There's hardly any parallel between the type of political content (or corn) that was available on TV in the 90s, and what's found in today's social media. It's not political commentary, it's a constant stream of pure, unfiltered manipulation, lies, brainwashing, prejudice and antisocial behaviour.

Rush Limbaugh started broadcasting in the 80's. Fox News in the 90's. Prior to that you had decades of propaganda against "communists" and anti-war protesters. Prior to that you had blatant lies about what would happen if black people got civil rights. Before that you had blatant lies about women's suffrage. The bullshit has always existed in very large quantities. The common uniting thread for the vast majority of the bullshit is conservative beliefs. They are always doing their most to make the world a worse place for some group or another.

> It's not political commentary, it's a constant stream of pure, unfiltered manipulation, lies, brainwashing, prejudice and antisocial behaviour.

This is exactly what conservative talk radio was like, and it radicalized a bunch of boomers – especially the ones with long car commutes who had limited counter examples. There’s a direct line between the guys joking about eating spotted owls or how feminists were too ugly to worry about rape to the modern environment, or saying that the government was discriminating against white men, but the difference now is scale and variety: now it reaches more people and there are more flavors available so the young woman who would’ve been turned off by Rush instead gets some wellness influencer talking about how birth control causes cancer.