For the past four years, the United States has been lurching from one political outrage to another. Time after time, President Donald Trump’s administration has broken norms or laws, triggering dozens of hot takes and thousands of appalled tweets. Now, as the United States rapidly approaches a presidential election, the attacks on its political process are accelerating; most recently, Trump has declined to commit to a peaceful transition if he loses the vote in November. Morally outraged think pieces and apocalyptic tweets are not going to be enough, but finding another approach has been a struggle.
In an effort to propose a solution, many commenters have started pointing to the lack of a “shared reality” and the influence of media “echo chambers,” suggesting that a common understanding of facts and policy goals is needed to help the country out of its slump. To be sure, these are important considerations—ideally, Americans would be less vulnerable to manipulation, something the country should be working toward. But the idea of a single worldview that everyone shares is both unrealistic and dangerous. Most of the times groups of people have gotten close to such a shared reality, they have used it to propagate destructive ideas.
