After the January 6th, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol, it seemed clear that the public sphere in the U.S. was being challenged by political extremists. Yet, existing public sphere normative theories provide unsatisfying tools for explaining why the riots occurred. Participants in the contemporary U.S. public sphere do not seem to recognize the legitimacy of their political opponents, and there is an increasing turn toward raw assertion instead of rational deliberation. In this essay, we discuss these shortcomings, focusing on how internet-mediated communication makes basic assumptions about legitimacy and rationality untenable. We settle on the concept of an “assertive turn” in the public sphere and analyze how anti-rationalism is becoming dominant in political discourse. We then argue for a scholarly reckoning with the social reality of 21st century U.S. politics—mainly that there are significant gaps in normative theory when it comes to addressing the assertive turn in the U.S. public sphere.

中文翻译：

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事实确实在乎你的感受：当代美国公共领域的新兴属性中的“自信转向”

在 2021 年 1 月 6 日美国国会大厦发生骚乱之后，美国的公共领域显然受到了政治极端分子的挑战。然而，现有的公共领域规范理论为解释暴乱发生的原因提供了令人不满意的工具。当代美国公共领域的参与者似乎不承认他们的政治对手的合法性，并且越来越多地转向原始断言而不是理性审议。在本文中，我们讨论了这些缺点，重点关注以互联网为媒介的传播如何使关于合法性和合理性的基本假设变得站不住脚。我们确定了公共领域中“自信转向”的概念，并分析了反理性主义如何在政治话语中占据主导地位。