[asjdflakjsdf]

So, i get the sense that the political shape of the US has led to a kind of proxy war in the media. I see it as a powder keg and I really can't see it ever changing without exploding into something more real, like a succesful foreign invasion, an actual civil war, or a dictator taking power etc. Obviously some kind of regulation would be a much better approach but in my pessimism, I don't think that will ever happen in the current political climate.

Just to clarify, I don't think any of the events listed above will ever happen in our lifetime. I am just using them as a way to reinforce my expression of non-expectation on any real change to this in our new found normality.

[gpsx]

I agree it will take something dramatic to fix the divisive political environment in the US. I would add one possible mechanism to your list which I am sure we all hope is not the solution - the country uniting against a common enemy in a war, the obvious choice for now being China.

[throwaway894345]

> the obvious choice for now being China

A significant portion of our economies are interdependent at the moment. The US pays China to manufacture our products because the Chinese have fewer scruples about human rights or pollution (which obviously implies that our American scruples are at best superficial). So the only way I see us coming to a head with China is if we decide that we care about people (workers and the environment that we all depend on) and make China account for their pollution and human rights costs (either by forbidding trade with them outright or making them pay steep import taxes to level the playing field with countries who don't profit off of slave labor and pollution, including hypothetical US domestic manufacturing). That might make China desperate.