Despite Everything You Think You Know, America Is on the Right Track

[DeluxAuto]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...optimism-productivity-innovation-rise/672714/

Negativity is by now so deeply ingrained in American media culture that it’s become the default frame imposed on reality.
In large part, this is because since the dawn of the internet age, the surest way to build an audience is to write stories that
make people terrified or furious. This is not rocket science: Evolution designed humans to pay special attention to threats.
So, unsurprisingly, the share of American headlines denoting anger increased by 104 percent from 2000 to 2019.
The share of headlines evoking fear surged by 150 percent.

If any event deserves negative coverage, the terrible coronavirus pandemic is it. And in the international media,
51 percent of stories in the first year of the pandemic were indeed negative, according to a 2020 study.
But in the United States, a stunning 87 percent of the coverage was negative. The stories were negative even when
good things were happening, such as schools reopening and vaccine trials.

The American media have a particularly strong bad-news bias.

This permanent cloud of negativity has a powerful effect on how Americans see their country.
When Gallup recently asked Americans if they were satisfied with their personal life, 85 percent said they were,
a number that has remained remarkably stable over the past 40 years. But when Gallup asked Americans in
January 2022 if they were satisfied with the direction of the country, only 17 percent said they were,
down from 69 percent in 2000. In other words, there was a 68-percentage-point gap between the reality people
directly experienced in their daily life and the reality they perceived through the media filter.

Read: The power of negative thinking

According to Ryan Streeter, the director of domestic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and an expert on poll data,
the people who are most pessimistic about the country are not the working class but highly educated and affluent people—
the people, that is, who spend more time engaging with news media. The American right, for instance, finds itself in a state of
perpetual apocalyptic alarm these days. Streeter observes that it’s not the poorer members of the conservative coalition
who are pessimistic; it’s the affluent white Republicans who watch Tucker Carlson and believe the nation is on the verge of
total destruction. Many of them believe that radical action, even violence, may be necessary to save it.

The first problem with all this pessimism is that it is ahistorical. Every era in American history has faced its own massive challenges,
and in every era, the air has been thick with gloomy jeremiads warning of catastrophe and decline.
Pick any decade in the history of this country, and you will find roiling turmoil.

 

[Fuzzy1975]

I've typed this here numerous times, America is a society of "fear".

Fear sells.

It gets politicians elected, firearms off the shelves, news media thrives on it.

The intelligent American know this, and ignore it.

The idiots show up on Lit and whine about losing their gun rights, and how the Democrats will ruin the world, or some other idiotic flavour of the day.

 

[lazy_literotic]

I've typed this here numerous times, America is a society of "fear".

Fear sells.

It gets politicians elected, firearms off the shelves, news media thrives on it.

The intelligent American know this, and ignore it.

The idiots show up on Lit and whine about losing their gun rights, and how the Democrats will ruin the world, or some other idiotic flavour of the day.

wanna know what's scary?? disappearing bees.
climate change - to the point of mass starvation/human migration.

 

[LLCox]

The future is ugly no matter what. There are no leaders only posers. Have a great day.

 

[Fuzzy1975]

wanna know what's scary?? disappearing bees.
climate change - to the point of mass starvation/human migration.

Those are facts, that many people in the US (and other places) are afraid to agree with. A fear driven by....(you seem smart enough to fill in the rest of this sentence)

 

[techiedude71]

Climate change should never have been politicized. I wonder if a die hard righty loon came out with an Inconvenient Truth instead of Al Gore.

What could have been?

 

[DeluxAuto]

Climate change should never have been politicized. I wonder if a die hard righty loon came out with an Inconvenient Truth instead of Al Gore.

What could have been?

The EPA was created by republicans but they have since lost their way in favor of political attacks.

 

[techiedude71]

Nixon had good intentions I think. Although in America, almost all regulatory agencies can be be bought since they mostly have appointments.

 

[Bray123]

The libs are after your Bibles/guns/gas stoves.
It's only Tuesday; what will the libs be after by the weekend?

In the meantime the MAGAs are trying to cancel Scooby Doo.
https://www.breitbart.com/entertain...nd-audiences-lowest-rated-hbo-series-on-imdb/

 

[Rainblow]

The EPA was created by republicans but they have since lost their way in favor of political attacks.

What EPA?
Trump completely deregulated the EPA in the US. If I'm not mistaken he replaced the head of the EPA with an oil industry leader or lobbyist.

 

[DeluxAuto]

What EPA?
Trump completely deregulated the EPA in the US. If I'm not mistaken he replaced the head of the EPA with an oil industry leader or lobbyist.

He also appointed someone who hates education as head of that department.

And I said it was created by republicans, not maintained by them

 

[lazy_literotic]

He also appointed someone who hates education as head of that department.

And I said it was created by republicans, not maintained by them

and a climate denier in some resources dpt.

all this makes sense to people that would walk away from their medicare and ss - and not take back the trump tax breaks.
1.9 trillion gift to the 1 percenters and corps - so they would start businesses and hire people at good wages. rebuild airports etc.

know what they did with the money? buy back stocks, invest in equipment to lay off workers, kept the money.

bye by medicare - for you guys, your kids, forever.

 

[jomar]

Yeah, initially it was a burn it all to the ground thing, mostly due to Bannon, I think.

Nixon had good intentions I think. Although in America, almost all regulatory agencies can be be bought since they mostly have appointments.

trump put in acting heads of departments because they are more malleable not wanting to lose their job

 

[techiedude71]

Trumps stain will eventually fade and be gone. Hope is around the corner I hope.

We need a couple more major catastrophes where millions die. That could solve some of it.

 

[YDB95]

If nothing else, Trump may well have killed off the Southern strategy. The racist right is no longer going to settle for dogwhistle now that they've had the real red-meat thing, and more moderate white voters can no longer pretend they're not being swayed by appeals to racism.

 

[TrailerHitch]

Do any of you do anything besides bitch about the problems you constantly post about?

I do. I grow some of my own food without chemicals or fertilizer. I let part of my land go back to wild flowers and grasses and I have noticed a huge increase in bees and butterflies. I don't use herbicides or bug spray. I keep my cars well tuned and the tires full to get optimum mileage. I properly dispose of used engine oil. We recycle, reuse, or repurpose as much as we can. Little goes to the garbage can. We do not excessively heat or cool our house, heat to 68 and cool to 72. We do not use air conditioning very much at all as we have great breezes and good home positioning. This may seem like small potatoes to some of you but if we all did this the planet would have a fighting chance.

 

[schism666]

Do any of you do anything besides bitch about the problems you constantly post about?

I do. I grow some of my own food without chemicals or fertilizer. I let part of my land go back to wild flowers and grasses and I have noticed a huge increase in bees and butterflies. I don't use herbicides or bug spray. I keep my cars well tuned and the tires full to get optimum mileage. I properly dispose of used engine oil. We recycle, reuse, or repurpose as much as we can. Little goes to the garbage can. We do not excessively heat or cool our house, heat to 68 and cool to 72. We do not use air conditioning very much at all as we have great breezes and good home positioning. This may seem like small potatoes to some of you but if we all did this the planet would have a fighting chance.

cool story, bro but the "i'm a rugged individualist!" thread is down the hall

 

[TrailerHitch]

cool story, bro but the "i'm a rugged individualist!" thread is down the hall

So what are you doing besides trying to appear oh so cool? I bet you expect the government to save us all.

 

[schism666]

So what are you doing besides trying to appear oh so cool? I bet you expect the government to save us all.

doing what for who? i work and pay taxes. this thread is telling histrionic morons like you to calm your tits.

 

[TrailerHitch]

doing what for who? i work and pay taxes. this thread is telling histrionic morons like you to calm your tits.

So basically you ARE a mindless drone expecting others and the government to do what you are too lazy and apathetic to do. Obviously a liberal.

 

[schism666]

So basically you ARE a mindless drone expecting others and the government to do what you are too lazy and apathetic to do. Obviously a liberal.

lol, ok boomer.

 

[TrailerHitch]

lol, ok boomer.

Oh gosh, oh golly, the douche bag thinks calling a boomer a boomer is an insult. I'd rather be a boomer than a part of any whining fucking loser generation after that.

 

[schism666]

Oh gosh, oh golly, the douche bag thinks calling a boomer a boomer is an insult. I'd rather be a boomer than a part of any whining fucking loser generation after that.

i'm probably older than you, boomer.

 

[TrailerHitch]

If you are it makes you an even bigger dumbass because you are a boomer then too.

 

[TrailerHitch]

i'm probably older than you, boomer.

LOL! Burned you right fucking down didn't I BOOMER! Fucking idiot using his own generation as an insult.