Paul Krugman did a two part video with Martin Wolf on inequality. In it, they ponder why working class people have embraced a right wing populism across the developed world. Sure, there's racial and cultural grievances, but that can't explain everything.
They focus a bit on the way information travels. Obviously, we have both Fox News and its spawn who simply place their thumbs on the scale. The other issue is social media and it's mainlining of grievance and anger into our brain.
One thing they also talk about is the decline of unions, not just as political players, but as information networks. The talk about the lack of national consensus on the news as typified by the veneration of Walter Cronkite, but how much of the decline in that consensus was because of the rise of cable news and how much was this a decline in overall trust in institutions?
Chris Murphy has talked a lot about the atomization of our culture, especially the decline in church membership. It's an interesting argument, in that if we have no real cultural consensus, then any whacko - even or especially if they are at the pulpit - can become a consensus of one or at least a few. I suppose I could go further and think about my sons' college education, where they are both pursuing professional degrees, but they aren't learning the critical thinking skills typically associated with a liberal arts education.
Ultimately, is Fox News the cause or the symptom of our polarization? Hopefully, Rupert Murdoch dies soon and we can can see if his kids take the company in a different direction. If they did, maybe the discourse changes or maybe people turn to OAN and NewsMax.
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