Originally posted by cdtm
That is, why do they take it so seriously? Get angry by it?
You cover so many things in your post. However, what is your actual question if we boil it down into something more palatable?
"Why do people care so much about a thing that has the largest and greatest impact on everything in their lives, outside of their direct family unit?"
When the question is framed like that, it becomes much more obvious why people care about politics so much.
Originally posted by cdtm
I've seen people proudly show off pictures of them standing with Yakuza (Who murder people over the course of their careers) on a vacation,
Most likely, that Yakuza didn't kill anyone. Yakuza don't really exist like that, anymore. That's Hollywood shullbit. And I think Chinese cinema still plays up the violent Yakuza (if you got exposure from Chinese films).
Originally posted by cdtm
...or laugh about about what happened to Benoit (Brain damaged from too many bumps, murder/sucide).
People who do that (laughing at situations like Benoit's) generally have a jaded and less-forgiving mentality. They aren't necessarily terrible people. But some are.
Originally posted by cdtm
Even things like the Enron frauds don't get them riled up like Trump/Hillary shenanigans.
You're probably too young to remember how truly big the Enron scandal was. Weeks upon weeks of massive news coverage. Here's the deal about Enron: it, coupled with 9-11, was the first major "internet phenomena" with tons of news coverage popping up, tons of op-eds (online), forums buzzing, nascent memes, and so forth. You were probably too young and also disconnected from the budding online information machine to remember how truly big the Enron Scandal was back in the day. The information age was just taking off back then, though.
Originally posted by cdtm
I don't know, it just seems to me that gender designation at college gender studies classes, or whether kneeling is offensive or free speech, isn't really "that" important compared to other things you can point out...
Hardly anyone actually spends time on those things except Men's Rights groups, red pillers, feminists, and libtards. What you think people are spending a lot of time on is more telling of things that stick out in your mind rather than the actual time people spend on those other topics. And there's nothing wrong with your perceptions. This stuff is probably annoying as hell to you.
By political news coverage, Trump and things surrounding Trump, is the biggest topic covered: by far.
Unfortunately, you have to go to anti-liberal media sites to find people compiling information on this:
For this study, MRC analysts looked at all 505 evening news stories that mentioned President Trump or his administration in January and February. Out of 851 total minutes of airtime devoted to the administration, the networks spent almost one-fourth of it (204 minutes, or 24%) on the Russia investigation, eclipsing other major topics such as the economy, immigration reform, and even the gun debate.
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2018/03/06/tv-vs-trump-2018-lots-russia-and-91-negative-coverage
Anyway, hope I didn't piss you off by disagreeing with you. I went after your ideas, not you.