Politics & Power Quote by John Avlon

Avlon’s line reads like a warning label slapped on the cable-news era: the incentives that juice attention are often the same ones that corrode democratic trust. “Good for ratings” is shorthand for outrage, simplification, and perpetual conflict-the cheap calories of political media. The real bite comes from the trade-off he implies without laboring it: when journalism starts behaving like entertainment, the country becomes the prop.

“Self-segregating… into separate political realities” is a pointed escalation. He’s not talking about mere disagreement; he’s describing epistemic drift, where communities don’t just hold different values but consume different facts, different villains, different story arcs. The phrase suggests agency (“self-”) but also a structural nudge: algorithms, partisan outlets, and social identity all reward picking a side and staying there. It’s cultural polarization with a business model.

Then he pivots to the optimistic knife-twist: “the majority… are starting to wake up to the game.” Calling it a “game” frames the chaos as engineered, not inevitable. The subtext is anti-cynical cynicism: yes, the system is rigged for spectacle, but audiences aren’t doomed to be marks forever. Avlon’s intent isn’t to scold partisans as much as to flatter the persuadable middle into seeing manipulation and reclaiming agency.

Contextually, it’s a diagnosis of the post-truth, post-trust landscape-where the media’s feedback loop with politics turns public life into a contest for attention, and the first casualty is shared reality.