I’m not sure about this, but I think there’s a pretty good and absolutely foregone conclusion that the world is actually extremely fucked up in new ways, growing in metastatic ugliness every year, and that it really is this Bad News that people are turned off by.
To me this seems like one of those “reality has a liberal bias” or “the positive aspects of negative thinking” - mainly that education and intellect are anticorrelated with happiness, that there are very few happy and informed people.
I’m not a news guy or a liberal but I think there’s a lot of ink being spilled over a phenomenon that could be explained simply by: the world is a very fucked up place and people are getting tired of hearing about it.
I don't think this is necessarily true -- if you limit your sources to "good" ones (thoughtful, reliable, with minimal political agenda -- I'd include the economist and a handful of substack writers in this mix) then you can be informed without needing to expose yourself to the awful deluge of mainstream crap. So maybe you can be somewhat happy (if your definition of happiness depends upon you not being engaged in the culture war), but still informed and intelligent.
The problem, however, is the impact this change in political reporting has on actual politics. That, I'm not sure how to solve.
It used to be that pre-election debates were for nerds and policy wonks. Now everyone watches them, but all substance has been removed. Debates themselves may even cease to exist.
The world isn't without problems, but certain things (life expectancy, income, education, literacy, etc.) got a lot better after the industrial revolution.
To me this seems like one of those “reality has a liberal bias” or “the positive aspects of negative thinking” - mainly that education and intellect are anticorrelated with happiness, that there are very few happy and informed people.
I’m not a news guy or a liberal but I think there’s a lot of ink being spilled over a phenomenon that could be explained simply by: the world is a very fucked up place and people are getting tired of hearing about it.