Interestingly, my experience is the opposite (it being limited to FB as far as social media goes), there was quite a lot of left wing "presence" from the 2012 election right up until election day 2016, then a steep falloff after the initial post-election garment-rending ran its course to near silence once we had the assassination attempt and the collusion narrative fizzled. Now there's only a little occasional angst about health care legislation. The right has also toned down quite a lot. But maybe FB just knows I don't like it from either side and they screen it all out for me.jacob wrote: ↑Sat Jul 01, 2017 2:03 pm
I would also note, that liberals are much more politically active on social media now (as far as I can tell) under Trump than they were under Obama. Conversely, conservatives are much less politically active than they were under Obama. There's absolutely a demand for unflattering reporting about the opposition---it's just that it's coming from the other side now. MSNBC has grown spectacularly in viewership since Trump was elected, for example.
I don't think the issue is whether there is both right and left on TV, there is, although it is many outlets versus one. It's the degree of rancor/crudity and hate the respective sides use when covering the opposite side that sets them apart.
And don't discount the newspapers too much. Maybe not too many people read them, but much of the contentious reporting/discussion on TV of late is simply extrapolating from things that appear first in the New York and Washington papers (lately mostly leaks by anonymous sources). They've also set DT a-twittering more than once.
