Why We Can't Just Get Along

Can't we all just get along? No. We can't. People will never agree about politics as long as they have different media sources, and there will only be more and more media sources in the future. It was easy to get along in the 1940s with the whole country listening to the same two radio stations and reading the same newspaper—they all believed the same narrative because there was only one narrative presented to them (as biased and propagandized as it may have been).

Now with the internet there are infinite narratives, all with degrees of truth and untruth, bias and propaganda. People see the same events but have wildly different interpretations of them, based on not only the media sources they are currently consuming, but all the thousands of hours of media they consumed in the past (books, blogs, radio, podcasts, TV, videos, online threads, memes, etc.).

There will never be a single narrative the entire country can unite around. It’s a fool’s errand to try to maintain unity. The only peaceful solution may be mass decentralization and secession. There are fifty states, so let them be fifty independent states (or perhaps combine some smaller states). Dismantle the federal government into autonomous states where different people can unite under their shared narratives. People will no longer need to fight those they disagree with and try to change them—just move to a state with like-minded people. Live and let live in peace.