Reading an otherwise excellent book, “Polarized America,” published in 2006. But this line strikes me as a bit naive through the lens of December 2023:
“there is simply no question to us that the United States is a far more tolerant place [than] it was fifty years ago.”
The authors couldn’t have imagined what - and who - was coming. #politics
Michael Fisher
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •ohmu
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Is that true of 2023 vs 1973?
That's not easy to say at all. I'm pretty sure many would say things are worse.
Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm:
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Sheril Kirshenbaum
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •The lesson here is that culture changes swiftly.
2006 wasn't so long ago. But social media was in its infancy & we had no idea how it would be weaponized to divide us. And this was also before the Tea Party movement. And before Sarah Palin took the national stage.
I do believe that we were less divided in 2006. I was working in the Senate then. But like the authors of this book, I could not have predicted what was on the horizon. /2
cbuddenhagen
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Roy Brander
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •This one is simple: they are right, and you are wrong.
The world I grew up in did not have Black, Hispanic, or Asian professionals. Not just no news anchors or Mayors, no doctors, lawyers. Almost no women doctors, either. No Asian dentists.
There was one woman in my 1980 engineering grad class of 52. Five of my last six engineering supervisors (2005-2017) were women.
Kids these days; no idea at all the battles that were fought to hand them the world they think is "normal".
Barry Goldman
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Hugh Murray
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •rameshgupta
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Yes! Nobody could have imagined, much less predicted that.
#Obama's election threw #White #Christians into apoplectic rage, paving the way for #TeaParty, #NewtGingrich, and the #religious #FarRight, culminating in #MAGA and #Trump
#GOP
Ceremus
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Vertana
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •