Tim Shriver:
Well, I think there’s a couple of factors that are new. The first is social media, especially for — social media for our young people.
Young people are picking up their phones and they’re seeing it. He’s disgusting. She’s a jerk. What an idiot. And all the name-calling and the relentless surround sound of contempt, it has a corrosive effect not just on our political debates, but on the mental health of our country, and especially of our young people.
I think the second thing that’s different is the virulence of our disagreements in the past have been serious and painful and destructive. There’s no question about that. But what we seem always to have had is this sense in which the American spirit would somehow get us through. Today, that optimism has receded.
And now we’re looking at a situation where people think the division is not just about a policy issue or about a cultural issue, but it’s about us. It’s — we’re in an us-versus-them country, an us-or-them country. And that level of despair about our capacity to solve problems and heal is what leads to increases in violence, the risk of family division, mine included, that have been torn apart by this level of contempt, this surround sound of judgment and dehumanization.
So we have had tough times in the past, but this is our time.
