re: What events of the last decade have changed America the most?

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Trump has a very different 'style' and tends to fight for what he wants. He doesn't let the media set the tone, he goes directly to the people with tweets. I think this has dramatically changed the previous SOP, and have emboldened his base. Would you agree with that?

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I'll have to refer you back to my first post about the rise of social media

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If you would have said 2000-2018, I would have said the 2000 election.

I think a lot of the very deep divisions in this country really ramped up after 2000.

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Over 9/11?

Rise of the social justice warrior after 2008

The smartphone

The smartphone has allowed people to have access to social media 24/7... And the impact of social media on society has been huge. I don't think that we can compare it to anything else.

I think the election of president Obama in terms of him being a bad president is exaggerated. It was huge in the fact he was the first black president, but while I didn't agree with everything he did, there were things I did agree with.

The economy hit rock bottom before he took over so he had to deal with that. The economy was in much better shape when he left than when he took office.

We caught and killed the terrorist who was responsible for the biggest attack by foreigners on American soil ever.

By the time he left office, the US played a huge factor in helping Iraq regain control of areas ISIS had taken control of.

Internationally he was popular.

And whether I agreed with his decisions or not, the one thing I liked about him was that he would take take in all the information his advisors provided him and would evaluate things before making decisions.

I know he was a black democrat and for that alone people think he was horrible and there will never be anything that anyone can say to change your view of him, but he really wasn't THAT bad.

He was a community organizer, not a national leader.

I would put Trump in the same class

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Barack Obama..the man set us back many years

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Can you elaborate? How did he set us back many years?

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I'm saying Trump is the driver after recognizing the power of social media. Until now, politics was driven in large part by trial balloons.
I may have misunderstood, but I thought your contention was that Trump was the symptom.

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24/7 Cable News also played a huge role in electing Trump. They showed his rallies so much that it got to the point where they would just show an empty podium. Meanwhile other candidates couldn't get any oxygen. Cable News treated Trump like he was a police chase or a hurricane making landfall. He arguably got billions in publicity.

I think the rise of 24/7 Cable News in the 90's and Social Media in the last decade fundamentally changed this country forever.

Of course if we're going to go all the way back to the 90's, we might as well bring up Johnny Carson retiring (A very underrated impact), the OJ trial, and the Lewinsky scandal as other major contributors.

Politics and social structure has always been a pendulum.

As far left as we are going right now, the swing back is going to be awesome.

Election of Obama. It fast-tracked the deterioration of our country.