I apologize, I stopped reading about halfway through your post.

A lot of the call outs in this thread to delete your social media go outside and touch grass are spot on. You’re way too deep in social media and the 24hr news cycle.

I work in an industry that is very much conservative. Even the devoted MAGA people I meet are generally very nice if you speak with them outside of politics. A handful of the ones that seek out and want to talk politics (which is rare) are calm and I usually can get them to acknowledge the shortcomings of Trump when I start questioning the inconsistencies of his policies.

Our politics have grown courser and more extreme because of social media and the news cycle. The MAGA politicians of the Republican party take extreme positions to get attention. Moderation is ignored because it doesn’t grab headlines.

Yes Republican policies and very bad for our nation. But it doesn’t mean common citizens share those views. Usually it is much more nuanced.

Delete your social media, turn off the TV, go outside, talk with people. Is it hateful? No. You’re being lied to.

I would argue that any actual increased aggression could simply be attributed to the state of the country (the US federal government is broken) and the fact that most US americans are not having their needs met financially. The billionaires who run the system dramatically increased the prices of everything that’s not optional to pay for: food, housing, insurance, etc…

People feel helpless, overworked, and angry.

A large portion of men are not doing mentally well at all. Increasing suicide rates and decreasing employment participation are just some of the indicators here.

Because they feel weak, there is a tendency to gravitate towards strongmen and dreams of dominance which lead to aggressive antisocial behaviors.

There does not appear to be anyone attempting to solve any of these problems main because those who could fix the problems are the ones who are able to utilize these fears for personal gain. Monetarily and or for political power. A subset of these people are amplifying these problems for the same purpose, personal gain.

I think the combination of access to anonymous social media, or at least access to media without any physical interaction, leads to a lack of empathy and hostile behavior. Then you have the echo chamber effect where any group has its beliefs amplified and the extreme members get the most attention. It is trivial to react hostilely and leave a comment like “Go kill yourself” on someone’s post. The other person is just a block of text to you. When I write something I have to reread it a few times to determine “How will someone misinterpret this negatively?” and sometimes I feel like I’m writing for an audience of rabid dogs just itching to bite me. All too often even the most innocuous comment will still get a ridiculously hostile response. I’d say this isn’t just an American issue on the internet either. I see it with Europeans and Asians. It is a human issue.

Sadly now negativity has become a kneejerk response. Every stranger’s motivations are a personal attack on you, everything is part of some grand conspiracy aimed at you, etc. America’s obsession with individualism vs society as a whole seems to have reduced everyone to a crazed survivalist hiding in their bunker.

“many Americans are physically beating their children”

I’d say this is MUCH less now than in the past and is now strictly enforced.

“you can’t even safely walk alone in public during the night”

Depends on where you live. There have always been “bad neighborhoods” in cities and this is true around the world. I have never felt in danger walking alone at night around my area. I’m sure there are neighborhoods in, say, Paris or Marseille you wouldn’t walk around by yourself at night.

Car-centric infrastructure and American individualism have made USAmericans isolated and decimated communities and that has lead to a lot of bad things

The Americans I’ve met in real-life were quite chill, and reasonable. But on the Internet I too have a feeling that they are expressing stressfulness more. It seems to me they can freely talk about the things they hate, and they do it, to the point many things on the Internet about the US are those. And it’s hard to touch grasses in Winter.

Using the unsocial ‘social’ networks?

1. We’re a lot of different cultures all mixed in over a large swath of land. That melting pot regularly reaches a boiling point.

2. We pray to Capitalism. It is all important. All else is secondary to the almighty dollar. Many of our politicians are bought out and our legislation is determined by money. Greed guides our decision making processes.

3. The internet has broken many of our brains, although that’s not just an American thing. I’ve been around long enough to have witnessed our politics go absolutely bonkers and the timeline coincides with everyone starting to carry around devices that give them access to the internet at all times. We simply aren’t educated enough as a whole to be immune or resistant to misinformation.

Personally, I don’t see our situation getting any better any time soon. It will probably get quite a bit worse, actually.

It’s always been the case that they fight over the screps billionaires leave for them. But traditionally they had so much friendliness and companionship in and between communities but as with everything since globalisation it was polarised by information tech. Megacorps are the new tribes and that will ruin the planet if it happens, well, already have basically. Any form of collaboration would help but it’s so cool that competition breeds competence and great products right? Not remove respect for each other and nature right?

The short answer is that we haven’t really become any more hateful or cruel, however a VERY vocal minority of Americans have lost their goddamned minds and want to drag the rest of us down with them. Those are the people you’re hearing from and they make the rest of us look awful

It’s a deliberate push by the elites. They don’t want us cooperating, because that would lead to revolt. They fill our media with identity politics, fear and hatred so that we’re too bitter to work together. It works beautifully for them.

40+ years ago the Republicans started a war against education and intellectualism. They won.

Propaganda. Mostly funded by the rich, in order to, of course, stay on the top of the class hierarchy. Easier to be a filthy evil oligarch when the “rabble” just fight each other and don’t pay any attention to you, or worse, kiss your boots.

Because our empire is dying