The Landscape Shift

 There on Wednesday....poll-guru Frank Luntz attempted to run a focus group chat after President Joe Biden gave his unity-speech.  

His effort was geniune....at least he attempted to make this group of roughly a dozen folks an even split.

Control?  I would suggest (having watched clips of this)....five minutes into it....he was losing control, and by the 15th minute....things were going in a crappy way.

To make this work....Zoom was employed, which meant people sat comfortably in their homes or apartments and gave their commentary from long distances.

Shouting?  Yes....without any doubt.

Facts and counter-facts going around and disrupting the conversation?  Yes.

Just my impression....maybe at the 15th minute, it was all just a bungled-up mess.  

Explaining what has happened?  It's rather simple.

In the 1980s....a Republican and Democrat could sit at a table....pick up six topics and generally discuss the matter, with the difference of opinion amounting twelve inches for the landscape.  We really weren't that far apart on the six topics.

In the 2000-era....the same two could meet....pick up six topics and find that on half of them, we were pretty far apart.  The landscape?  Instead of a 12-inch situation....the landscape was now three-feet.  

In the 2016-period....the same two could meet....with none of the six topics being marginally agreeable.  The landscape?  It's close to twenty-feet.

Today, the two could meet....working with twenty topics, and find nothing agreeable.  That landscape problem?  It's now closer to sixty-feet.

What I expect in 2024....same two meeting?  A hundred topics with not a single one being agreeable.  The landscape approaching.....nearly 1,000 feet apart.

The Biden unity speech?  Maybe it would have worked in the 1990s timeframe....but we've advanced way past that point.