I don't know the figures, but post 2008 elections, (as soon as Obama's inauguration got over) there was an immediate ramp up of tea party politics, which started occupying a lot of the air time on TV etc. I am not sure whether it led to increase in traffic.
There is always a boom and bust surrounding presidential election years and viewership/readership of news in the US. It was probably more dramatic this cycle. I do know viewership / listenership was breaking record at many television and radio news stations and so I suspect the fall in numbers will be equal to the climb.
I would love to see an expanded historical context as well, but having lived through it, it sure feels like the Trump era was an absolute explosion of political media, and the Biden administration has felt like a welcome return to normalcy, in the sense that there’s not a controversy or crisis every day.
I don’t recall anything like the Trump years during the Clinton -> Obama years.
Stop watching Fox. I have seen MSNBC and PBS criticise Biden a lot for mot fulfilling his campaign promises like minimum wage and not sending enough vaccines to other countries and lack of action on climate change. Meanwhile I never saw Fox criticize Trump and when they did do it very mildly, he immediately lashed out and pushed even more extreme OAN.
I don't watch Fox. I don't have cable. I don't watch TV.
Like him or hate him, I always knew what Trump was thinking. He was very open. I wish Biden were as well. When he speaks, Biden can barely get a word out of his extremely scripted speeches. Trump had a unique way of speaking, but he was always pretty clear, save for a few exceptions.
Psaki seems to always obscure any question asked. For example, she has repeatedly blamed the GOP for pushing the defunding of police, which is such an epic amount of gaslighting, I'm surprised she wasn't laughed at.
Moreover, it was pretty clear that during the Trump administration, the media saw its role as one of antagonism to 'get to the truth'. During Biden's administration, they've dropped this pretense completely. Instead, they just repeat the white house's messaging without much critical analysis. This is exactly what they did during Obama. And its exactly what they did during Bush. If you recall correctly, during Bush's term, they repeated his lies so often that they sent us to a useless war in the middle east.
This is why I say that the 'return to normalcy' is opaqueness in governance and a return to the media protecting the ruling class. This isn't about party; it's not even about theory of governance. It's about having a president whose views on issues he doesn't articulate directly to me, and a media establishment that is quite happy to repeat lies from democrats or republicans, as long as they have the right pedigree.
I don't think the Trump administration had actual controversies and crises any more often than past administrations--the presence of Trump in the White House was considered a crisis in and of itself by many, which is probably what made otherwise mundane government drama seem more newsworthy.
Who doesn't want to attack Biden? I would think the same forces that attacked Obama over, say, wearing a tan suit or other polarized nonsense would love to do the same to Biden. Surely they could fabricate them same attacks if they wanted?
There was a huuuuuuge jump in polarization when Obama was elected. Which is exactly what we would expect historically, as that is the usual trend as soon as there is any progress on our anti-black racism. Though there was a brief expansion of democracy in heavily black areas after the civil war, the Reconstruction was fought tooth and nail, leading to the rise of the KKK and incidents like the insurrection in Wilmington NC that overthrew a democratically elected, racially integrated local government. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1... After Bush, electing a black man was the basis for a huge rise in white supremacy activity and recruiting, and this was exploited by partisan media in order for partisan media to gain influence and audience.
My education included little history between the civil war in the 1860s and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. But I think that the history of that era is essential for understanding our current politics, as in many ways we are reenacting the same social forces that happened exactly a century ago in reaction to ending slavery.
For that matter, how about the full 4 years? Perhaps there was a matching build up leading up to the election.
Could use more context.