found online by Raymond
From Dave Dubya:
The most egregious treason committed by the Party of Trump is not limited to their corruption, kleptocracy, or kakistocracy by the worst, least qualified, and most unscrupulous citizens. It’s not even in their fealty to Putin.
Putin and the Trump Administration will be gone eventually. But what will remain?
The Party of Trump and their legions of Angry White Americans are at war with our Constitution’s First Amendment. The founders knew a free press is vital to inform the citizens of democratic representative republic, as well as to question and speak truth to power. There is no place for this freedom in the far Right’s plan for totalitarian dominance.
There is some merit in the conservative claim that “mainstream media” treats them unfairly. Sometimes it does belittle their religious beliefs, criticize every aspect of their politicians’ lives, promote liberal viewpoints over conservative ones, give liberals a pass, etc. On the entertainment side of things, there isn’t much representation of explicitly and meaningfully conservative or Christian viewpoints, especially not in a positive manner. On the journalism side, it’s fair to say that liberals get away with non-answers and hypocrisy and perhaps misbehavior more easily than conservatives do.
But when it comes to explaining why and what to do about it, conservatives reveal that they are no better (at best) and might even deserve some of the treatment that they get.
As for why, T. Paine claims in a related post that “the overwhelming majority of professors are leftists set on indoctrinating our bright but ignorant children.” Some conservatives believe that liberals fear the “truth” (Christianity), want to destroy it, and want to live in sin. Others say that mainstream media has become an arm of the Democratic party, so it is obligated to further the party’s interests.
Never mind the hypocrisy of those who criticize (immensely overstated) indoctrination by liberal professors while giving a pass to religion, which is usually passed on by parents to their children from when they are young (when minds are malleable, understanding is limited, and choices are not their own) to when they are adults (far longer than the average person spends in college). Never mind the gall of those who claim to know the One Truth but are utterly unable to provide hard evidence, who condemn others for sinful behavior while ignoring their own and supporting politicians who engage in it regularly, who can’t just let other people do what they want with their own bodies and lives if they aren’t hurting anyone. The first two explanations (note that both are effectively attacks on others) are utter nonsense unworthy of serious consideration, though they do tell us what sort of unreasonable expectations some conservatives have of the media.
The last explanation is not ridiculous on its face, but does demand proof. If mainstream media is an arm of the Democratic party, we should find significant, routine collusion between top politicians and media leaders to spin actual news stories in favor of Democrats and against Republicans, ignore important information that would make Democrats look bad, advance Democratic ideology, etc. Does that happen? Perhaps. But that brings us to what conservatives have determined to be the solution to liberal bias: conservative bias.
Yes, if one has a problem with news that distorts the facts, spins stories, asks tough questions of opponents and easy questions of allies, attacks innocent people, issues brief half-apologies when shown to be wrong, regularly confers with a political party, and other decidedly non- or anti-journalistic behaviors, clearly the solution is to establish and unfailingly support a media empire that does exactly that (and worse) for one’s own end of the political spectrum.
As we can see with the popularity of Fox News and lesser conservative outlets that do not even make an *attempt* to seem objective or fair, conservatives don’t really have a problem with bias. They simply have a problem with liberal bias. Their rage is very clearly directed at their political opponents, not at the failure of our media in general to do the jobs we want it to do: report the facts, keep the government honest, doggedly pursue answers etc.
To be fair, much of this comes down to commentators rather than actual journalists, but the same is true of bias in other outlets. Of course, since it’s the commentators who make a name for themselves, who say the outrageous or at least provocative things, who get the clicks and the views and the ad revenue, it’s the commentators we often imagine when we think of journalism, especially the journalism of our political opponents. Still, being a commentator is not an excuse for the sort of behavior that we see from people like Hannity, especially not on a platform that should be respectable. A reasonable society would not elevate such voices or, indeed, even pay attention to them, but here we are.
So what can we really do? If you ask the average person what journalists (and the news media as a whole) should do, he’ll probably give you some good, general standards. We all have some understanding of what the job is. But when it comes to (1) attempting to hold these groups to those standards and (2) succeeding in the task, people fail miserably, largely because of emotion. It feels better to nod along with a political ally who says the things that we really “feel to be true” than it does to condemn him for overstepping in his role. Pleasure is stronger than principle.
I won’t pretend that this problem is unique to conservatives, but it couldn’t be more obvious to me that they have become far, far worse in this regard. Everything they don’t like is now “fake news”; it’s not limited to anti-Trump fluff pieces, speculation, or opinions. Polls are to be disregarded. The utter disaster that is the White House is just a liberal plot to undermine Trump. Every public official who dislikes Trump is a RINO or a “deep state” Democrat. Every problem with or tough question asked of Trump is to be met with a “But Hillary…” or “But Obama…” All positive statistics from Obama’s time in office are propaganda; positive statistics derived from the same methods during Trump’s term are automatically true. The president’s unprecedented lies and contradictions, from the trivial to the vital, are to be totally ignored, both individually and collectively. There is no problem with Trump’s relationship with Fox News; this is how the media and president should function.
It’s not just that conservatives don’t make much of an attempt to hold their own to journalistic standards or themselves to sound epistemological standards. I’m not sure that they’re able to recognize when those standards are met or violated in the first place. Unfortunately, they have alienated everyone, both inside and outside the party, who is able and willing to point these shortcomings out to them, adopting the attitude that they absolutely cannot be wrong. And conservative media continues irresponsibly to feed them, as it must, for it created them and may well die by them.
Very thoughtful remarks, my man.
conservatives don’t really have a problem with bias. They simply have a problem with liberal bias
I’m reminded of Stephen Colbert at one of Bush Jr.s Correspondents Dinner saying, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias”. Thus the “reality bias” in science, education and journalism becomes the target of conservative media. This alternative reality requires basically a cult system of leaders and loyal followers of indoctrinated beliefs. They reinforce confirmation bias, knowing beliefs are held more tightly than facts.
Of course, conservatives insist that reality instead has a well-known conservative bias. Journalists and other people in roles that demand the public’s trust and respect therefore have to choose among relaying information and conclusions in a way that pleases conservatives, a way that pleases liberals, and a way that risks alienating both, largely due to this sort of politicization of reality.
But that politicization of reality would not have occurred to such an extent without fundamentalist religion and its own politicization. Nothing is more resistant to facts than that, premised as it so often is on faith, tradition, family, community, and all of those strong feelings that interfere with an objective perspective. Fused with politics, that absolute certainty in unprovable metaphysical claims and unquestionable, “God-given” values infects everything, becoming an even greater threat. Political opponents become spiritual enemies, nonbelievers are to be ignored or mistrusted, and inconvenient facts become impossible and even sinful rather than simply undesirable. All of these are threats to the faith, after all, and to lose the faith is to lose one’s very identity and more.
So now we no longer have a common set of facts or even standards for determining what the facts are (or even more fundamentally: what a fact is), which means that we cannot communicate and cannot overcome division. We either fight or we pretend that religion and politics don’t exist, which is not a viable long-term strategy and, at least for me, is pretty much impossible in the age of Trump, especially while he has strong approval ratings among Republicans. We can’t even agree on how our leaders should behave! I just don’t see how the coexistence of such fundamentally different facts and values is sustainable. It sometimes seems as if secession is not such a bad idea.
My only hope now is that the GOP will become more moderate and less religious as its older voters die off and young Democrats, inspired by Trump, will start turning up for elections. But considering the GOP as a whole and its propaganda machine, reliable unreliability of the young, and voters’ short memories, I am not optimistic.