Hacker News Reader

Comment by tithe | Hacker News Reader

I think part of the answer is how you phrased the situation yourself, as a "battle of ideas."

The rhetoric by both "left" and "right" platforms pitches a divided America, and a "battle for the soul of the nation." Battle against whom? My own countrymen? For what? For my vision for America? I was unsettled when I heard this (but maybe I'm just too sensitive.)

When you combine this kind of inflammatory speech with blanket group classifications like "liberals" or "MAGA" or "democrats" or whatever, you've now identified an enemy in this "battle", and as I've seen lately, can completely lose sight that these people are our countrymen too.

View on HN

The language on both sides is apocalyptic - if we don't win this election, it's the end of America! And you have to fight for your country, or you won't have one! It's a war!

Well, if you call it a war enough times, sooner or later somebody will take you literally.

I think you're right. That kind of language taps energy to get bases riled up, but it's a dangerous kind of excitement (panic?) that can lead to desperate acts.

It makes my stomach turn that people - and I - can be susceptible to this, and furthermore that it's taken advantage of. Politicians are skilled hackers, too.

It also, I think, sometimes gives those on the edge of doing bad things, a little push and then they do terrible things like this.

I think it's that along with a few other things. One is the media and that's nothing new. Don Henley's excellent song 'Dirty Laundry' is all about how the media loves to have bad things happen (dirty laundry) for them to report about. Another is the internet. There's something about engaging electronically that causes (I believe) people to forget that they're engaging with other people. In other words, they (generally) react more crass/aggressive than they would in person. I also believe that there is a growing acceptance (among both major parties) that the ends justify the means. This is actually the one that frightens me the most. It seems like as time goes by you see more of it. It's a dangerous path and we'll be suffering the consequences more and more.

I feel the need to quote the wiki article on Dirty Laundry:

> Henley's own arrest in 1980 when he was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and possession of marijuana, cocaine, and Quaaludes after a 16-year-old girl overdosed at his Los Angeles home

Trump literally tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power after losing a fair election. He will likely do this again. If he succeeds, American democracy is toast.

Well, it's a battle for control over the courts, for control over the administrative state, for control over the school systems, for control over the election systems. This is why judge appointments got so strained in the last 15 years, why the Heritage Foundation wants to take back the federal government with Project 2025 (by firing 2 million federal employees en masse), why conservatives are so concerned about indoctrination in schools, and about attacking the Deep State. It's also why Democrats are campaigning on keeping democracy from ending, and keeping elections free.

"our countrymen" is yet another category.

Unskilled and unaware of it categorization is a major component of the collective hallucination we've been taught to call reality.

That said: I do not disagree with you. This planet is out of control.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com