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Turn off your cable news/opinion channels. Doesn't matter what political bent they have, just turn them off. The true problem with them is not the partisan filter they put on the news, or what facts they decide to present, or even whether or not they're lying about the news.
Rather, it's their entire toxic business model. These for-profit corporations -- which is what they are, never forget -- have the direct financial incentive to make you believe that everything is CRITICALLY IMPORTANT.
They can't afford to be, "Meh, nothing really all that new or important going on today, pretty much the same stuff we talked about yesterday" because you'd change the channel and they wouldn't get paid by advertisers.
To keep their viewership numbers up, they have to constantly be selling just how END TIMES BATTLES OF GOOD VERSUS EVIL things have become, making their viewers believe that they can't possibly afford NOT to be paying rapt 24/7 attention.
Minor things get blown far out of proportion. Minor differences are highlighted. Good news gets buried. Outliers like nutjob state legislators or back-bench Congresscritters become avatars for "How the other side REALLY is." Trivial crap becomes today's NEW OUTRAGE.
All in the service not truly of a political narrative, but rather of the profits that servicing and stoking that narrative can bring.
The result is that people are not just getting misinformed about facts -- which yes, is bad and does matter, and is happening to YOU far more than you think it is -- but also being whipped into a frenzy where the unthinkable becomes the unavoidable.
When the other side is EVIL and trying to DESTROY AMERICA why wouldn't you be justified in whatever you think is necessary to stop them?
You've been told over and over again that this is different now, it's not just the other side having different principles and policy preferences. This is Manichean good-versus-evil. This is WAR.
And media corporations report another quarter of record earnings.
And media corporations report another quarter of record earnings.
This is 2021. There are any number of other places that you could be getting your news and insights. And there's so much better and healthier things you could be doing with your time.
/fin
/fin
