In his bestseller, "The Common Good", famous American social critic, philosopher and cognitive scientist, Noam Chomsky, wrote: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” This is applicable to the left vs Right paradigm that's dividing the United States and breathing havoc in the country's public discourse.
Is there a difference?
Is there a difference between the left and the right? On paper, there is. But reality appears to be different. The political elites on both sides of the spectrum seem to be too similar. The Republican Party and The Democratic Party have more in common than their voters would like to admit. Both parties are filled with lobbyists, career politicians and, some would say, career criminals.
The last election made all of this spectacularly obvious. What's the real difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump? The latter, supposedly an anti-establishment candidate is slowly becoming a marionette of the deep state and the former, a career politician with dozens of scandals that have marked her public existence, is a personification of everything that's wrong with the DNC.
What does this mean?
In Chomsky's words, the left versus right paradigm is absolutely perfect for keeping the population passive and "limiting the spectrum of acceptable opinion", but it seems as though the American public discourse has evolved into an entirely different creature. Yes, the spectrum of acceptable opinion on both sides is very limited, but the "lively debate within that spectrum" part of Chomsky's quote does not stand any more. There is no real debate on either of the sides.
And since there is no debate and dialogue, what's left? What's left is nothing more than two echo chambers that continue to produce an almost deafening racket, hypnotizing the entire nation in the process and making it easy for the elite (or what some refer to as "the deep state") to control the public opinion, channeling the nation's anger into two different direction and, consequently, dividing the people.
The people still stand divided and the country's politics are slowly turning into a chaotic mess of contradictions. For as long as each side keeps stubbornly pushing its own narrative, without constructive debate and dialogue, the American public discourse will remain dull and unproductive.