The graph makes it rather look like as if the decline in happiness began half a decade ago. The pandemic certainly didn‘t help but I would guess it all started with the polarization during the Trump administration.
After 3 decades of “libtards” and other epitaphs (of both parties) hurled at any member of an opposing political party the country is irrevocably entrenched polarization. Only a true crisis or truly hard times will alleviate this mess we are in.
At this point, this true crisis will probably be a civil war. We already have politicians calling for a national divorce. [0]
[0] https://nypost.com/2021/12/29/rep-greene-suggests-a-national...
Fox News was explicitly started with the intent of being the media arm of the GOP. They employ a bunch of “talk shows” which spread blatant lies and disinformation: all allowed because the org admits that these aren’t reporters, they’re just hosting a “show”. On a channel called Fox “News”. Do most viewers get that distinction? Who cares.
While other channels are guilty of doing similar shit to certain extent, Fox News is several orders of magnitude different in how far they go with twisting facts and misinforming their viewers.
It's allowed because Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
All in all this is pretty low quality post.
It's happening all over the world, and I think Trump like figures are a symptom, not a cause of it.
But the graphs show the change starting around the Trump epoch.
I know that there is an accusation from the US left that all of the right’s obstruction and hostility was just barely concealed racism, but I assume that many in the GOP are not just frothing racists and do have some thought out issue with his actions.
How was Obama more polarizing than, say, Bill Clinton? I remember W being polarizing because he came off as a mouth breather, but Obama just seemed so bland.
For Obama, they had his race, and that was sufficient. Not every Republican is a frothing racist, but they're certainly happy to appeal to the frothing racists. But at core, it was simply that he was a Democrat. Democrats are inherently polarizing because they are not Republicans, and the reasons come later.
When it comes to drone strikes on American citizens: he was the judge, jury and executioner, all that without charges or prosecution, just by saying "they're not really citizens because they are now 'enemy combatants' which BTW does not grant protection under the Geneva Convention and does not require a formal declaration of war either because... reasons?"
We have separation of powers, laws and due process for good reasons. All this rubbed me the wrong way.
Some minority of people didn't care for his race undoubtedly. But also he was a liberal community organizer from Chicago at the head of a bright new rainbow coalition of social justice (in theory, in practice not so much) and many traditionalists just didn't care for that whole image.
As far as president, he was a good speaker but that's about as far as it went.
He didn't do much of the stuff he said he would, the wars went right on, he weaponized agencies against his political opponents, no radical social justice was achieved, growth in GDP during his time was basically deficit spending (ditto for Trump). He really wasn't as good as people think, he just talked nicely.
To be fair talking nicely seems to be the majority of the job. I'm unsure how much we can really credit or blame a president for the state of the world and even what the government does during their presidency.