So wait - after a respiratory virus, let's call it SARS-C, that killed > 10% (25/200 = 12.5%) of their population, they split into two major groups that are now at each other's throats, when before they had a generally-ok alliance / relationship?
Where have I seen this before.. Think.. Think..
No, the outright political warfare in the US you are alluding to began much earlier than 2020. Things were getting quite ulhealthy already back in 2015/2016, probably even earlier. The "black swan" for this deep division was (I believe) not the epidemic, but the proliferation of the smartphone and social media, and the earlier transitioning of traditional news to infotainment format.
I'd attribute it to 2008 financial collapse, and in general, the pressure put on the middle class that began a decade earlier.
And I genuinely believe blaming things on social media and news is just a diversion so we wouldn't look at the main issue.
I always viewed social media as a catalyst, not the main cause. We've always have this at smaller scales / more local scales, throughout the human history. Social media just lets bob meet alice in a virtual plane, while they couldn't meet and share ideas before. But the ideas, even if reinforced by tech, were always there.
Earlier than that, this brand of social/economic/racial/sexual/etc aggrievement and reactionary politics was bred via 80s-90s AM talk radio.
The talking points that were ascendent in the Tea Party era to 2016, and are still ascendent today, were honed at that time in that sphere. Limbaugh said words 30-40 years ago that breathed life into a reactionary movement 20 years later and shaped its theory.
You can keep following the thread back, but I think this form of weaponized aggrievement took its shape at that time, its literal memes were potent and virulent back then, they just needed the right environment to really spread.
2008 was the big one, but i really think the ball started rolling after 9/11...
Really though it all started with the federalist papers.
As this article shows, it already started in the chimp-human common ancestor.
Knowing what we know now, imagine how much it would have accelerated back then if the elites hadn’t been able to smother out the Occupy movement. Wild to think about
Quite the opposite. In my observations, the time shortly after OWS was a major inflection point.
I mean, it's understandable; having to endure a lockdown _with_ Doordash was really rough on our civilization.
Ya, imagine not being able to pay for the doordash because your job was nonessential. Real rough indeed being hungry.