Tennessee Tremors: A Microcosm Of Ugly American Politics.
“Today, Tennessee represents the grim culmination of the forces corroding state politics: the nationalization of elections and governance, the tribalism between the two parties, the collapse of local media and internet-accelerated siloing of news and the incentive structure wrought by extreme gerrymandering. Also, if we’re being honest, the transition from pragmatists anchored in their communities to partisans more fixated on what’s said online than at their local Rotary Club.
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American politics have turned very very nasty and it has resulted in a 0 sum game with any win heralded as burying the other side and ‘showing them who is boss’. That is plying out in the Volunteer State to national amazement and disgust at the state of discourse and governance in America. Everything of course is amplified 100 fold on social media to the point of drowning out all other voices of debate that may work for some level of harmony. The politics of urban v. rural are now at war in America’s state houses and Tennessee is the latest flare up be put on blast with surely many more to come.
