Source: CounterPunch
by Jon Grinspan
“There’s one question I get every time I give a talk. I’m a curator of political history at the Smithsonian Institution, and when I discuss the deep history of political division in our country, someone in the audience always asserts that we can’t possibly compare past divisions to the present, because our media landscape is doing unprecedented harm, unlike anything seen in the past. I’m always struck by people’s belief in a placid media landscape in the past, a time of calm before the internet blew everything up. In fact, the most divided period in the history of U.S. democracy – the mid-1800s – coincided with a sudden boom in new communications technologies, confrontational political influencers, widespread disinformation and nasty fights over free speech. This media landscape helped bring the Civil War.” (10/10/24)