> Something happened in the last twenty years or so that increased our polarization.
I'd expand the timeframe to 30 years and say the biggest contributors to this are the rise of neoliberal politics combined with globalization leaving a lot of working class people "behind" while corporations made ever more and more profits, combined with the rise of the Internet where the most outrageous content gets the most clicks/likes/eyeball-time with next to no institutions to provide as "quality filter".
Stuff like antivaxxers, flat earthers, "great exchange of the white people" and other conspiracy bollocks was relegated to physical mailings of fringe groups naturally limiting its distribution, nowadays the reach capability is in the millions for everyone.
In addition, countless fuck-ups (aided by propaganda) demolished trust into journalism and experts in general, which led to the erosion of fact-based viewpoints as the base for democratic discourse.
The actual term is "great replacement", and it's a conspiracy theory regarding an alleged systematic replacement of native Europeans (i.e. "whites"). The Christchurch shooter was a big fan, apparently.
I'd expand the timeframe to 30 years and say the biggest contributors to this are the rise of neoliberal politics combined with globalization leaving a lot of working class people "behind" while corporations made ever more and more profits, combined with the rise of the Internet where the most outrageous content gets the most clicks/likes/eyeball-time with next to no institutions to provide as "quality filter".
Stuff like antivaxxers, flat earthers, "great exchange of the white people" and other conspiracy bollocks was relegated to physical mailings of fringe groups naturally limiting its distribution, nowadays the reach capability is in the millions for everyone.
In addition, countless fuck-ups (aided by propaganda) demolished trust into journalism and experts in general, which led to the erosion of fact-based viewpoints as the base for democratic discourse.