> Gurri is no fan of elites or of centralized authority, but he notes a constructive feature of the pre-digital era: a single “mass audience,” all consuming the same content, as if they were all looking into the same gigantic mirror at the reflection of their own society.
Something I think we overlook is that America was more fractious prior to the mid-20th century, but the stakes were lower because our institutions were more distributed and more local. The federal government had a vastly smaller scope back then, but so did nationwide and multinational corporations. Differences in world view are less significant when the bureaucrats and executives with power over your life live nearby instead of in another city and state. Our current structure, with a homogenous federal government and nationwide corporations arose against the backdrop of that unity.
What I see missing from Haidt's analysis is increased federalism and localism as a solution. Aside from maybe California, our individual states remain vastly less fractious than the nation as a whole. Here in Maryland, for example, our Republican governor has an approval rating over 70% in both rural and urban areas. That's not because the state doesn't have ideological diversity--a third of the state voted for Trump. But the extremes are compressed compared to the nation as a whole--Baltimore isn't San Francisco but neither is Carroll County rural Alabama. Not only that, it's hard to get folks in Carroll County worked up about Baltimore they way they get worked up about San Francisco, and vice versa.