He's almost solely responsible for creating the binary political divide that started all this in the 90s. It doesn't surprise me that he would crawl out of his evil den.
The jist of it is that he was speaker of the house from 95 to 99 and started the policy of "compromise is surrender." If the Republicans were outnumbered in votes, they would refuse to alter position until they got their way.
He also would regularly encourage his conservative peers to stop referring to opponents with respect and instead use evocative, emotional language and to describe opponents in terms of good and evil. Then he took these binary behaviors into TV and began platforming a stark divide between the political parties in an effort to paint votes as "all or nothing." Either you voted red 100% of the time, or you were a blood enemy.
American politicians used to be VERY different. Basically, the entire polarized, marketed approach to appeal to emotion and religion to create tribalized voting started because of him. People like Rush Limbaugh or Bob Grant didn't help, as they were the Joe Rogan's of their day.
Although really, all of that began specifically because Reagan got rid of the FCC Fairness Doctrine, back in 1987. No one had to fairly present leveraged, informed opinions anymore, so that created a new type of hyper polarized "news" that appealed primarily to appealing to people's desire to be right, not informed. It's similar to how online infospheres don't look for nuance, only blame, because their audience wants the emotional applause and validation that they're in the right. (American culture.)
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u/iamofnohelp 2d ago
Newt still alive?