Corporate Media Pushes Civil War With Team Sport Politics

The news media loves to tell us that the country is more divided than ever, and in some ways that’s true. But it isn’t because of our political differences – it is because of our tribalism – the “team sports” mentality that we’ve attached to our politics. Mike Papantonio is joined by Independent newspaper publisher Rick Outzen to explain more.

Link - https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4703737-do-americans-hate-each-other-enough-to-tear-the-country-apart/

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

The news media loves to tell us that this country is more divided than ever, in some ways that is true, but it's not because of political differences. It's because of our tribalism. The team sports mentality that we've attached to politics. It's gotten to where we dislike people if they're on the other side, Rick. It's got to where we won't even hang out with people if they're on the other side. I call it a caveman mentality because we come from caves. Right? And in cave days, with that mentality, the people in the other cave were our enemies. That's where we've gotten with this. Right?
Well, and you used to have to feel like you needed to get along. We need to figure, maybe we can accept when we had differences, but we would tolerate each other. Where now you can get in, the caves have become bubbles. You're in a bubble now in social media. You're in a bubble where, the clubs you go to, the places you want to be. You know, Thanksgiving dinner, there are certain members of the family aren't invited to the dinner because y'all are gonna disagree.
You can't marry somebody if they're Republican or a Democrat.
Right, right.
So, I'm looking at words that psychologists have used to describe this kind of, it's childlike thinking, inability to critically think, lack of information and depth. Same people who burned the witches. These are phrases that come from people that say, what the hell's happened? I love this one, celebrity thinking. Okay. Celebrity gets on the TV and they say, this is what I think about politics. Well, most of these actors in California, hell, while they were studying theater, they were studying how do I develop a theater personality, everybody else was studying science and history and economics and real courses. But nevertheless, you'll have these Chelsea Handler types come out and say, this is what I think the politics should be. Do you know the story about Chelsea Handler? Look this up. Chelsea Handler, this is not part of her act, her sister said, she literally did not know the difference that there was a sun and a moon. She did not know they were, I'm not making it, take a look at it.
Alright.
This was not part of her routine. This is her sister saying this is real. But nevertheless, Chelsea Handler, who doesn't know the difference, that there's a difference between a moon and a sun, that she's out there advising the celebrity followers about politics. And so if you look at this, this is what the psychologists say are going on right now. These are the factors. This is how they describe it.
Well, and there's money in it. The reason the tribalism works, it's how campaigns done, campaign fundraising is done up and down the ladder. Both sides of the party, they're gonna raise by demonize the other side, demonize whoever they can, and they're gonna be the savior. I'm the one who's got the right idea and you should believe me. And so, it is happening in the news area. It's happening around us. People are figuring out the money that can be made by being in the right tribe.
But it's become vicious. They just came out with a book that I think you and I might have, we did a segment on it. It was the book about stupid white trash people in the, basically that.
That got me a lot. That went viral.
That wasn't the name of it. But basically it was about the writers calling voters who disagree with what he believed, whatever his Democratic principles were.