From Ben Sasse at the Wall Street Journal, Americans Deserve Better Than Clickbait Crack:

Our politics has become so poisonous that members of Congress now see personal benefit in posturing or actually attempting to overturn a presidential election, thereby disenfranchising millions of Americans for the sin of voting for the other party. Our institutions aren’t meant for this, and the constant horse-race analysis and apocalyptic rhetoric will push us further and faster into idiocracy.

We all like being told not merely that our opinions are reasonable but also that we’re the only group left standing between America and an imminent socialist or fascist hellscape. So, if you want to believe that Mr. Trump won the election, there’s a line out the door of cable hosts, radio personalities and keyboard warriors willing to comfort you. If you want to believe that abolishing the New York Police Department is a serious policy position, there are Voxsplainers and MSNBC panelists for you, too.

Although the ranks of the politically addicted are growing, I believe there is still a silent majority of Americans that want something better. They don’t want tribal forever wars that burn down our institutions. What most Americans want, and what keeping the republic will require, is learning new media consumption habits for an age of anger algorithms.

 

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