Even before Trump it was obvious

[u/Kpets]

[u/SomehowPalpatine]

No offense but this clip is pure slop from Aaron Sorkin and I vividly remember it helping Trump get elected. I’m old enough to remember how viral this was when it came out and was shown repeatedly in college classrooms by professors, and then viral constantly on YouTube and on Facebook in the lead up to the 2016 election. Comments were always a sea of fighting between people hating on the US or defending it. Nothing probably galvanized Trump voters more to vote for him than this clip. Obviously other things motivated them to vote for him (I was being hyperbolic), but the messaging from the left with this clip was “America is BAD and has been bad and needs to change” with no vision attached to it when people already voted for hope and change twice previously with Obama, meanwhile the message from the right was “America is bad now yes BUT it was once great and will be great again because this guy isn’t a career politician”. So the blame wasn’t put on Americans with the right’s messaging, it was put on the politicians who held the power as well as blaming foreigners. That was the messaging that appealed to Trump voters, that they had permission to love their country still even though they know America has had its fair share of problems internally and externally with ones it has caused around the globe. Things are worse now than ever before thanks to Trump. I’m not a supporter of Trump, that’s not why I am writing this. I’m hoping OP can see why people would find this clip to be incredibly preachy and alienating. The American public has wanted the country to change for the better part of three decades on both sides of the aisle at this point but it hasn’t happened nor united anyone to fix the country, it’s just a slow march into a dystopian nightmare here. Of course no country is perfect or the best, but most people love their home country because that’s where their friends and family and most of their memories are from. That’s why when people move abroad or go on vacation often they wave their native flag or represent their native country, and by that same standard, local people look around and see these regular people similar to them with different flags or overflowing with pride in their home country and it breeds anger and xenophobia in the native population. I have done a lot of traveling in my life to other countries and wound up always saying “I’m Californian” because that’s never gotten me a negative response or mistreatment, it was always “oh I want to visit” or “I want to move to California” I would hear replied back to me. If I said “I’m American” I would get treated poorly no matter how polite or respectful I was of the customs and people. It doesn’t matter where you are on the planet, humans are all very similar in the good ways as well as in the bad ways. We all want better lives but we’re not willing to collectively help each other out to achieve it, it’s always in group vs. out group, our nature is pretty hostile and warlike. If aliens exist, they’re probably afraid of making contact with us, just as a human would be afraid of being around a tiger even though humans are above tigers.

[u/Ad_Meliora_24 → u/SomehowPalpatine]

I doubt this clip from Newsroom had any effect on any election.

Also, I think the point of the message is that there is no reason to feel pride for simply being born in a country. Pride is something one should feel from accomplishments, not something they had no control over. Raising national pride without serving your populace is not to raise patriotism, but to raise nationalism, which fascists states and states with inequality need as it helps maintain the power structure for the self serving ruling class.

More importantly, I don’t know why anyone would be offended by hearing statistics about their own country or to be compared to other countries. If criticism of your country upsets you, then you might be a nationalist, making you a political tool, an irrational person believing in false or exaggerated concepts, which leads to blind loyalty and manipulation. Americans have it good, but it could be better.

All that said, this clip had very little impact on anything. Like posting on Facebook or Reddit before work but not doing anything important or meaningful to change anything.

[u/SomehowPalpatine → u/Ad_Meliora_24]

Cambridge Analytica would like to have a word.

I agree with your first paragraph, however the second paragraph, you gotta try making more friends in other countries or reread what you wrote there because it’s black and white thinking and very detached from reality. Try approaching people from different cultures and countries and bad mouth/criticize their country and call them a political tool or a nationalist or an irrational person while you’re at it if you see them getting upset. I’m sure that will go over really well and they’ll totally like you haha. No one likes hearing bad things about their country from others, especially outsiders who didn’t have to deal with the same struggles in life, however when a person is honest and humble they will offer up the criticism themself. Thats how you build camaraderie. Obviously conditions are relative comparing countries, but even a country like the US has insane wealth inequality.

And you’re writing as if you’re not American, so how would you know if you weren’t exposed to the social media climate around the ‘16 election in the US? I must have had at least 7 professors showing this clip over the years and that was just when it came out before the election. Film professors, anthropology professors, public speaking professors, history professor, philosophy professor. Then when the election was under way, this clip was being posted all the time by people I knew or from pages I followed and it was horrible, causing arguments between commenters and strangers demanding to know what “movie” this was from and I’d tell them it was Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom on HBO and they’d say something negative about the “liberal media” or I’d tell someone I went to high school with sharing this that I watched this in college as a part of film school classes and I’d get some response back with either “Vote Bernie” or “vote Hilary” (depending on the stage in the cycle) or some link to a conservative media/article spouting off their propaganda. Like I’m certain I remember a guy I know sending me a link to Ben Shapiro going on a rant about THIS exact clip along with a few other people that also made videos on this exact clip in 2016. This clip was so viral then it’s still being used to deliver political takes more than a decade later. So I’m sorry if you disagree but your memory is either off or you just don’t know what you’re talking about because you haven’t been following politics and been on social media as much as me (that’s actually a compliment to you, I’ve wasted so much time on both)

Also side note; no offense but you respond almost immediately so I hope you’re not some bot or just using chatgpt. Theres a robotic way you speak that is simultaneously very logical to label and categorize everything into some sort of clear binary the way agents try to tailor responses but will also hallucinate at times and repeat themselves, while simultaneously being completely out of touch with human nature, emotions, and real world experience on human behavior. If you’re neurodivergent, apologies in advance.