General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The average Americans knowledge of US history is pretty slanted [View all]captain queeg
(10,208 posts)And Id agree it matched my observations. It said about 10% on either end of the spectrum drive the news and social mediums cycles. The rabid left and rabid right. Then about another 20% in either end had pretty strong opinions but didnt try to dominate the discourse. While the bookend positions were pretty equal in size I think that next category wasnt so even; maybe 15% on one side vs 20% on the other. Then they called the largest, middle section, around 50% of the population the exhausted middle. The people who were so sick of hearing constantly about extreme positions that theyd largely stopped paying attention. I thought that was probably an accurate observation.
Thats a lot of the problem these days. We have been numbed by things that would have been unthinkable nowadays that would never have happened 20 yrs ago. Because I lean left Id point to Trumps actions that I think would have been outrageous not that long ago. But I suspect some RW could point to some things going on nowadays that would have been unimaginable out in the open on the left in years gone by. And because of this numbing its hard to get a lot of average kind of people to pay attention to things that my not be outrageous but are actually affecting their lives more than the latest Trump idiocy.