trump, Charlie Kirk, whomever you want to point at and hate that one person specifically... Pelosi, Clinton, whomever you want to hate on the left... it's the same thing. Those people are there to exploit people for their own gain. If the world was mostly kind, leaders like that wouldn't have a place in the world because they wouldn't have anywhere near enough support.

If you just blame the person easiest to blame, the problem isn't going away.