Part of the problem is that outrage culture has been monetized.
Facebook did that study years ago that demonstrated upsetting news gets more clicks and so the news media is constantly purposefully trying to get your emotions engaged.
Not to help you. Not to change the country. But to keep you sharing articles, get you to watch their videos, get their advertisers more money.
Then we have a social media system where the more you complain about something and point out injustice going on, the better person you are. Then you get into this emotional loop of:
BAD NEWS. I'll talk about it, I'm angry! I did my part now I feel good.
How many people are actually writing their local reps or going to protests? Not many, especially since this news is location specific so why would I in Utah write my senator about something that happened in another state. I wouldn't.
It's very disturbing to watch this unfold all around me, all the time. You can tell who watches news and uses social media these days within 15 minutes of talking to them because they will go into some issue that happened in another state or country that they're upset about that they're also doing nothing about, but for some reason they want to talk to you about it. Particularly if they think it impacts you personally.
This is all a direct consequence of machine learning. That's why you've seen it get so polarizing the last 10 years or so. The algorithms are serving people up rage on a plate and we've become addicted to the emotional high of consuming bad news, talking excitedly about it with others, then moving on to the next outraging thing that happens.
At what point will people decide to live their life instead of allow the news media to strategically control their thoughts and emotions?