This is the problem in the US that has enabled the extreme polarisation and Trump’s power. Once a society does not agree on a shared reality and the principles of the system anymore, its game over. European countries must be really careful not to lose the shared reality too - ThreadSky

alanderminna.bsky.social • 5 hours ago

This is the problem in the US that has enabled the extreme polarisation and Trump’s power. Once a society does not agree on a shared reality and the principles of the system anymore, its game over.

European countries must be really careful not to lose the shared reality too

Reposted from Eliot Higgins

We’re living through a fundamental shift in how discourse is created. Institutions once shaped a shared reality through discourse - imperfectly, but with structure. Now, that reality has splintered. In its place, engagement-driven ecosystems amplify whatever resonates, truth optional.

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a3beljaars.bsky.social•4 hours ago

metronautix.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Indeed. Troubling times. Covid conspiracies triple charged the process, and now everything is up for mistrust in "official lines" 🫣

climateecho.bsky.social•5 hours ago

I believe our shared reality was somewhat damaged already during Covid.
We're on fragile ground.

oldlibrarian.bsky.social•5 hours ago

The Internet killed the shared reality. Everybody can shape his/her own reality. Even if it's completely off the rails, out there you'll find someone on a similar track.

johndalton1108.bsky.social•4 hours ago

I bet all this rhyme with words
Money
Corruption

hermgamma.bsky.social•4 hours ago

The centrifugal forces in our societies may partially due to social and technological change, but they are also exogenous and pointed to a large extent. For example, fear of immigration and diversity is often used as a feign to make us forget about the actual reasons for low real wage growth.

hermgamma.bsky.social•4 hours ago

And that is a process that started in the Nixon White House championed amongst others by Pat Buchanan. Artificial populism combined with wealth concentrating policies and after a while, the Bros rule and will destroy as they don’t know but to act as parasites. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan

dazzarf.bsky.social•5 hours ago

People assume this is something that has been happening in more recent years. Evangelical Christians have been pushing the Republicans further to the right since Reagan. They distrust government and oppose public funding for almost everything except defence.

torebear.bsky.social•3 hours ago

Fox news and Rupert Murdoch.

cutter8351.bsky.social•4 hours ago

Maria Ressa says this regularly "Without facts, you can't have truth. Without truth, you can't have trust." Until we ban social media, things will NOT get better

zacken1969.bsky.social•5 hours ago

I so agree on this. It’s been my fear for so long now. I place a lot of responsibility on press and media. I see the «commercialization» of media and the chase of clicks as a big threat, but also closed social media echo chambers. However I truly believe in freedom of speech, so this is difficult…

alanderminna.bsky.social•5 hours ago

European coalition politics is a good balancing force that can counter polarisation to an extent. But no system is fool proof so this requires active work to maintain the basis of democracy, that is people agreeing on what’s real

seeadler.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Brexit is a good example of that failing in a European context. It didn't matter that "the EU violates British sovereignty and leeches its wealth" is untrue: because it resonated, it was a sufficiently powerful story to break the country out of the union.

alanderminna.bsky.social•4 hours ago

The UK also has a winner-takes-all system that is more prone to manipulation

tomvasseur.bsky.social•4 hours ago

I do think that's very true and digitalisation and social media strongly expose us to this risk.

That said, the US has a longstanding problem with news deserts that we lack the conditions for; it arguably already was a powder keg waiting for a spark for a long time.

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