The political bubble and how it affects your opinion

[CJD]

(07-23-2019, 10:47 AM)Dill Wrote: No doubt there are politicians who demonize and always have been.You might agree it is far worse than at any time since 1954, and that Trump is the worst all time offender, shattering norms of decorum almost daily (E.g., your mention of his criticizing previous presidents would be a mild example.) Not sure how AOC uses similar tactics. Does she degrade and humiliate the other gender or racial groups? I have not read all her tweets.

Admittedly, I am mostly told that AOC uses similar tactics. I don't have explicit examples because, until this whole racist tweet debacle, I didn't really pay close attention to what she said or thought. I'd see the occasional article and think "yea, that makes sense" or "eh, that's a little aggressive, AOC," but ultimately she's just a freshman representative from one of the most blue areas in the country. We don't even have evidence that she can get re-elected yet or if she'll be Primaried by the moderate democrats in 2020. I was obviously aware of her and liked that she shared principles with Bernie, but I didn't follow every AOC related news story that ever existed like many Republicans do. 

I guess one good example would be when she implied that Nancy was pushing them out due to their race (by saying "women of color" when she could have easily just said "women" and the same message would have been portrayed), but this kind of example pales in comparison to what Trump does.

Quote:I can no longer see politicians as the primary cause, though clearly one side is the greater offender.


Dems need to feel voting matters, but don't respond all that well to demonization as a tactic, or at least to the degrees of it we see on the Republican side. Efforts to create Rush/Hannity style radio and talk shows have not drawn enough audience to keep advertisers. Were Hillary to demonize the press as Trump does, or disparage his looks, she would have been toast. The comment about Trump's "basket of deplorables" did not rouse her base. And she forgot it is "elitism" when Dems do it. Dems as a group respond less well to conspiracy theories and us/them frames which scapegoat out groups/minorities.

Trump certainly demonizes, and caricatures: crooked Hillary, little Marco, lyin' Ted, low energy Jeb, not to mention Mexican rapists and fake news. And in doing so he lowers standards and debases the nation from its highest office. But this only works because, among his supporters, traditional standards and norms have already been or were ready to be discarded. Not sure politicians caused that. I look more to other kinds of social change in education and media (especially the rise of Fox News), including the internet. That stuff creates bubbles more so than politicians. Evangelical churches appear important contributors to the alternative worldview espoused by Trump supporters, as well groups like the Federalist Society and CPAC and the NRA, and to some degree think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and Freedomworks. Settle all that on top of an increasing wage gap (and a wealthy class prepared to maintain that gap) and increasing minority population, and a segment of the population is ready for a WALL and someone who will "say what everyone is thinking but afraid to say." When Trump steps onto the stage he appears to me more the effect than cause of Trumpism.

If politicians are not the primary or immediate cause of the breakdown in norms we have been discussing, then it is doubtful the problem will disappear when Trump is impeached or voted out. There are probably politicians who could help repair the damage, but it's not clear who would elect them. Not people who respond to what everyone is (with good reason) afraid to say.

There is a debate to be had about whether Trump is the cause or the symptom of this whole debacle going on on the Right at the moment. I personally, in the past, have leaned towards cause simply because he came out of nowhere to become the most prominent racist politician that we've had in decades. But maybe that just means the voters have been yearning for a guy to just say what they're thinking, making Trump the symptom...

I agree that Fox News carries a large portion of the blame. But, if I remember correctly, they were against Trump for the majority of the primary season in 2015. It wasn't until he actually won the nomination that they started to change their tune. You saw that in people like Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz as well. That tells me, at the very least, even Fox News was resistant to embracing racial stoking as a political strategy until it was essentially forced down their throats by the voters (incidentally, Trump is kind of the exact reason why Democrats have super delegates).

So maybe the cause was the perfect blend of a candidate willing to stoke the base's racism along with the bases' long held desire to be stoked XD. Which was first? The chicken or the egg?