Are U.S. politics just an irreparable mess?

Perhaps, but I still think there are some possible solutions. The first and foremost is the way that people consume politics. It's tailored, it's curated, it's cherry-picked, and full of sensationalist half-truths and blatantly politicized axioms; and people gobble it up because it appeals to their tribalist instincts and emotional impulse to react at certain dog-whistles. It's this fault in human nature that compels people to elect soulless self-serving cronies and fuels extremist obstruction and divisiveness within the political machine.

While we can try to censor the media and control the stem of lies people internalize and base their decisions on, that will generally only generate controversy as people will accuse the censors of promoting specific agendas no matter how accurate they are. Ultimately, there needs to be an emphasis on critical thinking and healthy skepticism taught within schools to recognize misinformation, deceitful spins, leading rhetoric, and to collect information from various sources. But most importantly, people need to embrace complexity and ambiguity. There is more than one side to a story, there are rarely ever simple answers, and if a certain scandal is dependent on more than a handful of people remaining quiet to make sense, there is another alternative.

What we have instead of critical thinking and skepticism is outright denial by calling something 'fake news' or demonizing the source, refusing to even engage in the conversation or flocking to specific news companies and social media feeds that agree with our predispositions. We let these faceless entities spoon-feed us our own opinions on a story or topic by framing it through a narrow perspective, omitting details, bringing up irrelevant details, relying on out-of-context clips and soundbites, leading through assumptions, and using the rhetorical appeals of pathos, ethos, and logos to sell us the notion of clear and obvious intent.

Until nuance can be embraced by the people, we'll always be a nation divided

We just need to transfer all of our nukes to Japan so they can return the favor already and America can start over with a glass desert.

I wish I could give you a kneejerk "yes." but I genuinely at this point believe when the older white cohort of white males and their resentments die off there won't be much left standing in our way of trying to FIX this joint. No one under the age of about 45 is voting republican anymore. That should tell you the days of ruin are numbered.

I am an optimist - I like to think anything can be repaired and made better.

Shanghai shivers and murder hornets failed.. let’s start a race war.. - American media..

I don't think it's irreparable, but I think it may take generations to solve.

Take away US from your question and you'll get it right. 😬

As long as folks will quit re-electing people over and over it is

We treat our politics like our favorite football players. We'll but their merch, cheer for them and get upset when someone isn't into them. It's really weird

latinbutterfly yes it is and wound will not heal it will get no better alas until the fester pus that has caused it removed from the white house in the november presidential election

There's not a great deal of hope I see until people stop voting for THEIR criminal. And until politics stops being a career.

For many of us in the rest of the World it really seems that America has totally lost the plot when it comes to its politics

Not after he fixes his hair.

Pretty much