kewms wrote:Orpheus wrote:What really is obvious is how much Americans hate each now. But, what is surprising is that considering how many guns there are in the USA that it hasn't erupted into political violence...yet. Will it devolve into Wiemar Republic style political street fights and body counts? Any opinion from someone in the US of A?
I think that if you think "Americans" as a group hate each other, you are probably spending too much time reading Breitbart and comment threads generally.
Certainly there are lots of people on both sides with very strong opinions, and the extremes of both parties would happily kick each others' heads in given the chance. However, those extremes, precisely because they are extreme, attract news coverage wildly out of proportion to their actual numbers. There's a lot of money to be made by feeding people's anger, and a lot of people in and outside the US who see divisions as personally advantageous. Some of those people have temporarily achieved a fair amount of power in the US government.
But Weimar street violence? A second civil war? Nah. We're going through a rough patch, but we'll be fine.
Katherine
Actually I was reading the NYT comment threads. (One thing I notice is that if someone makes a racist remark on Breitbart they are accused of being leftists trying to give the right wing a bad name. But if someone makes a racist remark on the NYT everyone agrees with them.)
I hope you are right. And, I plan to take a long break after the Kavanaugh vote.
But what about antifa riots in various locations and people killed and injured? What about the abysmal state of "Free Speech" in US universities where even left wing comics refuse to perform? What about left wing bureaucrats sabotaging government machinery? What about Democrat leaders urging their followers to seriously harass their opponents? (Cases like Ms Sanders and Mr Cruz being denied service and chased out of restaurants? What about the republican baseball team being attacked and one of them seriously injured? What about the very vocal call to "resist" and to resist BAMN - By Any Means Necessary?
I lived in the USA for more than 20 years and have never seen such division before. But I will definitely take your advice and stop reading the news for a while and give things time to happen. Now I have to find a new form of procrastination.
