BristolUK

A visit to the Red Hen restaurant, where death threats mix with letters of support
Similar divisions are reported in the UK, highlighted after the Brexit vote. Rainbow crosswalks are controversial FFS and have been vandalised.

Sometimes I read the news and conclude I won't miss this world when I'm gone.

chawkins99

This is the effect of the information super highway. News can travel the world in seconds and enrage all sorts of nut jobs.

50 years ago, this wouldn't have even made the news in the local rag. In fact, it wouldn't even have happened because the restaurant owner probably wouldn't have known who she was serving.

I remember watching Nelson Mandela live on TV as he was being released. I asked my Mom if she remembered him being locked up. She didn't because it just wasn't world news at the time.

Some people are just constantly surfing the web looking for something to get all high and mighty over. Some people just have too much time on their hands. Now I need to get some work done.

Shard

But this "information super highway" is the world we live in now. We won't be going back to ignorance of news, politics or the mob's views, anytime sooner than huddling around the wireless to hear what Auntie has to say.

I think Britain will remain fairly divided on Brexit, whatever happens. Nationalism and internationalism don't make good bedfellows. A soft Brexit will have the Leavers complaining that we didn't go far enough, and the remainers complaining that we shot ourselves in the foot.

Almost Canadian

I would agree with you if everyone read everything but I believe that the received wisdom is that most view material that is consistent with their outlook and share with groups with similar views. As such, they continually receive positive reinforcement of their belief that their view is correct.

The other issue is that, everyone believes they are "right" all the time, which I accept always used to happen too, but now one can reach people all over the world relatively easily and so people believe that other people actually give a crap about their views.

The lead stories on the news last night here was Trump, and Trump again. Not a whiff about the allegation of sexual assault that Trudeau committed some years ago. The BBC ran a story on it days ago.

BristolUK

True enough but the information super highway isn't that new, whereas this kind of stuff is new.

Of course, there's always been some division - the NF or BM arranging their marches in particular areas; some arse writing to me anonymously or with a fake name every time I had a letter in the newspaper

Plenty of politicians have inspired demonstrations and other protests but I don't remember things like this in response to previous presidents also in the internet age; MP being killed; Bacon sarnies thrown at the door of a mosque; faked deportation notices delivered to foreign looking people after the referendum; florists/caterers being attacked or not for catering or not to gay weddings etc...It would have been localised rather than globalised even though there was the opportunity to go worldwide.

Remember flash mob events? Good or at least benign things arranged over the internet and reported rather than bad stuff? Those were the days.

MarkG

America is in the political phase of Civil War II. It's only going to get worse as the Democrats grow more deranged.

And, yeah, 'social media' is a large part of it, as one lunatic in their parents' basement couldn't have anywhere near the power twenty years ago that they have today on Twitter.

MidAtlantic

I always remember a comment by Arthur Scargill, when someone saw him reading the Daily Telegraph and asked "why are you reading that, I thought you would be reading the Socialist Worker". His reply was along the lines "I don't need to read that, I know what it is saying, I need to understand the views of those I disagree with".

MarkG

But that's largely untrue. Yes, some on the left live in left-wing bubbles, which is why Trump was such a shock to them. But it's almost impossible for the right to avoid the deluge of left-wing views in the mass media and on the Internet. You'd pretty much have to live in a cave and only subscribe to right-wing email lists to do so.

There was a study some time back which showed that the American right understood the left much better than the left understood the right, because the left can avoid right-wing views while the right can't avoid left-wing views. It's only recently that the American right have started simply tuning out everything the left say, because they've decided there's no way to 'just get along'.

dbd33

Citation, please.

Almost Canadian

I am not going to get into a debate about whether the left, or the right, is more insular but I would certainly argue that if one simply wishes to only hear one side of a story, the internet and the plethora of news channels has made this far easier that it was in years gone by when one only had the national news to rely upon. Fully accepting that one could then read whatever one wanted to that coincided with one's own views.

BristolUK

I think I've seen it all now.

Are you that character who was on the TV stirring things up in Homeland?

bats

Danny B

I think this is very accurate. I'm not sure if having access to everything and anything 24x7 is a good thing or a bad thing. It seems as though a small group of people with nothing else to do with their lives make a mountain out of a mole hill for the pettiest of news events.

This forum is a good example, people post (me included) complaining about this that and the other only because the technology has enabled us to. I love the technological advances in health care, but I am beginning to hate the affect that social media is having on society.

Oink

The radical left is far more concerned with deconstruction rather than reconstruction.

Vulcanoid

If you think that's true, I've got a privately financed oceanfront villa in Alberta to sell you...

The right have Fox news telling them everything they want to hear on a regular basis, the far right have their twitter bots and subreddits constantly reinforcing their hatred and fear. Infowars exists for no reason other than to tell the hard right exactly what will incite the correct rage level. None of those consumers have any interest in reality, never mind their left-leaning equivalents.

"the left" have... what, the Guardian? Which regularly promotes right wing individual articles, even if there aren't many consistent regulars.