Yeah, we are a nation, but I can definitely see how we might look a bit dysfunctional from the outside.
First and foremost, remember that it is very rare for someone to write an article or post about things that are doing just fine. So you are mostly going to hear about disagreements or angry opponents or laws that are problematic. That kind of content gets more views.
I’ll also say that our 2 party system is practically designed to cause division and arguments. And it is always at its worst during presidential election years. But at the average citizen level, most of us are just going about our lives with no pent up malice for those who don’t see the world the same as us. We definitely have generalizations in our head about people from other areas of the country, but with a few radical exceptions, the vast majority of Americans view ourselves as a nation. Even if we don’t agree on a lot of the details.
Tough question, because there are some great ones.
A recent favorite from the Netflix era has been “Cry Wilderness”. The movie was laughably bad in the first place, but that just made it great for the MST3k treatment.
So many great lines in there. Like the old man talking about how all the animals and nature are his family and friends and they voice the bird responding with “He’s not my friend. I’m not indigenous to this area. Please call the police.” That cracked me up so bad the first time I didn’t hear anything else for at least the next few minutes.
And also the running gag around terribly unsafe firearm handling: “BANG!”
That now goes through my head whenever a show just waves a gun around like an obvious prop instead of at least pretending it could be dangerous.