In the 1993 film Groundhog Day, the main protagonist gets caught in a time loop, repeating the same day over and over again. This is what the American public discourse is slowly turning into. Are Americans in for another Groundhog year? It definitely seems that way.
Engineered hysteria
The American media is constantly engineering hysteria, with the president Donald Trump in the epicenter of it. Sensationalist news stories are just the tip of the iceberg though. The entire public space is polluted with cheap entertainment and heavily-opposing views, perpetuated by the media that has divided itself into two main parts: the far-left media and the far-right media.
Objective, unbiased journalism is almost non-existent, as is constructive dialogue. With Trump being the easiest target and, arguably, the most popular man in the world, he is in the center of attention, serving as an axis around which the two polar opposites, the far-left and the far-right, rotate mercilessly, bouncing ideas and thoughts off each other, with little regard for the opposing side of the argument.
The consequence of this mess is, predictably, hysteria. A single glance at the most popular online news outlets would lead one to conclude that the world is on the verge of imploding, which is far from the truth.
Insanity and panic
Someone once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." One can't help but conclude that is what's happening in today's America.
This insanity is created, generated, distributed and spread by the media.
Donald Trump is just a vehicle for that insanity, a way to transport it and etch it into the society's collective consciousness, inadvertently causing panic, creating chaos and breeding havoc. The average American is torn apart between the two opposing sides and left no choice but to pick one.
In the meantime, the country itself is being further divided into two echo chambers that continue to make almost deafening noise, annihilating any and all chance for real change.
America needs to calm down and reintroduce dialogue and constructive criticism into its public discourse. A public figure like the late Christopher Hitchens, for example, would do good for this country and perhaps a few dozen of public individuals with similar intellectual capacity would help relax the hectic ambient the American society currently finds itself in.