We have a serious information problem, or lack thereof.
If people were truly informed on some of the issues, I can't imagine soany issues would be so divisive.
I think setting up some kind of reporting requirents to divorce opinion and pundits from actual journalistic news would be a start.
A perfect example is the turmoil inside the fox news network right now. If you watch the actual newscasters/journalists you will believe the obvious truth that Trump was ordering funds withheld to get negative press for the Democrats and Bidens from Ukraine. (Whether that rises to impeachment level is up for debate and tangential to my point).
If you watch only the fox news pundits (which are most of the primetime lineup) you will believe that it's all totally made up and even that the impeachment process itself is somehow unconstitutional and some sort of coop. Which is just completely divorced from reality.
This same thing plays out everyday on countless issues on both sides and is being controlled by a small handful of powerful people that are manipulating viewers for their own gain.
I seem to remember multiple presidential primaries in the US where progressive candidates get side-lined within the party as either un-electable (long before actually competing at polling stations) or get kicked out due to technicalities meant to steer watered-down right-centrists into the general election.
I'm not talking about some right-wing conspiracy, I'm talking about basic mechanics of the electoral process that are unfair at the party level, in media, etc.
As one example, I might cite how current candidate Andrew Yang barely gets time to speak at debates while others polling at the same level get 2x or 3x as many minutes to speak.
Another example might be the way Bernie Sanders was all but eliminated by backstage machinations in the Democratic party in 2015/2016. How are voters supposed to vote for true progressive candidates who want to change the system in a major way if they cant even compete on an even playing field
The fact that voters don't have much choice is their own fault. It's their job to reform the system if they don't like it.
>I seem to remember multiple presidential primaries in the US where progressive candidates get side-lined within the party as either un-electable
Again, this is the voters' fault. If they don't like it, they should do more to change it.
>How are voters supposed to vote for true progressive candidates who want to change the system in a major way if they cant even compete on an even playing field
If the citizens of a country don't like the way the elections are run, it's their job to change it, by whatever means are necessary. That is what it means when I say that every nation has the government it deserves. This applies to every nation (except maybe occupied ones), no matter what kind of government it has. The citizens are the ones who ultimately have the power, so if their government sucks, it's their own fault.
I think that's dramatically understating these American voters' role in this and their reaction to anything that can be dubbed "socialism". They happily vote for candidates who push for enormous "corporate welfare" to defense contractors, and scream bloody murder if anyone suggests using any public money at all to pay for someone else's healthcare.
American voters are getting exactly what they're voting for.
>They're part of the reason we don't have it.
They are the reason we don't have it.
As I frequently like to remind people, every nation gets the government it deserves.