The Krugman (boldface mine):
No, this story is all about the G.O.P. First came the southern strategy, in which the Republican elite cynically exploited racial backlash to promote economic goals, mainly low taxes for rich people and deregulation. Over time, this gradually morphed into what we might call the crazy strategy, in which the elite turned to exploiting the paranoia that has always been a factor in American politics — Hillary killed Vince Foster! Obama was born in Kenya! Death panels! — to promote the same goals.
For reasons that range from ‘I agree with the backlash’ to ‘my friends/’sources’ would never cynically use bigotry’, a central failure of governance (which is different than government) has been the news media’s inability and unwillingness to identify bigots as a key Republican constituency which is pandered to by Republicans.* Now that the cover for overt bigotry is transforming into ideology (the ‘crazy’), Democratic leaders have decided we’re ‘moving forward, not looking back.’ There will be no accountability for this, so the next generation of Republicans will not have to face the consequences of their rhetoric.
*Chuck Todd’s whining notwithstanding, exposing the underpinnings of why people think what they do even when they would prefer you not to do so is a key function of journalism.
mikethemadbiologist
“Chuck Todd’s whining…”.
It wes Lord Beaverbrook,I belive, who said “Journalism is finding out what other people do not want you to know and telling you, every thing else is public relations”
Important to never forget that Chuck Todd is not an outlier. Remember the NYT public editor, Arthur Brisbane, thought that stating the facts, as opposed to just reporting whatever a politician says without commenting on it being untrue, was so problematic an issue that he asked readers whether or not they thought it should be done. The NYT even referred to it as being a “truth vigilante”.
Our press not doing their job is the biggest problem we’ve got. It makes all the other problems both bigger and harder to rectify.
One of the biggest problems, to me, is that its created bubbles, where “reality” can be tailored to your biases. On my end, the economy is falling because we keep cutting vital services in the name of some phantom Deficit Reduction. Their’s has us being enslaved to China because our Debt is too big. In mine, we’ve continue a pointless war on terror through illegal drone strikes and barely avoided a clusterf*ck in Syria. Their’s has us surrendering to The Muslims any day now. My president is 90’s Repub. Their’s is a radical fasocommiesocialislamoatheist.
Their big scandal is Benghazi. Mine is the NSA.
Their guns are all that protect them and are about to be stripped away. Mine has me afraid to go to theaters, send my child to school, etc. because there are so many scared vigilantes out there that get their fantasies catered to daily.
In theirs, the country’s going to hell for banning Christians and going socialist. Mine is because corporatists and Christian Dominionists are in charge.
How can we even talk to each other now when the supposed arbiters of truth are the one that are feeding these separate worlds? Sure it serve some people well, but its crap for everyone else.
My thoughts excatly, albanaeon.
Our presses are creating two very different worlds. Endgame of the two party system, I guess.
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