I’m in the middle of listening to a call-in radio show from the mid-1960s. (I can’t yet reveal more specifics.)
Let me reassure anyone who worries about today’s state of discourse that interpersonal attacks, topic-hijacking, and political and personality partisanship are not new phenomena.
At least the host and guest are doing an admirable job eventually steering the discussion back into focus. It’s hard for me to sit through, though.
@mjgardner Right! All you have to do is read Maddow's new book Prequel or listen to the podcast Slow Burn about Watergate and you'll realize 30%-40% of the US population is crazy
I don't think the extremes of public discourse have changed that much over the years, but rather that the Internet (and talk radio in the 90's before that) gave the crankpots much broader reach than they'd ever had before so that now their voices are heard by millions and tens of millions of people rather than just their fellow crankpots.
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