Ian O’Hara’s opinion column, “Letters From Your Neighbor” offers Ian’s thoughts on Gulfport politics, local happenings, and broader issues. Eagle Finegan
Vitriol has gotten worse towards politicians in the last few years. Why? Well here are a few reasons:
• People’s distrust of the establishment
• The anti-establishment movement within both extremes of the political parties
• Democratic party rhetoric and propaganda
• Republican party rhetoric and propaganda
• Media silos
• The inability to compromise
• The asymmetrical moralism of politics
• The experience of dynastic powers in political culture
• The removal of the guards that existed in the 20th century
• The adoption of anarchy as a political state
• Post-modernist concepts within the Democratic party structure
• The chronic dystopic view of the future
• Only experiencing the political polarities
• The religiousness in politics on the left
• Constituents’ political realignment
• The existence of social media
• The anti-intellectual movement within the Republican party
• The hypocrisy within the Democratic parties’ policies
• The unwillingness to understand science, or just disavowing science as a whole
• Futurism as a reality
• The pandemic
• Loss of respective expertise
• The loss of respective authority
• The unwillingness to recognize consequences of policies, good, bad, or indifferent
• The chronic narcissism within our population as well as the political culture
• The perception of economic disparity
• Culture wars
• The change of discourse in language of politics
• The feeling that government is not listening or responding
• Devaluing public service by using the word, “job”
• Fear
I’ll discuss these issues in later columns.
All these ideas combined are a threat to each other and create vitriol within the political culture we are experiencing now. This is not new, just different. This occurred in 1829 with the realignment of the political parties and the election of Andrew Jackson; in the 1860s with the Civil War; in the 1930s with the Depression; and in the 1960s with the civil rights and the anti-war movements. What the above dates have in common are a population that is tired, anxious, and angry.
This is not our existential threat; this is a small buildup of cultural, political, psychological, and economic factors. We are in the midst of a great change in the way that we communicate, and in the way we get information, as well as the psychological factors that go along with the aforementioned reasons. Everyone has agency (a top-down power structure) in America, and I don’t believe that each side recognizes that. What goes along with anxiety and anger is the concept of emotional collectivism. This is our existential threat. We can only improve the world through individual action, not through group action or governmental force.
Humans are slow to change, and change begets fear. And fear begets vitriol and chaos.
Sincerely.
Your neighbor, Ian O’Hara
