All is not well in America.

As the dust settles on the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, it’s never been clearer that civility is in short supply.

More than 210 000 Americans have lost their lives to COVID-19, but Trump and his supporters will blame anybody but the White House incumbent, and that’s just one of the issues that America is deeply divided on.

Poking fun at the state of Florida has become a worldwide meme (thanks, Florida Man), but as election day draws nearer, the importance of its voters is becoming increasingly clear.

The swing state could play a huge role in determining the next president, which makes the spread of misinformation all the more worrying.

Guardian reporters Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone are crisscrossing the US “to uncover the fault lines that underpin American politics”, and they’re very much on display in Florida.

The video below is worth watching in full, but it’s particularly jarring to watch elderly Trump fans dismiss the threat of COVID-19 from the 6:50 mark, when it’s their lives that are at most at risk.

R100 says that woman at the start couldn’t define socialism, but she heard it on Fox News, and from the president, so she’s screaming it now.

Time and time again, these anti-masker, ‘Chinavirus’ folks talk about the pandemic as though it was designed specifically to force Trump out of office, and it doesn’t help when Fox News joins in on the fun.

It makes videos like this all the easier to understand.

What a total mess.

[source:guardian]