Technology is playing a key role in the US political system. We’ve opened a pandora’s box with technological politics. Unlike the utopian visions we once had for tech like the internet, the reality was that we let loose the worst of our inhibitions and enshrined a system that prioritized extremism. Tech has democratized our media, removing the gatekeepers who’ve kept American civility since the liberal consensus after WWII – and that’s a recipe for disaster. We created this system, and we chose to polarize. Political polarization playlist:    • US Political Pola…   ————————————————————

See pinned comment and its replies for notes, responses, and errata

Bibliography: Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2018), ebook. https://amzn.to/2XsIyXg Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008), ebook, scribd. https://amzn.to/3qb0Hs3 Gabriella Coleman, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous (London: Verso, 2014), audiobook. https://amzn.to/3cTFPjE Megan Condis, Gaming Masculinity: Trolls, Fake Geeks, and the Gendered Battle for Online Culture (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2018). https://amzn.to/3gCCSpO Jeffrey Hart, The Making of the American Conservative Mind: National Review and Its Times (Wilmington, Del.: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2014), ebook. https://amzn.to/3wGtJ5i Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), audible. https://amzn.to/2SIJSZ2 Ezra Klein, Why We’re So Polarized (London: Profile Books, 2020), audiobook. https://amzn.to/31sqFLB Daniel Lucks, Reconsidering Reagan: Racism, Republicans, and the Road to Trump (Boston: Beacon Press, 2021), audiobook. https://amzn.to/3wHugnp Andrew Marantz, Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation (New York: Viking Press, 2019), audiobook. https://amzn.to/3iUfu90 D.J. Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold War (Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press, 2014), ebook. https://amzn.to/3cQKene Angela Nagle, Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right (Winchester, UK: Zero Books, 2017), audible. https://amzn.to/3gG162I Kathryn Olmsted, Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009). https://amzn.to/2unDgjI Parmy Olson, We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency (New York: Back Bay Books, 2012), audiobook. https://amzn.to/3vOMcLT Richard M. Perloff, The Dynamics of Political Communication: Media and Politics in a Digital Age, 2nd ed. (2013; New York: Routledge, 2018). https://amzn.to/3cV6U65 Brian Rosenwald, Talk Radio’s America: How an Industry Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United States (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2019), audible. https://amzn.to/3gEnVnl ————————————————————

SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE VIDEOS: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_c… Support the channel through PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/CynicalHistorian or by purchasing MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/the-cyni… LET’S CONNECT: Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/cynicalhistorian Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cynicalcypher88 Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CynicalHistory/ Discord: https://discord.gg/Ukthk4U Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cynical_History

Chapters 0:00 vignette 1:59 intro 3:40 counter-arguments 6:54 take-aways 8:00 sourcing 9:20 new right and the john birch society 15:42 talk radio 12:36 cable news 27:23 internet activism 28:17 terror 29:38 new media 30:18 social media 37:42 dark underbelly 40:06 filter bubbles 40:35 hashtags 41:39 tumblrization 43:36 4chan 45:35 alternative right 46:32 gamergate 50:22 adpocalypse 51:08 2016 55:24 deplorables 58:00 conspiracism 1:00:06 demagoguery 1:01:46 2020 1:04:39 election denialism 1:07:41 censor dystopia 1:08:49 where we are 1:09:10 future? 1:09:30 conclusion