There's a sense that the US is irredeemably divided, that it’s split into a pair of parallel societies, one red, one blue. And the tension between t

Dramageddon: The Virtual Civil War - by Gurwinder

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2024-04-23 21:30:06

There's a sense that the US is irredeemably divided, that it’s split into a pair of parallel societies, one red, one blue. And the tension between these estranged twins seems to be escalating toward an inevitable showdown, a second American Civil War.

At least, this is the impression you’d get if you follow mainstream discourse. 2022 has seen several popular books—such as Barbara F Walter's How Civil Wars Start and Stephen Marche's The Next Civil War—warn that social media has polarized the US to such an extent that war is a distinct possibility. Such fears have been echoed by the corporate media; an analysis by the New York Times found that online use of the term "civil war" has exploded. The Times has played its own part in the explosion, regularly talking up the threat of civil war, such as here and here and here. Meanwhile, a recent Time opinion piece declared that civil war is coming, while another for the Guardian claimed it's already happening. And in a UC Davis poll of over 8000 Americans, half of them said they expect a civil war in the next couple of years.

Should we be concerned? Yes, but not because any of these people are correct. Social media is having a much stranger effect on people than merely pushing them toward war; it's convincing them they’re headed for war when in fact they aren't. And among the victims of this corrosive delusion are countless influential opinion-makers, as well as everyone influenced by them.