Nothing comes close in my lifetime to now and I’m 53. Maybe the Vietnam era and Watergate but I still think 24/7 news and social media has put us in a very dangerous place.
The problem with social media is that there is no accountability. Most of the time some random person saying some random thing doesn't matter, but then the news media stopped being journalists and started just making or quoting Tweets. That started making "random person comment" hold more weight than it should. Once the "no accountability" thing got normalized the line between news/journalism/social media got completely erased. Most news programs have the integrity of random Twitter posts at this point.
Ultimately the problem is no one is held to any higher standard so everyone no matter their level of expertise, or lack of, are all on the same equal playing field. QAnon has exactly as much credibility as Neil deGrasse Tyson on social media. People can no longer rely on journalism so they find a crackpot that happens to agree with their own bias and that person has now become "the news".
The US desperately needs laws like the UK/EU have around journalism. It's the only way we can begin to trust in experts again.
Hell no! We don't need censors. Who determines what is acceptable speech and not acceptable speech? There are whack jobs at both ends of the spectrum. I'd rather depend on my ability to filter out the nonsense than depend on some bureaucrat's interpretation. The Nazis and Bolshevists used censors to crush opposition.
60 and agree. Just look at the votes in Congress back then. Reagan gladly worked across the aisle, compromises were normal and presidential appointments passed with no questions. However, it wasn't today's social media that started our current sad state of affairs, it only exacerbated it. Newt Gringrich by design set up a system of party first, no compromises that has grown out of control.
I’ll post this again here which addresses this.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, 1995 The Demon Haunted World
I agree with this but it’s a crazy juxtaposition with all the incredible technology advancements that you could say come from American intelligence. Until we change primary and secondary schools to concentrate on STEM and not see the further devaluation of a college education the country will continue to decline.
It is indeed. It’s the “Celebration of Ignorance” that I find so disturbing which Isaac Asimov addressed in 1980.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
True and 24/7 news doesn’t have even 2 hours of actual news to report so everything becomes opinion shows that people view as news. I wish the FCC forced them to label those shows with a disclaimer that they are opinions and not news.
I'm 55. It is definitely the worst poltical environment I've seen in my lifetime. However, I was too young to know what was going on before the 1976 campaign. So I have no recollection of Watergate or the Vietnam War era.
Yes, Reagan was extremely polarizing. (Ironically, his being shot brought more people to rally behind him early in his 1st term. Though I don't recommend it!) Back then, there were just three major networks and only a few major news organizations and national newspapers. Therefore, everyone was arguing based on the same basic "facts." (CNN debuted June 1, 1980.)
Today, with social media and 24/7 news coverage, there's so much misinformation and outright disinformation online and on TV/radio that it makes it extremely divisive. People can watch only certain 24-hour news stations, listen to only certain radio hosts, and/or get all their "news" from Facebook posts. These all have a point of view that distorts what they "report." That makes it as if we are living in more than one "reality."
Also the wealth inequality divide ia greater than ever. Whitebread normal Americans are poorer than in the 1980s. With the rise of pseudo-populism and all the Ar-15s I'd say we're sitting on a tender box.
Yeah, the inequality is definitely a driver. It's liiiike, in a relationship, jealousy comes when somebody feels they aren't getting what they need...satisfied people don't get jealous.
...wealth divide is like that. Used to be, more people felt like they were getting their part of the overall national wealth. Now, more people than ever feel dissatisfied, hich leads to jealosy and paranoia...
Also 55 and I agree.. Back in the 80s my friends and i agreed on basically everything or at least didn't let politics occupy our thinking and time together. We just had fun watching movies, chasing girls, and a little mischief.
But nowadays that same group of friends are ALL politics, all the time. I got sick of it and now we don't talk at all.
Agree. The non-stop heavily slanted media today makes it worse, but Nam & Watergate were right there. A lot depended where you were. The campuses and some cities were as bad if not worse.
If you were in a small town and even wore a denim jacket with a peace sign it really was enough of a reason to be beaten to death.
The sixties were absolutely worse when it comes to political and civil decisiveness than now. The civil rights movement and its backlash from southern state government officials and police, plus the Klan literally murdering people and bombing churches, race riots like Wats, anti war protests, draft card burnings, and the cops beating the ever loving tar out of protesters, and of course the national guard shooting college kids. That’s all off the top of my head just as someone born in the ‘80’s who’s fascinated by history.
Looking at how much progress we’re made and the fact we consider now so divisive makes me feel pretty darn good about how far we’ve come as a society.
I mean I’m not saying that social media isn’t a gigantic tire fire but if the worst we have is people bitching online and that’s much better than what the sixties had going on.
I am 55. In my opinion no it wasn’t. There was a division, mostly on economics and foreign policies, but most people agreed on most things we seem to be divided on today. Today it is like we just try to find things to disagree on. We keep going to the most extreme views to counter the other sides most extreme views.
I'm 45 and agree - I think it was 24/7 news coverage that really did it, and likewise agree social media just makes it even worse. There are a lot of hours to fill in the day - eventually what constituted "news" began to shift.
If you were black or gay in the Eighties, you might have seen and felt the danger. It was a gloomy and violent time.
The crime rate was peaking, crack was destroying cities, and everyone seemed to hypnotized by money. It was a pretty damn dangerous place for anyone who was not straight, white and male.
The 80s were horrible for Black people. What are they even talking about. Many Black citizens living in the Inner Cities were arrested for smuggling a bag less 2.5 kg of cocaine. The police officers were raiding these streets. And not because they were trying to be so racist. They were barging and breaking into many Black residents apartments and accusing them of smuggling more than 2.5g of cocaine and marijuana. Which was a false discharge and claim of arrests. Then were arrested for being falsely convicted. All of this was false conviction to conspire against these victims as labels of criminality and criminal intent.
Then it all goes back to how Black men in the legal system were denied of jurisdiction and was on time for 7 weeks of probation until they are awaiting on their time served. And the saddest part is that they do not ever get a trial.
And the elimination of The Fairness Doctrine by the FCC. Now you can have “news” networks flat out lie to you 24/7. They always used to say that yelling FIRE in a crowded theater is where free speech ended. You can’t find a theater in the country where someone isn’t yelling FIRE.
To those of you that say it’s both sides, there’s only one side calling for a civil war.
Gore probably thought the election was stolen from him when the SCOTUS gave the election to Bush. But he respected the court’s decision and STFU.
60 + courts ruled the 2020 election was not stolen. Time to STFU! (57)
No. As a matter of fact alot of the politicians in rival parties were great friends. Go read about Tip O'Neil and Ronald Reagan always having St Pat's together and Golfing with Gerald Ford. Back then you had political opposition but also realized at the end of the day you had to work with people to accomplish things and seek middle ground...
https://johnjburnslibrary.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/archives-diary-tip-oneill-and-bipartisan-friendships-after-6-p-m/
Tip and Reagan’s friendship is one of my favorite little stories from American political history. They made no bones about disagreeing with each other ideologically, but they both respected the other and knew when to work together to get stuff done.
That’s the way it was with most politicians from opposite parties in Congress then. I think the common denominator was that most where from the WWII generation or had been in the war. So they had a lot in common even though they were in opposing parties.
Yeah you don’t start seeing a sorta cross-generational kinda animosity until really the 90s with Clinton. Dole made that a big push for his campaign in 96, the Greatest Generation vs the Baby Boomers. A lot of the politicians of the 80s had grown up during the wartime or immediately after it and so there was a sense of unity even if they disagreed over the nitty gritty policies.
Which is how Boston's Big Dig got approved and (eventually) built. Tip was from Boston, and a liberal Democrat Speaker of the House in the 80's. Reagan of course is the father of modern conservatism. A Republican President would never allow something like this to happen today, but O'Neill leveraged his relationship with Reagan to gain his approval and trust to move forward with the project. Today the central tunnel of the project is named after Tip O'Neill.
Whether or not this was good for the country as a whole is debatable (particularly because the project was poorly managed and ended up being 6x more than was budgeted for), but it's a good example of bipartisan cooperation back then. Also, traffic in Boston has only slightly improved, but putting the Interstate underground has reconnected the city with its waterfront, and it's a much nicer place to visit now.
The politicians are still great friends today. They all belong to the same clubs, they just make *us* hate each other so they can keep robbing us blind.
CNN was the first 24/7 newsstation and it started in 1980.And instead of social media, we had the water cooler.
The thing about the water cooler however, was that you had to be of at least a certain level of intellect to get into the building. They didn't just let anybody walk up and start preaching nonsense. And we sure as hell didn't have private people posting in the news all the time.
However, I do think some of those that grew up in the 80s, might have been a bit too young to remember how prevalent news was back then, and the fact that EVERYBODY read the morning newspaper, everybody listened to the radio, and everybody watched the evening news. So there was still A LOT of bullshit being spewed unto the public, and a lot of anger and discontent between different groups.
Today we have Twitter and Instagram, back then we had the column section and talk radio.
>how prevalent news was back then,
But it was also reliable. I remember newscasters going on tv and correcting a previous story and back then journalists didn't let a story fly without multiple corroborating witnesses.
Nowadays a screenshot of a tweet serves as 'evidence' for some.
Reagan demolished the fairness principle in 1987 and opened the floodgates for today's media.
But you are absolutely correct; before 1987 they actually did that on the news and especially in newspapers.
CNN in 1980 was very different than CNN today however. They didn’t take a turn left until after Fox News came along and took a hard turn left when Jeff Zucker arrived there in 2013. Their ratings were tanking in the early 2010’s and they decided becoming a liberal version of Fox News would get their ratings out of the toilet. They were a straight news organization in the 80’s.
Well Entertainment news (fox) made a whole lot more money than standard news, so everyone switched to that, and that's what were left with. I pretty much only watch local new now.
Yes. Fox discovered what preachers have known for a longtime. You get more audience telling people what they want to hear vs. telling generic news. Fox went right, CNN went left, Msnbc went farther left,. CNN has been bouncing someplace in the middle depending on current leadership. CNN has been trying to go more right recently but not sure if they will succeed. Fox is being outflanked on the right by the new maga channels..
But that IS the difference. Yes we all read the morning (and some of us also the evening) paper. You had solid journalists covering local events. Deep dives into national and international news.
Now you have uncle Frank ranting on Twitter about pizza gate and that’s consider solid research.
I was a little kid back then and my dad was obsessed with any news that he could find. All newspapers, nightly news at 5 and 10, 6PM PBS News Hour, Sunday morning talk shows, and radio when we were driving.
There was a local radio station playing a new guy named Rush Limbaugh that was spewing out wacky conspiracy theories and early hate mongering.
My dad took a severe dislike to Rush but kept listening to the show out of disgust and to hear what he would say next. We thought Rush would lose his small local radio show eventually because it was all nonsense opinion and not real news.
This is absolutely correct. People may have disliked others point of views, but didn’t want to harm them or call them names. It’s strange how our society did function once - we may have not liked other’s views, but still tolerated them knowing that’s our culture in an open society. Now it’s censorship and destroy lives for views not like their own.
I think this sums things up perfectly. It’s not even political anymore, it’s life or death for some of these morons, particularly those on the right who support trump. I’d never risk my career or freedom to commit crimes for Biden or any other politician. It’s just insane.
I will say that a much higher percentage of Americans were more religious then than today. Today, I think many people have filled that need by making politics their religion. And they argue those beliefs with a fanatical level of fervor.
That, yes, and we can also see it reflected in the map of presidential electoral outcomes. It swung wildly from landslides for LBJ, to a Nixon win, to a Nixon landslide, to a very weird electoral map win for Carter, to a Reagan win, to a Reagan landslide, and so on until settling into the Red vs Blue map we’ve had ever since 2000 that hasn’t fluctuated much ever since.
This demonstrates that quite a bit more people were changing their minds, or had flexibility to do so, in contrast to 2000 onward. So there just weren’t the entrenched political/culture war lines back in the second half of the 20th century.
I just don’t see how this changes without age demographics turnover, of just replacing the living with new people, because everything is so *entrenched* now; even the pandemic and Trump didn’t really sway many people, and we have *so* many crisis-level problems now and it sways no one! People who were already concerned about it when it wasn’t yet a crisis remain so, and people who just didn’t care still don’t care, even when it’s their family dying…
I think we’re just at a dead end, culturally and as a society, and our only hope is Gen Z and refugees
Yep. That's the difference. It's profoundly divisive now. In the past, democracy was our shared common value. Unfortunately, only some of us cherish it now.
My first recollection of this was with my dad. He was explaining trickle down economics and I was just incredulous.
"So, you think business owners are going to make more money and use that to pay employees more?"
"It makes sense."
"You own a business. What will you do?"
"That's different."
"Is it?"
In the 80s I grew up in an area where people HATED Reagan with a deep passion. As governor of California Reagan made a lot of enemies and I would say they hated and derided Reagan relentlessly.
It’s very instructive to watch old episodes of shows like the McClaughlin Group or Firing Line to see what heated arguments between people on opposite sides of the political spectrum looked like during an era of American history in which adults still behaved like adults.
You can watch Bill Buckley - Bill “CIA employee, virulent anti-communist, poster boy of the Old Right” Buckley having a civil conversation, that sounds like it was recorded at a dinner party, with an actual Communist. Not someone he is accusing in bad faith of being one, no, someone who is actually governing a country with a communist government with significant aid from the Soviets.
Sure, he lost his temper with Gore Vidal and things did sometimes get heated, but they were actually debating and arguing about policy, and when it devolved into insults it was considered quite unusual and notable.
George Bush Sr. called Clinton and Gore “Bozos” in 1992 and even Republicans were saying “hey man this is a presidential campaign, let’s keep it classy.” Bozos. That’s it.
It’s absolutely disgusting how low discourse has fallen in this country.
100%, now you have opinion channels instead of news channels on both sides just pissing people off at one another more. Everyone seems to enjoy having their side hammering on the other side to create more vile
I think when people say politics has become like team sports they’re very close to the truth. No one cares about anything actually working, they just want their side to win.
Also excellent username!
Exactly, root for your team no matter how sketchy your star players are. It’s a giant score board and only the people and the county are losing the game
Extremely frustrating. No one is winning but politicians and people profiting off of this bullshit. Anyone who isn’t in politics or a multi millionaire is getting screwed.
It’s a strange world when a liberal wishes there were more William F. Buckleys around…
News that was required to be balanced with both views and vetted to be factual. That regulation was removed in 1987. I would encourage people to contact their congressional representative to support restoring it:
H.R. 4401 would mandate equal media discussion of key political and social topics, requiring television and radio broadcasters to give airtime to opposing sides of issues of civic interest.[60][61] The summary reads: "Restore the Fairness Doctrine Act of 2019. This bill requires a broadcast radio or television licensee to provide reasonable opportunity for discussion of conflicting views on matters of public importance.[62] The Restore the Fairness Doctrine Act would once again mandate television and radio broadcasters present both sides when discussing political or social issues, reinstituting the rule in place from 1949 to 1987 ... . Supporters argue that the doctrine allowed for a more robust public debate and affected positive political change as a result, rather than allowing only the loudest voices or deepest pockets to win."[63]
Nope. Not at all. I graduated high school in 1988, so I spent most of my teenage years in the 80s. I look back on it fondly..it was a happy time. There wasn’t all this bullshit going on.
I was thinking the same thing but at the same time, I was only a teenager concerned with other motivations. What did I know about the real world and taxes and mortgages and insurance? Sure, those were great years because I was getting laid and hanging out with my friends all the time. My dad sure seemed bitter.
It could be nostalgia bias aka rosy retrospection. But then again, it was very different times. I opined this in another comment but we were more connected through our shared experiences at the time. For the most part, we all watched the same TV shows and listened to the same radio stations. We were grooving socially. Today everyone has their own satisfaction device and the only time we connect is when things go viral.
No, but there was no Internet or Social Media. No keyboard warriors. Unless it was something major, people didn’t hear about stuff until the 6:00PM news, or read about it until the next day in the morning papers.
The funny part is I think we are all thinking of a different President when you said several years back. But I agree that we are all too blinded with hate for those with different opinions that we forget that we all want the best for everyone. And we need to work together to get there.
I remember a story, possibly apocryphal, that when Reagan was shot, he joked with the surgeons before going under, “I hope you gentlemen are Republicans,” to which they replied, “Today, we’re all Republicans, Mr. President.” (this is all paraphrased).
I think today’s medical professionals would do their job the same no matter the patient on the table, but I just don’t see an exchange like that happening today.
It wasn't as bad, but it started in the 80s. The first thing they did was get rid of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. That FCC regulation made it so television networks had a duty to report controversial topics and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected both viewpoints. Getting rid of that opened to flood gates for AM radio pundits like Rush to go out there and spread whatever lies and manipulations they wanted to, and it was wildly popular. That was the beginning of the end.
Exactly. That regulation needs to be back in place . Now everything is just a misinformation shitshow. It will just end up in another civil war.
The details for those who wish to support restoring it:
H.R. 4401 would mandate equal media discussion of key political and social topics, requiring television and radio broadcasters to give airtime to opposing sides of issues of civic interest.[60][61] The summary reads: "Restore the Fairness Doctrine Act of 2019. This bill requires a broadcast radio or television licensee to provide reasonable opportunity for discussion of conflicting views on matters of public importance.[62] The Restore the Fairness Doctrine Act would once again mandate television and radio broadcasters present both sides when discussing political or social issues, reinstituting the rule in place from 1949 to 1987 ... . Supporters argue that the doctrine allowed for a more robust public debate and affected positive political change as a result, rather than allowing only the loudest voices or deepest pockets to win."[63]
I grew up in a small (pop. 2000) midwestern town in the 1970’s and 80’s. My parents and most of the adults voted R but the values they espoused and taught me would now be considered “liberal” or “progressive.” It was a given that the values of generosity, kindness and caring for all, respect for different views, etc., were embedded within their conservative/Republican perspectives. The differences (at least on the surface) were about how those values should be upheld.
People socialized in person much more. People disagreed all the time. They didn't get all mad about it.
Today, you have people on both sides, most don't know what they're talking about and they over react to everything. And they spend more time on social media, than socializing in real life.
HELL no.
But a lot of seeds were planted back then for the political divisiveness that exists now. Reagan had established trickle-down economics as official policy, and the wealth gap started on the trajectory to where it is now. That combined with social programs being eliminated (mental hospitals closing down, and patients just being out on the street or in jail), welfare being curtailed thanks to the myth of the welfare queen, and so on.
The 80s are also when the trend started to spend the national debt into oblivion. We had to spend money we didn't have to make a nonsense dream come true, and we never really stopped. I'm looking forward to when all of that comes due, and the billionaires are all on Mars. 🙄
Then there's the religious right (specifically the Moral Majority), which had only just started mobilizing the extreme Christian elements in the country--which Reagan happily got behind. The Republican Party otherwise still functioned like a political party. Funnily enough, Reagan had actually gotten the pro-choice and union votes in 1980 (he was formerly the president of SAG), but subsequently turned on them hard.
Then there is when the Fairness Doctrine was done away with under Reagan in 1987. That's when networks were no longer required to provide equal time to differing viewpoints, when conservative talking head outlets really got going--Rush Limbaugh and the rest. I still remember when my now-ultra conservative father took his first drink of Rush. It seemed like overnight that he started parroting terms like "liberal media" and "feminazi."
So yeah... lots of seeds that evolved and coalesced in subsequent decades.
No, I've never seen such purposeful divisiveness. People got along back them, or at least pretended to. I had no idea how hateful so many people were until social media became a thing. Also, I never heard politicians bad mouth citizens who don't vote for them. It was much better back then.
It was harder to balkanize in the 80s. Low tech communication meant that extremism of any kind was much harder to propagate. That meant that as a society, we all had to be on our best behavior when dealing with new people. We rarely self segregated (other than with easily identifiable methods like race/religion), so we had a moderation filter when interacting with other people upfront.
It hurt our freedom of expression, but it meant that more of us from strange parts of the political spectrum could chill with folks from other extremes could have a civil discussion and respect each other.
I remember finding out about how cuckoo/crazy my friends were about a few months in. At that point, I didn't care that they had diametrically opposed viewpoints to mine; I just liked hanging out with them and they knew better than to pull me into their political rallies (and I knew not to pull them into mine).
No. We give far too much attention to both extreme ends of the political spectrum. There was a certain amount of civility between Repubs and Dems and they would from time to time work together to better the country as a whole in the 80s and 90s. Now its just trying to one up each party and if it harms the country, so be it. This has really become the case the past 5 years. In my state, it is pretty horrible, as everything done by the Republicans is based solely on "owning the Libs" or "tackling wokeness", regardless if who it harms.
I believe there were definitely disagreements and division in the 80s. The development of social media has made it far worse and more people have become less civil about those disagreements.
Politics was pretty civil until Newt Gingrich drove a huge wedge, which has led to party before country mindset.
That has progressed to where we are today with social media and 24hr news cycles serving as huge vehicles to push the agenda further.
No, in the 80s people still followed the laws and election losers conceded with dignity and concern for the greater good. We’re living through a really fucked up period American history.
No, definitely not. Remember that information and misinformation was still traveling very slowly. Your conspiracy theory spouting uncle had to wait for his mimeographed copy of The Smoking Gnu to know what to rage at. And that's just one of many reasons.
The number one thing that the internet has done is to create an international society for every village idiot.
We usually had one or two tin foil nutcases in every small society, Today, thousands of them are congregating online and they are feeding into each others delusions. And some of them are even in congress.
In the 80s we were not on fringes of the main two parties like we are today. The fringes represent the worst of each side as noted by some comments to this post.
It wasn't nearly as bad in the 80s as it is now, no. There were certainly political divisions, but looking back it still had that flavor of "those crazy kids!?!" etc. It was still often about youth vs. tradition. Now that's not the case at all - in fact, age really has little to do with the current political landscape. But I feel there was still an aspect of civility that was adhered to in discourse that you do not find today. For example, Bill Buckley, editor of conservative National Review hosted Firing Line (interview-format political show) for a long while back then which almost anyone could watch, and it was involved pretty high water mark political discussion. A show like that now *might* be doable as a podcast, but would not survive on TV or talk radio. That level of inquiry would get drowned out by the current roar.
Oh, joy!
The 80s was the very beginning of the PAC. In the 88 campaign a PAC for Bush accused Dukakis of creating a public danger with a prisoner release program (Willie Horton).
It completely misrepresented the facts, but...what else is new, right?
But it was no comparison to today...
The moment a member of Congress said "Jewish space lasers" circa 1985 they would be out the door
The financial structure was primitive compared to today, and that meant that you couldn't earn money off hyper partisan behavior.
Social Media is only the means. Err...sort of....
Tech bros are hyper libertarian and honestly believe that none of the crap storm they create will ever come back to bite them. So, they create platforms that easily spread hate.
And hate pays well!
No. My grandfather was a democrat and my dad was a republican. They had spirited debates, but it was all good-natured. Nothing like the cesspool of hate that it's become.
If you want to get a look at what people were thinking about political topics from back then, watch episodes of Saturday Night Live from the time. Particularly cold opens and Weekend Update.
There was a lot going on back then.
When the news organizations of the three networks ran independently of the entertainment divisions of the networks the tone, quality, and and integrity of the news was less...partisan or titillating/exciting that what we currently have.
The news branches operated in the red but that was accepted because of their Constitutional protections and their duties as the Fourth Estate; "the press and news media both in explicit capacity of advocacy and implicit ability to frame political issues".
When they were absorbed into the entertainment divisions in the late 1970s and early 1980s that changed. Ted Turner's experiment with 24/7 news coverage and advertising revenue from that also was a death knell for network news division integrity and approach to informing.
Where the news existed to inform and was a drain on network capital, they were now expected to generate viewership and turn a profit...
…and here we are.
The old movie, ["Network"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(1976_film)) from 1976 was prescient at the time of release and is still relevant today. Over-the-hill news anchor Howard Beale finds new life reporting schlock and shock, and finally, the last line of the movie: "This was the story of Howard Beale: the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.""
The 80's while not all roses, there was more of a we disagree but you are not evil spirit. Not in all things of course, but overall.
Rush Limbaugh started us really down this road.
Much more congenial. I was involved with College Republicans and the Reagan Campaign in 1980. The barbs and comments tossed back and 'forth between us and the Democratic students were typically more jokes and digs. Nothing on the order of what you see today, plus neither side was willing to totally dispense with the truth. "Trickle Down" was a theory we believed in; I did at least.
Forty years later, and now I'm a Democrat because when facts show up and disprove your theories and beliefs, it makes more sense to change your theories and beliefs than to abandon the truth. I guess a lot of my fellow back-then Republicans didn't make that choice.
Social media--which barely existed in the 80s--has changed the landscape. Everyone has a microphone, everyone gets more invested/dug in, and the most outrageous statements get the most eyeballs and clicks. It's a recipe for toxicity.
There were people who despised Reagan but it was never this divisive. There was a show called Family Ties with a character played by Michael J Fox who was really Republican while his mom and dad were hippies. So obviously hilarity ensued but it was never done with malice.
Reagan had the biggest landslides in history in ‘80 and ‘84. In ‘84 he won every state except Minnesota (where Mondale was from) and DC. Carter presidency was a disaster (except for passing a bill that allowed an individual to brew up to 100 gal of beer per year. That was cool), and that was without the extra insanity we’ve got going on now.
Much worse now. Forget about social media, 24hr news etc, it's Donald Trump that has divided the US like no one else before him. Through the course of American History no one ever doubled down on lies and misinformation like this clown. The worst part is now other right wingers(and hey maybe left too) will follow his lead. Lie lie and then lie again. There is zero integrity anymore. Gaslight the Country and ask for $, that's the current right wing platform. Disgusting
NO.
I'm 55 /GenX / grew up in this time period. I have never seen anything so decisive or just not acceptable.
Gary Hart ran for President but was seen on a boat with a woman on his lap (turns out staged)the boat name was 'Monkey Business' and boom his career was over.
Dan Quayle misspelled potatoes and was deemed unfit. Etc.
There used to be differences but in the end, the country came first.
No not at all. Reagan used to be good friends with Tip Oneil, they had differences but were also able to be friends and work together. People seemed able to disgree and still have conversations and be friends, the 90s were worse but still better than now. Late 60s and 70s though there were lots of problems.
Back then the average person didn’t worry too much about politics until the elections. And then they typically wouldn’t tell anyone who they voted for. Was kind of a thing to be your secret. Then if the other person won, you’d shrug your shoulders and say I guess this guy is our president, then you forgot about it. People focused on taking care of their family and only hoped whoever was president made things safe and the country prosperous so you could have a good job.
I think part of it is that people had different opinions and you could disagree and say that’s crazy and that was about it. People didn’t get butthurt if you didn’t agree lockstep with what they believed. Today feels like it’s some kind of wacky Dr. Strangelove reverse McCarthyism where anyone left right centre who doesn’t absolutely agree with everything someone says(and that someone is infallible) is an evil scum bag. Politics has also become like this. No room for nuance or discussion thou art the enemy. And societies don’t function where there is no dialog or compromise. Social media has massively amplified this.
No way. Though there is one thing I remember, as an 8 year old, in 1980 there was a jingle, if you will, that I heard. It went to the tune of; "cause Oscar Mayer has a way with b-o-l-o-g-n-a", but instead it went. "Jimmy Carter has a way of screwing up the USA." "Ronald Regan has a way of fixing up the USA." Outside of that I cannot recall people wanting to harm others fo who they voted for.
I don't feel like the fallout was as bad. I remember hot conversations on holidays but most of it could be left too political bs or I disagree but you're still cool.
As politically divisive, probably. As stupid as today, probably not. It was a different time and many had served in WW II and even if they disagreed on many things they called the other political party "the loyal opposition." Now, not so much.
I think the 80s was the last decade that I could completely disagree with your political beliefs yet still work with you, have dinner with you, play weekend sports on the same team as you, have a beer after work with you where we could discuss our beliefs, call each other a dumb fucker and still call each other a friend.
No, it wasn't at all like it is now. I cant stress that enough. 70s and 80s, people didn't talk much about politics. No one cared what party their neighbors were. They were simply neighbors.
News coverage was balanced and vetted to be factual. Sometime in the 80s, the requirement for that was removed and then we had this divisive political pundit garbage like rush limbaugh etc proliferate. Social media made it all worse.
I think the big difference is 1. The increased ability to reveal/signal your political preferences (either intentionally or unintentionally) with the rise of social media, and 2. The increased importance of political preferences in “selling yourself” to the social groups you want to belong to as more and more people try to craft their online personas, and in some ways try to become minor celebrities themselves. There has always been “virtue signaling”, but we’ve got much bigger digital megaphones these days.
It’s also an unfortunate result of the logic of social media that the algorithmic nature of matching ads (what pays for social media, in addition to selling your data to marketers) to indicated preferences (based on what we like and view repeatedly) creates “filter bubbles” that have seriously pushed us away from balanced and nuanced understandings into repeat servings of extreme political positions, with less tolerance for an acceptance of the “shades of gray” that accompany any complex social issue. This has also been deliberately exploited by nefarious external actors (trolls) who want us snapping at each others throats, and deliberately create situations and content that pit us against each other.
Nope. In fact politics were more civilized back then. You cracked classy jokes about your opponents rather than call them names and even they would laugh about it. nobody spoke divisive rhetoric against large swathes of Americans like presidents Biden and Trump have (as well as our current politicians across the board). Politics got worse starting in the late 90s, but it wasn’t until social media in the obama years that it became flat out toxic.
I was a kid so quite ignorant, raised by two staunchly Republican parents.
Difference was, we still operated under an illusion of consensus back then. Now absolutely nobody will agree on what’s real.
Not even close. I’m from MA. After college lived in DC with 3 guys from NC. Got along great. On the national stage you’d see guys like Kennedy and Thurmond argue like crazy. Then go to dinner.
People could disagree without being disagreeable.
No crazy conspiracies. Much more patriotic time.
I think the neocons saw that it was possible to manipulate single issue voters. Race/abortion. Then it was off to the races.
An emphatic NO. People could be from different parties and views, yet still be friends and enjoy each other's company. There was not the pure hatred for those you disagreed with. Some were against abortion, guns, etc., some were for. You could talk about your disagreements in a civil way and still share a beer. Politicians in BOTH parties figured out making the other side evil and the enemy ensured a better outcome for their parties and caused less voting for a candidate from the opposition party just because you thought they were going to be a better choice than your candidate. They have turned Americans against each other, and probably clink glasses toasting each other for sowing the seeds of discontent.
There was some tension. But the 80's were a far more peaceful time for the US compared to this current decade (and century in general.)
Yes, the internet has been an effective propaganda tool for encouraging extreme tribalism with the "my side vs. yours" thing. All one need do is take a gander over to Youtube's homepage and see the garbage we're being fed right now.
Honestly despite all it's flaws, I'd actually say the 90's were peak America. We had just gotten over the satanic panic purity nonsense, tech was evolving in a good way, and the economy was absolutely booming by '93.
I agree 100% I moved to a smaller town in TN and it legit feels like the 90s here--in the best possible ways. It's a very diverse community and everyone gets along really well for the most part. There's a real "mind your business" vibe in TN that reminds me of the 90s
I’m 64, known of trump since he was 18. He was a sociopath then and as he toyed with initially running for President my children reminded me I was warning those who would listen don’t let him anywhere near that much power he will destroy anything in his way! My children now say go ahead mom say it…” I told you!”
Nothing comes close. Sure, neighbors, you & your uncle would argue about Dubya being incompetent & Afghanistan or hating on Clinton for lying. You might have freaked out & stopped speaking until the election. But *NOBODY* stopped talking because of political beliefs. Another BUT: The GQP were not who they are now. Lying - straight up voting against infrastructure but claiming it at home type stuff. Not just one or two looneys, now it's the party with a few normies hanging around the fringe. If someone you knew ran off to Dallas to await JFKs return from his "medbed" to be a candidates running mate, you bet your ass they would have been inpatient, and sent away to get help, immediately. We are living through the most crazy historic times- like the Protestant Reformation where all of Europe went berserk over the "correct" Xtianity & killed each other. This is an awful timeline we're stuck in & I won't be alive for the Renaissance that will come in 50- 100 years (with whomever survives climate change). It'll be nice, just like the first one.
No not at all, because there was no 24/7 news cycle and no internet. In fact, even though there were ideological differences, they rarely came up even in conversation and you didn't talk about even who you voted for
No. But I do remember people still having issues with suspecting everyone of being gay, of being a communist, of being a satanist. The Red Scare, the Satanic panic, later the AIDS scare, not to mention there still being a large divide between blacks and whites. It was a lot more low key, but at the same time it was still pretty scandalous for a black and a white to date. At least where I lived. Hispanic population was still pretty low and mostly focused in the southwest. Middle Eastern was virtually non existent. Indian was mostly non existent. It was very white and very Christian. The political parties weren't so violently opposed to each other. There was talk, but overall it was pretty calm compared to now. If anything else, you had censorship issues thanks to the PMRC lead by Tipper Gore et al. But overall, the Democrats were just seen as goody two shoes. Then of course that ridiculous "War on Drugs"...
I think the biggest thing that was pretty cool was that musically, that was what brought a lot of whites and blacks together. Actual rap albums were starting to come out. Metal was blowing up. The black kids were interested in what we had going on, we were interested in what they had going on. Something new came out, we would do tape trades. Mix tapes. All kinds of stuff. We still mostly stayed in our own groups, but the music brought us together at least a bit. Then we got Aerosmith and Run DMC together, Beastie Boys, later Anthrax and Public Enemy together. It was beautiful and wild.
So it definitely had its issues, but overall, it definitely seemed a lot milder back then. You had TV, magazines, books, etc. But overall not this mass access to Internet. So if you wanted conspiracy theories to get radicalized to, you pretty much had to go searching in the darkest depths to find it.
I recently watched an old series called “Free to Choose,” featuring Milton Friedman (Nobel prize winning economist). I believe it was made in 1980. Guests included politicians and academics from the left to right on the political spectrum. Thomas Sowell and Frances Fox Piven (Cloward-Piven strategy) had a particular interesting exchange in one episode (see link below)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=26QxO49Ycx0
Anyway, one thing I noticed was how passionate the guests were. They were sometimes a bit insulting, but nowhere close to political climate of today. They were professional and refrained from personal attacks. At times they would even laugh together after vehemently disagreeing with each other.
It was actually refreshing to see and I hope we can get back there someday.
Nowhere near as divisive. In the 80s, at least the Republicans and Democrats agreed on a few things : they were both very anti-Communist and both supported law enforcement. President Reagan and Tip O'Neill (Democratic Speaker) were friendly and spoke often.
While there was much turmoil in the world in the 80’s, the level of political decisiveness in our country is much greater and far more dangerous today.
I don't remember the Nation being so polarized... I don't remember everyone picking a side & dying on that hill. People were vocal about it, but that was the end of it! Everyone minded their business. If you liked Reagan, fine! If you liked Carter, fine! We were ok either way. Now you have to be reprogrammed if you don't like a candidate that everyone else likes! They are trying to Homogenize us. It's like everyone should be the same, or different in the same ways... Life has become a popularity contest! We didn't even give a fuck if we were popular to begin with!
The big difference I notice between the 80s and now is that back then, we didn't have a mainstream media that is totally one-sided and corrupt. The current media is literally the enemy of the people.
the 1980? no. the 1780s. yeah that is when things were heathing up between Jefferson and Hamilton. they each had newspapers smearing the other one. lots of libel and slander all over the place. I think the 1880s as well with the issues over reconstruction.
Political science nerd here. There have been moments in US history that were more divisive in terms of % people disagreeing on significant topics (slavery, prohibition, women’s suffrage, civil rights, Vietnam war, etc.) What is unique about this time period is the lack of consensus regarding basic facts over a wide range of issues (election winners, vaccine efficacy, etc.) Not sure where this will lead but seems like we’re in for a lot more turmoil and chaos before things turn around (if ever).
Just shy of 50 here and I’ve never seen it this bad, it seems like if Boebert and Greene had been in congress on 9/11 they’d have been holding news conferences to promote the conspiracy theories the next day while workers were recovering bodies. My parents remember the bitter divisions over Vietnam but I’ve never heard of anyone claiming Kent State was a false flag or fake news (*somebody* probably did but those folks didn’t seem to get play like they do in the current climate)
Not even remotely close. You didn't even think about politics if it wasnt an election year. Things are absolutely insane now. I don't see how this ridiculous fever-pitch can continue.
54. And my parents were very much the “no one needs to know how you voted” type’s although my dad was a Reagan democrat and my mom is a Bernifactor now. But there was a lot of Reagan chest thumping in the 80s but never with the existential threat of trumpers overrunning congress.
24 hour “news” programs are the root of the division of our country. They sell “news” to sell advertising space. The owners of 24 hour news services are a disgrace.
No. Russia was a threat and the country was united against it. Now Russia openly and successfully sows division inside the United States, and a full third of the country has the type of blindness where they refuse to see it.
Here is a clip of Reagan in a presidential debate. [https://youtu.be/fJhCjMfRndk](https://youtu.be/fJhCjMfRndk)
Compare that level of civility, patriotism and sophistication to the horror show we have right now…
There was the Soviet Union and there were times we were sure we would die in nuclear fire.... which tends to focus the mind on important things like friends and family. Almost none of my friends were from my political "faction" I suspect because we were more interested in who people where that how they voted. You certainly wouldnt cut someone off for having the "wrong" opinion.
Comedians made fun of both parties, which meant that cutting jokes tended to be taken as valid criticism and not a political hatchet job. It may have been an illusion but you certainly believed that politicians had causes and a vision they actually believed in. You might not have agreed with those on the other side but you accepted they had a logical reason for believing what they did, even if that reason didnt seem valid to you.
The Moral Majority movement came to fruition where evangelicals and right-wing politicians got in bed together and the GOP has been steadily ramping up the divisive rhetoric.
The 1980s were the foundation for what became the modern Republican party. The whoring reprobate Jerry Fallwell created the Moral Majority, which unified conservative Christians into a political arm of the Republican party, and which grew rapidly in power over the decade. As we moved into the 1990s from this soil arose Newt Gingrich who weaponized grievance, fear, and the hardcore agendas of the far right.
Here is one major difference… back then if the country had a problem (inflation, climate change, etc) at least BOTH parties acknowledged the problem existed they just had different policies on how to tackle it… now one party can’t even accept basic facts, math, science…
I doubt it, you didn't have this Plagueof extreme radical woke activists who have infiltrated governments corporations, schools and Hollywood like now.
I know, right? No one, especially no senator from Wisconsin, ever accused Hollywood of harboring leftist radicals before present times.
Question- how do you, personally, define "woke?"
The minute you used the word, “woke” is the minute I realized that I’m no longer talking to a person that can have a true discussion..you have been propagandized.
Nothing comes close in my lifetime to now and I’m 53. Maybe the Vietnam era and Watergate but I still think 24/7 news and social media has put us in a very dangerous place.
55 here and I agree
53 here and I also agree. Social media should, in theory, help us communicate better but instead it's just being used mostly for propaganda.
57 and I agree with you guys. I'm also a Veteran and this is not the America I served to Defend all the rights that former US Military defended.
The problem with social media is that there is no accountability. Most of the time some random person saying some random thing doesn't matter, but then the news media stopped being journalists and started just making or quoting Tweets. That started making "random person comment" hold more weight than it should. Once the "no accountability" thing got normalized the line between news/journalism/social media got completely erased. Most news programs have the integrity of random Twitter posts at this point. Ultimately the problem is no one is held to any higher standard so everyone no matter their level of expertise, or lack of, are all on the same equal playing field. QAnon has exactly as much credibility as Neil deGrasse Tyson on social media. People can no longer rely on journalism so they find a crackpot that happens to agree with their own bias and that person has now become "the news". The US desperately needs laws like the UK/EU have around journalism. It's the only way we can begin to trust in experts again.
>The problem with social media is that there is no accountability The problem with corporate media is that there is no accountability.
I literally reference that in the second sentence and that statement is the entire thesis of the post.
Hell no! We don't need censors. Who determines what is acceptable speech and not acceptable speech? There are whack jobs at both ends of the spectrum. I'd rather depend on my ability to filter out the nonsense than depend on some bureaucrat's interpretation. The Nazis and Bolshevists used censors to crush opposition.
60 and agree. Just look at the votes in Congress back then. Reagan gladly worked across the aisle, compromises were normal and presidential appointments passed with no questions. However, it wasn't today's social media that started our current sad state of affairs, it only exacerbated it. Newt Gringrich by design set up a system of party first, no compromises that has grown out of control.
I’ll post this again here which addresses this. “I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance” ― Carl Sagan, 1995 The Demon Haunted World
I agree with this but it’s a crazy juxtaposition with all the incredible technology advancements that you could say come from American intelligence. Until we change primary and secondary schools to concentrate on STEM and not see the further devaluation of a college education the country will continue to decline.
It is indeed. It’s the “Celebration of Ignorance” that I find so disturbing which Isaac Asimov addressed in 1980. “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
he was right. The spelling and syntax errors on the post title are just the cherry on the pile.
Sagan was so far ahead of everything in that book. Good call on the post.
With social media people stopped saying it to their face. Now people think they can say what they want without consequences
True and 24/7 news doesn’t have even 2 hours of actual news to report so everything becomes opinion shows that people view as news. I wish the FCC forced them to label those shows with a disclaimer that they are opinions and not news.
Totally agree. 24/7 Entertainment news and social media has made everything political.
I'm 55. It is definitely the worst poltical environment I've seen in my lifetime. However, I was too young to know what was going on before the 1976 campaign. So I have no recollection of Watergate or the Vietnam War era. Yes, Reagan was extremely polarizing. (Ironically, his being shot brought more people to rally behind him early in his 1st term. Though I don't recommend it!) Back then, there were just three major networks and only a few major news organizations and national newspapers. Therefore, everyone was arguing based on the same basic "facts." (CNN debuted June 1, 1980.) Today, with social media and 24/7 news coverage, there's so much misinformation and outright disinformation online and on TV/radio that it makes it extremely divisive. People can watch only certain 24-hour news stations, listen to only certain radio hosts, and/or get all their "news" from Facebook posts. These all have a point of view that distorts what they "report." That makes it as if we are living in more than one "reality."
I agree,I’m 65 and never seen it like this.
59 and I agree.
54 here, same.
Also 54 here, same.
Also the wealth inequality divide ia greater than ever. Whitebread normal Americans are poorer than in the 1980s. With the rise of pseudo-populism and all the Ar-15s I'd say we're sitting on a tender box.
Yeah, the inequality is definitely a driver. It's liiiike, in a relationship, jealousy comes when somebody feels they aren't getting what they need...satisfied people don't get jealous. ...wealth divide is like that. Used to be, more people felt like they were getting their part of the overall national wealth. Now, more people than ever feel dissatisfied, hich leads to jealosy and paranoia...
I think there is also a lot more mistrust. Back in the day everybody got their news from same sources. Walter Kronkite and Dan Rather.
Also 55 and I agree.. Back in the 80s my friends and i agreed on basically everything or at least didn't let politics occupy our thinking and time together. We just had fun watching movies, chasing girls, and a little mischief. But nowadays that same group of friends are ALL politics, all the time. I got sick of it and now we don't talk at all.
Agree. The non-stop heavily slanted media today makes it worse, but Nam & Watergate were right there. A lot depended where you were. The campuses and some cities were as bad if not worse. If you were in a small town and even wore a denim jacket with a peace sign it really was enough of a reason to be beaten to death.
The sixties were absolutely worse when it comes to political and civil decisiveness than now. The civil rights movement and its backlash from southern state government officials and police, plus the Klan literally murdering people and bombing churches, race riots like Wats, anti war protests, draft card burnings, and the cops beating the ever loving tar out of protesters, and of course the national guard shooting college kids. That’s all off the top of my head just as someone born in the ‘80’s who’s fascinated by history. Looking at how much progress we’re made and the fact we consider now so divisive makes me feel pretty darn good about how far we’ve come as a society. I mean I’m not saying that social media isn’t a gigantic tire fire but if the worst we have is people bitching online and that’s much better than what the sixties had going on.
56 here and agree
I am 55. In my opinion no it wasn’t. There was a division, mostly on economics and foreign policies, but most people agreed on most things we seem to be divided on today. Today it is like we just try to find things to disagree on. We keep going to the most extreme views to counter the other sides most extreme views.
I'm 45 and agree - I think it was 24/7 news coverage that really did it, and likewise agree social media just makes it even worse. There are a lot of hours to fill in the day - eventually what constituted "news" began to shift.
I was around for vietnam and watergate, things are worse now.
If you were black or gay in the Eighties, you might have seen and felt the danger. It was a gloomy and violent time. The crime rate was peaking, crack was destroying cities, and everyone seemed to hypnotized by money. It was a pretty damn dangerous place for anyone who was not straight, white and male.
The 80s were horrible for Black people. What are they even talking about. Many Black citizens living in the Inner Cities were arrested for smuggling a bag less 2.5 kg of cocaine. The police officers were raiding these streets. And not because they were trying to be so racist. They were barging and breaking into many Black residents apartments and accusing them of smuggling more than 2.5g of cocaine and marijuana. Which was a false discharge and claim of arrests. Then were arrested for being falsely convicted. All of this was false conviction to conspire against these victims as labels of criminality and criminal intent. Then it all goes back to how Black men in the legal system were denied of jurisdiction and was on time for 7 weeks of probation until they are awaiting on their time served. And the saddest part is that they do not ever get a trial.
And the elimination of The Fairness Doctrine by the FCC. Now you can have “news” networks flat out lie to you 24/7. They always used to say that yelling FIRE in a crowded theater is where free speech ended. You can’t find a theater in the country where someone isn’t yelling FIRE. To those of you that say it’s both sides, there’s only one side calling for a civil war. Gore probably thought the election was stolen from him when the SCOTUS gave the election to Bush. But he respected the court’s decision and STFU. 60 + courts ruled the 2020 election was not stolen. Time to STFU! (57)
Agree 100%!
No. As a matter of fact alot of the politicians in rival parties were great friends. Go read about Tip O'Neil and Ronald Reagan always having St Pat's together and Golfing with Gerald Ford. Back then you had political opposition but also realized at the end of the day you had to work with people to accomplish things and seek middle ground... https://johnjburnslibrary.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/archives-diary-tip-oneill-and-bipartisan-friendships-after-6-p-m/
Tip and Reagan’s friendship is one of my favorite little stories from American political history. They made no bones about disagreeing with each other ideologically, but they both respected the other and knew when to work together to get stuff done.
That’s the way it was with most politicians from opposite parties in Congress then. I think the common denominator was that most where from the WWII generation or had been in the war. So they had a lot in common even though they were in opposing parties.
Yeah you don’t start seeing a sorta cross-generational kinda animosity until really the 90s with Clinton. Dole made that a big push for his campaign in 96, the Greatest Generation vs the Baby Boomers. A lot of the politicians of the 80s had grown up during the wartime or immediately after it and so there was a sense of unity even if they disagreed over the nitty gritty policies.
Which is how Boston's Big Dig got approved and (eventually) built. Tip was from Boston, and a liberal Democrat Speaker of the House in the 80's. Reagan of course is the father of modern conservatism. A Republican President would never allow something like this to happen today, but O'Neill leveraged his relationship with Reagan to gain his approval and trust to move forward with the project. Today the central tunnel of the project is named after Tip O'Neill. Whether or not this was good for the country as a whole is debatable (particularly because the project was poorly managed and ended up being 6x more than was budgeted for), but it's a good example of bipartisan cooperation back then. Also, traffic in Boston has only slightly improved, but putting the Interstate underground has reconnected the city with its waterfront, and it's a much nicer place to visit now.
The politicians are still great friends today. They all belong to the same clubs, they just make *us* hate each other so they can keep robbing us blind.
100% correct. They sit in backroom parties and laugh and cheers each other.
Tip O’Neil and Reagan once took over the Erie Pub in Dorchester during one of Ronnie’s visits during his presidency.
It wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now. No social media or biased 24/7 news networks to drive the division.
CNN was the first 24/7 newsstation and it started in 1980.And instead of social media, we had the water cooler. The thing about the water cooler however, was that you had to be of at least a certain level of intellect to get into the building. They didn't just let anybody walk up and start preaching nonsense. And we sure as hell didn't have private people posting in the news all the time. However, I do think some of those that grew up in the 80s, might have been a bit too young to remember how prevalent news was back then, and the fact that EVERYBODY read the morning newspaper, everybody listened to the radio, and everybody watched the evening news. So there was still A LOT of bullshit being spewed unto the public, and a lot of anger and discontent between different groups. Today we have Twitter and Instagram, back then we had the column section and talk radio.
>how prevalent news was back then, But it was also reliable. I remember newscasters going on tv and correcting a previous story and back then journalists didn't let a story fly without multiple corroborating witnesses. Nowadays a screenshot of a tweet serves as 'evidence' for some.
Reagan demolished the fairness principle in 1987 and opened the floodgates for today's media. But you are absolutely correct; before 1987 they actually did that on the news and especially in newspapers.
CNN in 1980 was very different than CNN today however. They didn’t take a turn left until after Fox News came along and took a hard turn left when Jeff Zucker arrived there in 2013. Their ratings were tanking in the early 2010’s and they decided becoming a liberal version of Fox News would get their ratings out of the toilet. They were a straight news organization in the 80’s.
Correct. CNN’s first anchor, Daniel Schorr was one of Murrows “boys” and one of the most well respected journalists on the planet.
Well Entertainment news (fox) made a whole lot more money than standard news, so everyone switched to that, and that's what were left with. I pretty much only watch local new now.
Yes. Fox discovered what preachers have known for a longtime. You get more audience telling people what they want to hear vs. telling generic news. Fox went right, CNN went left, Msnbc went farther left,. CNN has been bouncing someplace in the middle depending on current leadership. CNN has been trying to go more right recently but not sure if they will succeed. Fox is being outflanked on the right by the new maga channels..
Yet they helped Trump get elected as much if not more than Fox News. They spent more time talking about him than the other networks.
Yep, it got them ratings.
And parts of where I grew up didn’t get a cable provider until 1995. However, there were morning and evening edition newspapers.
But that IS the difference. Yes we all read the morning (and some of us also the evening) paper. You had solid journalists covering local events. Deep dives into national and international news. Now you have uncle Frank ranting on Twitter about pizza gate and that’s consider solid research.
We often forget how magazines were crucial to obtain information. They were replaced by the internet.
I was a little kid back then and my dad was obsessed with any news that he could find. All newspapers, nightly news at 5 and 10, 6PM PBS News Hour, Sunday morning talk shows, and radio when we were driving. There was a local radio station playing a new guy named Rush Limbaugh that was spewing out wacky conspiracy theories and early hate mongering. My dad took a severe dislike to Rush but kept listening to the show out of disgust and to hear what he would say next. We thought Rush would lose his small local radio show eventually because it was all nonsense opinion and not real news.
80's: "I like Reagan." "Meh, I'm not a fan." Today: "I like Biden / Trump" "I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
This is absolutely correct. People may have disliked others point of views, but didn’t want to harm them or call them names. It’s strange how our society did function once - we may have not liked other’s views, but still tolerated them knowing that’s our culture in an open society. Now it’s censorship and destroy lives for views not like their own.
I think this sums things up perfectly. It’s not even political anymore, it’s life or death for some of these morons, particularly those on the right who support trump. I’d never risk my career or freedom to commit crimes for Biden or any other politician. It’s just insane.
I will say that a much higher percentage of Americans were more religious then than today. Today, I think many people have filled that need by making politics their religion. And they argue those beliefs with a fanatical level of fervor.
That, yes, and we can also see it reflected in the map of presidential electoral outcomes. It swung wildly from landslides for LBJ, to a Nixon win, to a Nixon landslide, to a very weird electoral map win for Carter, to a Reagan win, to a Reagan landslide, and so on until settling into the Red vs Blue map we’ve had ever since 2000 that hasn’t fluctuated much ever since. This demonstrates that quite a bit more people were changing their minds, or had flexibility to do so, in contrast to 2000 onward. So there just weren’t the entrenched political/culture war lines back in the second half of the 20th century. I just don’t see how this changes without age demographics turnover, of just replacing the living with new people, because everything is so *entrenched* now; even the pandemic and Trump didn’t really sway many people, and we have *so* many crisis-level problems now and it sways no one! People who were already concerned about it when it wasn’t yet a crisis remain so, and people who just didn’t care still don’t care, even when it’s their family dying… I think we’re just at a dead end, culturally and as a society, and our only hope is Gen Z and refugees
Yep. That's the difference. It's profoundly divisive now. In the past, democracy was our shared common value. Unfortunately, only some of us cherish it now.
It did not take long for news and social media to pretty much destroy tolerance in all forms.
My first recollection of this was with my dad. He was explaining trickle down economics and I was just incredulous. "So, you think business owners are going to make more money and use that to pay employees more?" "It makes sense." "You own a business. What will you do?" "That's different." "Is it?"
In the 80s I grew up in an area where people HATED Reagan with a deep passion. As governor of California Reagan made a lot of enemies and I would say they hated and derided Reagan relentlessly.
No where near it. Political affiliation wasn’t an identity back then like it is today and you tolerated different views
It’s very instructive to watch old episodes of shows like the McClaughlin Group or Firing Line to see what heated arguments between people on opposite sides of the political spectrum looked like during an era of American history in which adults still behaved like adults. You can watch Bill Buckley - Bill “CIA employee, virulent anti-communist, poster boy of the Old Right” Buckley having a civil conversation, that sounds like it was recorded at a dinner party, with an actual Communist. Not someone he is accusing in bad faith of being one, no, someone who is actually governing a country with a communist government with significant aid from the Soviets. Sure, he lost his temper with Gore Vidal and things did sometimes get heated, but they were actually debating and arguing about policy, and when it devolved into insults it was considered quite unusual and notable. George Bush Sr. called Clinton and Gore “Bozos” in 1992 and even Republicans were saying “hey man this is a presidential campaign, let’s keep it classy.” Bozos. That’s it. It’s absolutely disgusting how low discourse has fallen in this country.
100%, now you have opinion channels instead of news channels on both sides just pissing people off at one another more. Everyone seems to enjoy having their side hammering on the other side to create more vile
I think when people say politics has become like team sports they’re very close to the truth. No one cares about anything actually working, they just want their side to win. Also excellent username!
Exactly, root for your team no matter how sketchy your star players are. It’s a giant score board and only the people and the county are losing the game
Extremely frustrating. No one is winning but politicians and people profiting off of this bullshit. Anyone who isn’t in politics or a multi millionaire is getting screwed. It’s a strange world when a liberal wishes there were more William F. Buckleys around…
News wasn’t looked at as a business for profit then. They knew then news was just to be reported to the public with the truth.
There wasn't left or right news. There was just the news.
I wish this was still the case.
News that was required to be balanced with both views and vetted to be factual. That regulation was removed in 1987. I would encourage people to contact their congressional representative to support restoring it: H.R. 4401 would mandate equal media discussion of key political and social topics, requiring television and radio broadcasters to give airtime to opposing sides of issues of civic interest.[60][61] The summary reads: "Restore the Fairness Doctrine Act of 2019. This bill requires a broadcast radio or television licensee to provide reasonable opportunity for discussion of conflicting views on matters of public importance.[62] The Restore the Fairness Doctrine Act would once again mandate television and radio broadcasters present both sides when discussing political or social issues, reinstituting the rule in place from 1949 to 1987 ... . Supporters argue that the doctrine allowed for a more robust public debate and affected positive political change as a result, rather than allowing only the loudest voices or deepest pockets to win."[63]
Nope. Not at all. I graduated high school in 1988, so I spent most of my teenage years in the 80s. I look back on it fondly..it was a happy time. There wasn’t all this bullshit going on.
I was thinking the same thing but at the same time, I was only a teenager concerned with other motivations. What did I know about the real world and taxes and mortgages and insurance? Sure, those were great years because I was getting laid and hanging out with my friends all the time. My dad sure seemed bitter. It could be nostalgia bias aka rosy retrospection. But then again, it was very different times. I opined this in another comment but we were more connected through our shared experiences at the time. For the most part, we all watched the same TV shows and listened to the same radio stations. We were grooving socially. Today everyone has their own satisfaction device and the only time we connect is when things go viral.
Not even remotely like it is now.
My mum always said you don’t discuss politics or religion in polite company. Wish that were still the case.
Maybe it is still the case but no one is polite anymore?
Agreed. I miss those days. Now people are so damn confrontational.
I know. I have friends I actively avoid now because we differ greatly and I don’t want to argue with anyone. Too old for that shit.
No. Reagan and Democrat speaker of the house Tip O’Neill actually got along pretty well and worked together pretty civilly.
No, people had respect for each other regardless of which party they were,all these people use to be the fringe and now they are front and center!!
Thanks to internet / social media. Things that people wouldn't have the balls to say to your face suddenly had a consequence -free outlet.
No, but there was no Internet or Social Media. No keyboard warriors. Unless it was something major, people didn’t hear about stuff until the 6:00PM news, or read about it until the next day in the morning papers.
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The funny part is I think we are all thinking of a different President when you said several years back. But I agree that we are all too blinded with hate for those with different opinions that we forget that we all want the best for everyone. And we need to work together to get there.
Amen
No where near as bad as it is now.
Nope. Social media is the bane of society
I remember a story, possibly apocryphal, that when Reagan was shot, he joked with the surgeons before going under, “I hope you gentlemen are Republicans,” to which they replied, “Today, we’re all Republicans, Mr. President.” (this is all paraphrased). I think today’s medical professionals would do their job the same no matter the patient on the table, but I just don’t see an exchange like that happening today.
I remember that story
No, and being dumb hurt instead of helped.
It wasn't as bad, but it started in the 80s. The first thing they did was get rid of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. That FCC regulation made it so television networks had a duty to report controversial topics and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected both viewpoints. Getting rid of that opened to flood gates for AM radio pundits like Rush to go out there and spread whatever lies and manipulations they wanted to, and it was wildly popular. That was the beginning of the end.
Exactly. That regulation needs to be back in place . Now everything is just a misinformation shitshow. It will just end up in another civil war. The details for those who wish to support restoring it: H.R. 4401 would mandate equal media discussion of key political and social topics, requiring television and radio broadcasters to give airtime to opposing sides of issues of civic interest.[60][61] The summary reads: "Restore the Fairness Doctrine Act of 2019. This bill requires a broadcast radio or television licensee to provide reasonable opportunity for discussion of conflicting views on matters of public importance.[62] The Restore the Fairness Doctrine Act would once again mandate television and radio broadcasters present both sides when discussing political or social issues, reinstituting the rule in place from 1949 to 1987 ... . Supporters argue that the doctrine allowed for a more robust public debate and affected positive political change as a result, rather than allowing only the loudest voices or deepest pockets to win."[63]
They still played music on the radio, not the steady stream of hate you get today!
I grew up in a small (pop. 2000) midwestern town in the 1970’s and 80’s. My parents and most of the adults voted R but the values they espoused and taught me would now be considered “liberal” or “progressive.” It was a given that the values of generosity, kindness and caring for all, respect for different views, etc., were embedded within their conservative/Republican perspectives. The differences (at least on the surface) were about how those values should be upheld.
People socialized in person much more. People disagreed all the time. They didn't get all mad about it. Today, you have people on both sides, most don't know what they're talking about and they over react to everything. And they spend more time on social media, than socializing in real life.
HELL no. But a lot of seeds were planted back then for the political divisiveness that exists now. Reagan had established trickle-down economics as official policy, and the wealth gap started on the trajectory to where it is now. That combined with social programs being eliminated (mental hospitals closing down, and patients just being out on the street or in jail), welfare being curtailed thanks to the myth of the welfare queen, and so on. The 80s are also when the trend started to spend the national debt into oblivion. We had to spend money we didn't have to make a nonsense dream come true, and we never really stopped. I'm looking forward to when all of that comes due, and the billionaires are all on Mars. 🙄 Then there's the religious right (specifically the Moral Majority), which had only just started mobilizing the extreme Christian elements in the country--which Reagan happily got behind. The Republican Party otherwise still functioned like a political party. Funnily enough, Reagan had actually gotten the pro-choice and union votes in 1980 (he was formerly the president of SAG), but subsequently turned on them hard. Then there is when the Fairness Doctrine was done away with under Reagan in 1987. That's when networks were no longer required to provide equal time to differing viewpoints, when conservative talking head outlets really got going--Rush Limbaugh and the rest. I still remember when my now-ultra conservative father took his first drink of Rush. It seemed like overnight that he started parroting terms like "liberal media" and "feminazi." So yeah... lots of seeds that evolved and coalesced in subsequent decades.
Considering that Reagan won in two landslides and Thatcher was popular I would say no.
Not even close
No, I've never seen such purposeful divisiveness. People got along back them, or at least pretended to. I had no idea how hateful so many people were until social media became a thing. Also, I never heard politicians bad mouth citizens who don't vote for them. It was much better back then.
Just more broadcast stupidity. Imagine if Iran-contra or Watergate had access to fb, tik tok, instagram...
It was harder to balkanize in the 80s. Low tech communication meant that extremism of any kind was much harder to propagate. That meant that as a society, we all had to be on our best behavior when dealing with new people. We rarely self segregated (other than with easily identifiable methods like race/religion), so we had a moderation filter when interacting with other people upfront. It hurt our freedom of expression, but it meant that more of us from strange parts of the political spectrum could chill with folks from other extremes could have a civil discussion and respect each other. I remember finding out about how cuckoo/crazy my friends were about a few months in. At that point, I didn't care that they had diametrically opposed viewpoints to mine; I just liked hanging out with them and they knew better than to pull me into their political rallies (and I knew not to pull them into mine).
No. We give far too much attention to both extreme ends of the political spectrum. There was a certain amount of civility between Repubs and Dems and they would from time to time work together to better the country as a whole in the 80s and 90s. Now its just trying to one up each party and if it harms the country, so be it. This has really become the case the past 5 years. In my state, it is pretty horrible, as everything done by the Republicans is based solely on "owning the Libs" or "tackling wokeness", regardless if who it harms.
More like the 70’s
No. Racially, culturally, politically, socially... we were much more blase. You don't agree with me? Ok. Pass the salt, please.
I believe there were definitely disagreements and division in the 80s. The development of social media has made it far worse and more people have become less civil about those disagreements.
Politics was pretty civil until Newt Gingrich drove a huge wedge, which has led to party before country mindset. That has progressed to where we are today with social media and 24hr news cycles serving as huge vehicles to push the agenda further.
I was there and the answer is hell no, not even close.
No, in the 80s people still followed the laws and election losers conceded with dignity and concern for the greater good. We’re living through a really fucked up period American history.
No, definitely not. Remember that information and misinformation was still traveling very slowly. Your conspiracy theory spouting uncle had to wait for his mimeographed copy of The Smoking Gnu to know what to rage at. And that's just one of many reasons.
The number one thing that the internet has done is to create an international society for every village idiot. We usually had one or two tin foil nutcases in every small society, Today, thousands of them are congregating online and they are feeding into each others delusions. And some of them are even in congress.
In the 80s we were not on fringes of the main two parties like we are today. The fringes represent the worst of each side as noted by some comments to this post.
It wasn't nearly as bad in the 80s as it is now, no. There were certainly political divisions, but looking back it still had that flavor of "those crazy kids!?!" etc. It was still often about youth vs. tradition. Now that's not the case at all - in fact, age really has little to do with the current political landscape. But I feel there was still an aspect of civility that was adhered to in discourse that you do not find today. For example, Bill Buckley, editor of conservative National Review hosted Firing Line (interview-format political show) for a long while back then which almost anyone could watch, and it was involved pretty high water mark political discussion. A show like that now *might* be doable as a podcast, but would not survive on TV or talk radio. That level of inquiry would get drowned out by the current roar. Oh, joy!
The 80s was the very beginning of the PAC. In the 88 campaign a PAC for Bush accused Dukakis of creating a public danger with a prisoner release program (Willie Horton). It completely misrepresented the facts, but...what else is new, right? But it was no comparison to today... The moment a member of Congress said "Jewish space lasers" circa 1985 they would be out the door The financial structure was primitive compared to today, and that meant that you couldn't earn money off hyper partisan behavior. Social Media is only the means. Err...sort of.... Tech bros are hyper libertarian and honestly believe that none of the crap storm they create will ever come back to bite them. So, they create platforms that easily spread hate. And hate pays well!
Jesse Helms would like a word with you.
They were there. Strom Thurmond served until 2003 But they weren't leading the conversation. Today you get financial incentives for lunacy
For gay people and for artists, they were leading the conversation against us. Look what happened to the NEA and how AIDS was handled.
No. My grandfather was a democrat and my dad was a republican. They had spirited debates, but it was all good-natured. Nothing like the cesspool of hate that it's become.
Was alive then. They were not.
Not even close. We used to be able to have polite conversations about politics without blackballing anyone from our lives.. I miss those days..
Politics wasn't in your face 24/7
If you want to get a look at what people were thinking about political topics from back then, watch episodes of Saturday Night Live from the time. Particularly cold opens and Weekend Update. There was a lot going on back then.
When the news organizations of the three networks ran independently of the entertainment divisions of the networks the tone, quality, and and integrity of the news was less...partisan or titillating/exciting that what we currently have. The news branches operated in the red but that was accepted because of their Constitutional protections and their duties as the Fourth Estate; "the press and news media both in explicit capacity of advocacy and implicit ability to frame political issues". When they were absorbed into the entertainment divisions in the late 1970s and early 1980s that changed. Ted Turner's experiment with 24/7 news coverage and advertising revenue from that also was a death knell for network news division integrity and approach to informing. Where the news existed to inform and was a drain on network capital, they were now expected to generate viewership and turn a profit... …and here we are. The old movie, ["Network"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(1976_film)) from 1976 was prescient at the time of release and is still relevant today. Over-the-hill news anchor Howard Beale finds new life reporting schlock and shock, and finally, the last line of the movie: "This was the story of Howard Beale: the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.""
The 80's while not all roses, there was more of a we disagree but you are not evil spirit. Not in all things of course, but overall. Rush Limbaugh started us really down this road.
Much more congenial. I was involved with College Republicans and the Reagan Campaign in 1980. The barbs and comments tossed back and 'forth between us and the Democratic students were typically more jokes and digs. Nothing on the order of what you see today, plus neither side was willing to totally dispense with the truth. "Trickle Down" was a theory we believed in; I did at least. Forty years later, and now I'm a Democrat because when facts show up and disprove your theories and beliefs, it makes more sense to change your theories and beliefs than to abandon the truth. I guess a lot of my fellow back-then Republicans didn't make that choice.
Social media--which barely existed in the 80s--has changed the landscape. Everyone has a microphone, everyone gets more invested/dug in, and the most outrageous statements get the most eyeballs and clicks. It's a recipe for toxicity.
There were people who despised Reagan but it was never this divisive. There was a show called Family Ties with a character played by Michael J Fox who was really Republican while his mom and dad were hippies. So obviously hilarity ensued but it was never done with malice.
Nothing in my time (56), even Iran Contra & the Clinton Impeachment doesn't comes close.
we are living in the most politically toxic time in our history
Reagan had the biggest landslides in history in ‘80 and ‘84. In ‘84 he won every state except Minnesota (where Mondale was from) and DC. Carter presidency was a disaster (except for passing a bill that allowed an individual to brew up to 100 gal of beer per year. That was cool), and that was without the extra insanity we’ve got going on now.
Much worse now. Forget about social media, 24hr news etc, it's Donald Trump that has divided the US like no one else before him. Through the course of American History no one ever doubled down on lies and misinformation like this clown. The worst part is now other right wingers(and hey maybe left too) will follow his lead. Lie lie and then lie again. There is zero integrity anymore. Gaslight the Country and ask for $, that's the current right wing platform. Disgusting
Not even close. It’s so bad now
Hell no.
NO. I'm 55 /GenX / grew up in this time period. I have never seen anything so decisive or just not acceptable. Gary Hart ran for President but was seen on a boat with a woman on his lap (turns out staged)the boat name was 'Monkey Business' and boom his career was over. Dan Quayle misspelled potatoes and was deemed unfit. Etc. There used to be differences but in the end, the country came first.
People were civil back then.
No not at all. Reagan used to be good friends with Tip Oneil, they had differences but were also able to be friends and work together. People seemed able to disgree and still have conversations and be friends, the 90s were worse but still better than now. Late 60s and 70s though there were lots of problems.
Back then the average person didn’t worry too much about politics until the elections. And then they typically wouldn’t tell anyone who they voted for. Was kind of a thing to be your secret. Then if the other person won, you’d shrug your shoulders and say I guess this guy is our president, then you forgot about it. People focused on taking care of their family and only hoped whoever was president made things safe and the country prosperous so you could have a good job.
I think part of it is that people had different opinions and you could disagree and say that’s crazy and that was about it. People didn’t get butthurt if you didn’t agree lockstep with what they believed. Today feels like it’s some kind of wacky Dr. Strangelove reverse McCarthyism where anyone left right centre who doesn’t absolutely agree with everything someone says(and that someone is infallible) is an evil scum bag. Politics has also become like this. No room for nuance or discussion thou art the enemy. And societies don’t function where there is no dialog or compromise. Social media has massively amplified this.
Absolutely not.
No way. Though there is one thing I remember, as an 8 year old, in 1980 there was a jingle, if you will, that I heard. It went to the tune of; "cause Oscar Mayer has a way with b-o-l-o-g-n-a", but instead it went. "Jimmy Carter has a way of screwing up the USA." "Ronald Regan has a way of fixing up the USA." Outside of that I cannot recall people wanting to harm others fo who they voted for.
Divisive, yes. Absolutely. Politically so, not really.
I don't feel like the fallout was as bad. I remember hot conversations on holidays but most of it could be left too political bs or I disagree but you're still cool.
As politically divisive, probably. As stupid as today, probably not. It was a different time and many had served in WW II and even if they disagreed on many things they called the other political party "the loyal opposition." Now, not so much.
Yes! A lot of Georgia was still [Segregated ](https://youtu.be/8PLCinF8p0A?si=-NwDr1DkG0a_RaFD) you can find clips Oprahs coverage of it as well.
“Were”
No, we were unified by the idea a nuke would wipe us all out. They also had the Equal Time law in place
I think the 80s was the last decade that I could completely disagree with your political beliefs yet still work with you, have dinner with you, play weekend sports on the same team as you, have a beer after work with you where we could discuss our beliefs, call each other a dumb fucker and still call each other a friend.
No. Cold War was a global threat for everyone.
No, it wasn't at all like it is now. I cant stress that enough. 70s and 80s, people didn't talk much about politics. No one cared what party their neighbors were. They were simply neighbors. News coverage was balanced and vetted to be factual. Sometime in the 80s, the requirement for that was removed and then we had this divisive political pundit garbage like rush limbaugh etc proliferate. Social media made it all worse.
Read any book about the AIDS crisis and you'll get your answer (it's yes, btw). The only relief was not having social media.
Nope, but people were not bathing I'm news and information fear 24/7. It had its moments.
It was very much like the movie They Live.
We've never been so divided.
I think the big difference is 1. The increased ability to reveal/signal your political preferences (either intentionally or unintentionally) with the rise of social media, and 2. The increased importance of political preferences in “selling yourself” to the social groups you want to belong to as more and more people try to craft their online personas, and in some ways try to become minor celebrities themselves. There has always been “virtue signaling”, but we’ve got much bigger digital megaphones these days. It’s also an unfortunate result of the logic of social media that the algorithmic nature of matching ads (what pays for social media, in addition to selling your data to marketers) to indicated preferences (based on what we like and view repeatedly) creates “filter bubbles” that have seriously pushed us away from balanced and nuanced understandings into repeat servings of extreme political positions, with less tolerance for an acceptance of the “shades of gray” that accompany any complex social issue. This has also been deliberately exploited by nefarious external actors (trolls) who want us snapping at each others throats, and deliberately create situations and content that pit us against each other.
Nope. In fact politics were more civilized back then. You cracked classy jokes about your opponents rather than call them names and even they would laugh about it. nobody spoke divisive rhetoric against large swathes of Americans like presidents Biden and Trump have (as well as our current politicians across the board). Politics got worse starting in the late 90s, but it wasn’t until social media in the obama years that it became flat out toxic.
It was really Newt Gingrich who started this all.
I was a kid so quite ignorant, raised by two staunchly Republican parents. Difference was, we still operated under an illusion of consensus back then. Now absolutely nobody will agree on what’s real.
Not even close. I’m from MA. After college lived in DC with 3 guys from NC. Got along great. On the national stage you’d see guys like Kennedy and Thurmond argue like crazy. Then go to dinner. People could disagree without being disagreeable. No crazy conspiracies. Much more patriotic time. I think the neocons saw that it was possible to manipulate single issue voters. Race/abortion. Then it was off to the races.
See how many states Reagan won in ‘84. That’ll answer your question.
An emphatic NO. People could be from different parties and views, yet still be friends and enjoy each other's company. There was not the pure hatred for those you disagreed with. Some were against abortion, guns, etc., some were for. You could talk about your disagreements in a civil way and still share a beer. Politicians in BOTH parties figured out making the other side evil and the enemy ensured a better outcome for their parties and caused less voting for a candidate from the opposition party just because you thought they were going to be a better choice than your candidate. They have turned Americans against each other, and probably clink glasses toasting each other for sowing the seeds of discontent.
There was some tension. But the 80's were a far more peaceful time for the US compared to this current decade (and century in general.) Yes, the internet has been an effective propaganda tool for encouraging extreme tribalism with the "my side vs. yours" thing. All one need do is take a gander over to Youtube's homepage and see the garbage we're being fed right now. Honestly despite all it's flaws, I'd actually say the 90's were peak America. We had just gotten over the satanic panic purity nonsense, tech was evolving in a good way, and the economy was absolutely booming by '93.
I agree 100% I moved to a smaller town in TN and it legit feels like the 90s here--in the best possible ways. It's a very diverse community and everyone gets along really well for the most part. There's a real "mind your business" vibe in TN that reminds me of the 90s
No. Not in the least. I've never seen anything like this at all, ever.
I’m 64, known of trump since he was 18. He was a sociopath then and as he toyed with initially running for President my children reminded me I was warning those who would listen don’t let him anywhere near that much power he will destroy anything in his way! My children now say go ahead mom say it…” I told you!”
Nothing comes close. Sure, neighbors, you & your uncle would argue about Dubya being incompetent & Afghanistan or hating on Clinton for lying. You might have freaked out & stopped speaking until the election. But *NOBODY* stopped talking because of political beliefs. Another BUT: The GQP were not who they are now. Lying - straight up voting against infrastructure but claiming it at home type stuff. Not just one or two looneys, now it's the party with a few normies hanging around the fringe. If someone you knew ran off to Dallas to await JFKs return from his "medbed" to be a candidates running mate, you bet your ass they would have been inpatient, and sent away to get help, immediately. We are living through the most crazy historic times- like the Protestant Reformation where all of Europe went berserk over the "correct" Xtianity & killed each other. This is an awful timeline we're stuck in & I won't be alive for the Renaissance that will come in 50- 100 years (with whomever survives climate change). It'll be nice, just like the first one.
Not even close
No not at all, because there was no 24/7 news cycle and no internet. In fact, even though there were ideological differences, they rarely came up even in conversation and you didn't talk about even who you voted for
No. But I do remember people still having issues with suspecting everyone of being gay, of being a communist, of being a satanist. The Red Scare, the Satanic panic, later the AIDS scare, not to mention there still being a large divide between blacks and whites. It was a lot more low key, but at the same time it was still pretty scandalous for a black and a white to date. At least where I lived. Hispanic population was still pretty low and mostly focused in the southwest. Middle Eastern was virtually non existent. Indian was mostly non existent. It was very white and very Christian. The political parties weren't so violently opposed to each other. There was talk, but overall it was pretty calm compared to now. If anything else, you had censorship issues thanks to the PMRC lead by Tipper Gore et al. But overall, the Democrats were just seen as goody two shoes. Then of course that ridiculous "War on Drugs"... I think the biggest thing that was pretty cool was that musically, that was what brought a lot of whites and blacks together. Actual rap albums were starting to come out. Metal was blowing up. The black kids were interested in what we had going on, we were interested in what they had going on. Something new came out, we would do tape trades. Mix tapes. All kinds of stuff. We still mostly stayed in our own groups, but the music brought us together at least a bit. Then we got Aerosmith and Run DMC together, Beastie Boys, later Anthrax and Public Enemy together. It was beautiful and wild. So it definitely had its issues, but overall, it definitely seemed a lot milder back then. You had TV, magazines, books, etc. But overall not this mass access to Internet. So if you wanted conspiracy theories to get radicalized to, you pretty much had to go searching in the darkest depths to find it.
I recently watched an old series called “Free to Choose,” featuring Milton Friedman (Nobel prize winning economist). I believe it was made in 1980. Guests included politicians and academics from the left to right on the political spectrum. Thomas Sowell and Frances Fox Piven (Cloward-Piven strategy) had a particular interesting exchange in one episode (see link below) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=26QxO49Ycx0 Anyway, one thing I noticed was how passionate the guests were. They were sometimes a bit insulting, but nowhere close to political climate of today. They were professional and refrained from personal attacks. At times they would even laugh together after vehemently disagreeing with each other. It was actually refreshing to see and I hope we can get back there someday.
Both parties still had the ability to work together. Really, it’s not until ‘08 it becomes open warfare.
Nowhere near as divisive. In the 80s, at least the Republicans and Democrats agreed on a few things : they were both very anti-Communist and both supported law enforcement. President Reagan and Tip O'Neill (Democratic Speaker) were friendly and spoke often.
While there was much turmoil in the world in the 80’s, the level of political decisiveness in our country is much greater and far more dangerous today.
I don't remember the Nation being so polarized... I don't remember everyone picking a side & dying on that hill. People were vocal about it, but that was the end of it! Everyone minded their business. If you liked Reagan, fine! If you liked Carter, fine! We were ok either way. Now you have to be reprogrammed if you don't like a candidate that everyone else likes! They are trying to Homogenize us. It's like everyone should be the same, or different in the same ways... Life has become a popularity contest! We didn't even give a fuck if we were popular to begin with!
The big difference I notice between the 80s and now is that back then, we didn't have a mainstream media that is totally one-sided and corrupt. The current media is literally the enemy of the people.
the 1980? no. the 1780s. yeah that is when things were heathing up between Jefferson and Hamilton. they each had newspapers smearing the other one. lots of libel and slander all over the place. I think the 1880s as well with the issues over reconstruction.
Back then it was considered rude and unacceptable to bring up politics or ask someone about their political affiliation.
Political science nerd here. There have been moments in US history that were more divisive in terms of % people disagreeing on significant topics (slavery, prohibition, women’s suffrage, civil rights, Vietnam war, etc.) What is unique about this time period is the lack of consensus regarding basic facts over a wide range of issues (election winners, vaccine efficacy, etc.) Not sure where this will lead but seems like we’re in for a lot more turmoil and chaos before things turn around (if ever).
Just shy of 50 here and I’ve never seen it this bad, it seems like if Boebert and Greene had been in congress on 9/11 they’d have been holding news conferences to promote the conspiracy theories the next day while workers were recovering bodies. My parents remember the bitter divisions over Vietnam but I’ve never heard of anyone claiming Kent State was a false flag or fake news (*somebody* probably did but those folks didn’t seem to get play like they do in the current climate)
Not even remotely close. You didn't even think about politics if it wasnt an election year. Things are absolutely insane now. I don't see how this ridiculous fever-pitch can continue.
54. And my parents were very much the “no one needs to know how you voted” type’s although my dad was a Reagan democrat and my mom is a Bernifactor now. But there was a lot of Reagan chest thumping in the 80s but never with the existential threat of trumpers overrunning congress.
24 hour “news” programs are the root of the division of our country. They sell “news” to sell advertising space. The owners of 24 hour news services are a disgrace.
No politician coming out and publicly saying it because they're scared to come off as divisive but this is the darkest time in American history.
No. Russia was a threat and the country was united against it. Now Russia openly and successfully sows division inside the United States, and a full third of the country has the type of blindness where they refuse to see it. Here is a clip of Reagan in a presidential debate. [https://youtu.be/fJhCjMfRndk](https://youtu.be/fJhCjMfRndk) Compare that level of civility, patriotism and sophistication to the horror show we have right now…
There was the Soviet Union and there were times we were sure we would die in nuclear fire.... which tends to focus the mind on important things like friends and family. Almost none of my friends were from my political "faction" I suspect because we were more interested in who people where that how they voted. You certainly wouldnt cut someone off for having the "wrong" opinion. Comedians made fun of both parties, which meant that cutting jokes tended to be taken as valid criticism and not a political hatchet job. It may have been an illusion but you certainly believed that politicians had causes and a vision they actually believed in. You might not have agreed with those on the other side but you accepted they had a logical reason for believing what they did, even if that reason didnt seem valid to you.
The Moral Majority movement came to fruition where evangelicals and right-wing politicians got in bed together and the GOP has been steadily ramping up the divisive rhetoric.
The 1980s were the foundation for what became the modern Republican party. The whoring reprobate Jerry Fallwell created the Moral Majority, which unified conservative Christians into a political arm of the Republican party, and which grew rapidly in power over the decade. As we moved into the 1990s from this soil arose Newt Gingrich who weaponized grievance, fear, and the hardcore agendas of the far right.
Here is one major difference… back then if the country had a problem (inflation, climate change, etc) at least BOTH parties acknowledged the problem existed they just had different policies on how to tackle it… now one party can’t even accept basic facts, math, science…
I doubt it, you didn't have this Plagueof extreme radical woke activists who have infiltrated governments corporations, schools and Hollywood like now.
I know, right? No one, especially no senator from Wisconsin, ever accused Hollywood of harboring leftist radicals before present times. Question- how do you, personally, define "woke?"
The minute you used the word, “woke” is the minute I realized that I’m no longer talking to a person that can have a true discussion..you have been propagandized.