Why We're Polarized; A Republican Boomer and A Liberal Millennial Read A Book
Polarized.
We hear the word all the time. We are more polarized than ever. What does this mean? How do we even begin to fix this? We are all exhausted and frustrated with trying to get the other side of the aisle to listen to our party’s pleas. Every issue right now feels like life or death - masks or no masks, hoax or no hoax, obstruction or no obstruction. Whether on Facebook or in-person, politics has become a discussion that is mostly off the table - it gets too heated too fast.
We have stopped talking, stopped interacting, stopped listening. We purge friends from our Facebooks when we find their opinions oppressive, we let rifts between family members grow because we feel we can never see eye to eye. With this piece, I want to start chipping away at our nation’s inability to have discourse. Republicans and Democrats alike want what is best for America…now silence that voice in your head that says “oh please, those racists!?” or “oh please, those socialists?”. This piece will be an exercise in quieting the voice in our heads that lights a match when we read something we disagree with.
In my family, political discourse has always been a near obligatory exercise. My siblings and I all received Wall Street Journal subscriptions when we left the house. Our family email thread is a constant, lively, and intelligent discussion throwing data, facts, articles, and theories around like ping-pong. My dad taught us early and taught us well that all of our closely held beliefs should be constantly poked and prodded, and that we should be in a regular habit of defending them with acumen. He didn’t teach us to agree, in fact my dad and I disagree on nearly everything political despite having extremely similar personalities, literary habits, and passions.
That is why I invited him to do a public facing discussion with me. I want to show the world that you can love and respect each other and hold different opinions at the same time. I want to show the world that intelligent opinions exist on both sides, and that we have all arrived at our opinions for different and equally valid reasons. This piece is also an exercise in studying our polarization -
Where do we break apart and why? Do we agree on anything? How does our country move forward?
So.
My dad and I both read the book Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein. In this book Klein, a veteran political journalist and founder of Vox Media, takes an analytical approach to why our nation has become so polarized, what polarization inflicts, and posits how we can address it (here’s a summary). You don’t have to have read the book to enjoy our piece below, but I definitely suggest picking up a copy. If you don’t want to read the whole book - check out Ezra Klein talking about it on the Armchair Expert podcast. This piece isn’t meant to change your mind or sway your vote. It is merely an exercise in de-polarization, meant to show the reader that even though we may feel diametrically opposed, Boomers and Millennials, Democrats and Republicans - we have many of the same goals. We all have different experiences and explanations for our deeply held beliefs, and we both have the capacity to respect the other.
No matter which side of the coin you fall on let this piece inform you, but also let it frustrate you.
Let it inspire you, and let it be a true exercise in reading opinions that differ from our own.
Get comfortable being uncomfortable and walk away from this article feeling hopeful and more willing to engage and educate.
Let’s Get Started…
This article is a question and answer format. For each question both John and I provide an answer. We did not do a full ‘back-and-forth’ on each question. But have no fear, the comment thread on our shared Google Doc was lively. In the end, we chose to each give one answer per question to provide a simple and diametric reading experience.
You may read the whole piece from beginning to end,
or you can select what you’d like to read from the question buttons below.
Warning - parts of this article may cause you to suddenly stand on your chair, pounding the air, and cheering - while others may make you want to close out of this immediately. I encourage you to hold firm! Take a deep breath and just let this get under your skin. Practice de-polarization by picking out one point that you agree with out of each answer that you disagree with.
My name is Carley Rutledge.
I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas and moved to Colorado when I was 18 to attend the University of Colorado at Boulder. I majored in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. When I graduated in 2016 I was at the beginnings of discovering a passion for revitalizing the way we communicate science, specifically with dense topics such as Climate Change. Being from Texas and moving to the very liberal Boulder, Colorado - I noticed quickly that the information pipeline from the science lab to the conservative public was broken and that the scientists and professors didn’t know why, and I did.
I decided to bring the power of video, targeted marketing, and production to the science world. I went back to University of Colorado to get my Master’s Degree in Technology Arts and Media. I studied how liberals and conservatives, scientists and farmers, etc. communicate issues like Climate Change that are both politically charged and scientifically dense. I started a production company that would aim to bring storytelling to the world of science. I produced a documentary series telling the human stories behind climate change, an animation series about science topics, and much more. My studies in scientific and political communication have now expanded into my hobbies such as this blog, and into my professional work. I now work as a Marketing and Production Manager for a network of charter schools right in the middle of the very liberal Denver, Colorado.
Bottom line: I love cognitive dissonance.
My name is John Rutledge.
I was born and raised in Fort Worth and still call it home, except when I can sneak off to the mountains of northern New Mexico, or mountains anywhere for that matter. My only years out of Texas were four years in North Carolina getting an engineering degree from Duke University, which I followed with another degree from the University of Texas. Since then, I’ve been employed at Freese and Nichols, a consulting engineering firm in Fort Worth. In addition to 35 years at one company, I’ve been blessed with one wonderful wife and four wonderful kids, and now three wonderful grandchildren, hoping for more some day. So, a life and career that I like to to think embodies good decisions and stability, but will probably be labeled by Carley as a typical conservative’s fear of change. She may have a point, but I’ll stick with stability that got the bills paid.
A friend once described his passions as the Fs - Faith, Family, Friends, and Fishing. I’d love to adopt that, but I don’t fish and golf doesn’t start with an F, so I’m still hunting for a nifty way to describe them. I just know that’s where almost all my time and money goes. Though this is a largely political discussion, Politics is not on that list. It falls more on the addiction side than the passion side. I’m still hunting for a way to tone that down or avoid it all together, but it always seems to be the proverbial elephant in the room that we try to ignore. But there is too much at stake to ignore it. Maybe I can drop it when all four of my children are conservatives like me and I don’t feel obligated to teach them any more. Hmmm. This may take a while.
THE QUESTIONS
How would you describe your own political views?
2. How would you describe Republicans and Democrats in today’s climate?
7. Describe Trump’s rise to power in your own words.
8. How do you feel that the “Browning of America” has changed your party?
10. Do you believe the media is important? What about it is broken?
12. How can we make our country and our parties more united in the future?
How would you describe your own political views?
Carley: My political views have morphed and evolved in many ways throughout my 26 years of life. As a child I had very little interest in politics, I was however obsessed with listening to people communicate. I would sit with the adults long past my bedtime, not understanding what they were saying, but just listening - watching their hands, their eyes, listening to their voices rise and fall. Maybe they were talking about politics, maybe they weren’t. But it was the beginning of my commitment to being a lifelong (so-far) student of human communication. This fascination would later grow into a master’s degree in communications and a studious approach to learning the intricacies of political conversation in modern America. For my thesis I studied why conservatives won’t grip onto climate change like the left has. I studied how people read, listen, watch, feel, and talk about those difficult issues - especially conservatives. Politics, funny enough, wasn’t a big part of this passion right away. It was more like a slow sink drip, dripping into my consciousness. I remember the first time a political issue rocked me to my core. I was a senior in highschool in Fort Worth, Texas, and it was the environmental section of my A.P. Biology class. We learned about greenhouse gases, trash islands, impending extinctions, etc. A lot of feelings hit me at once. Sadness about the state of the planet, anger at the blatant disregard for the natural world that already meant so much to me. But that was followed by a sinking feeling when I realized that for 17 years nobody had told me about it, at least not with genuine concern. No teachers, not my parents, no documentaries (this was before what I call the ‘doc boom’, and before recycling was ‘cool’). I felt lied to. I started to wonder what other information was missing from my academic and socio-political education. Drip, drip, drip. Over the next few years I would come to learn personally about the difficulties of being a woman in general, and about being a woman in male-dominated fields. Then I would make more diverse friends and learn more about what it’s like to be a person of color in America. I would read voraciously about the meat industry, tax-cuts for corporate conglomerates, about utopian big tech. Drip, drip, drip. I read about our country’s history and learned that the story I was told as a child was wrong, or at best ‘softened’. My political evolution wasn’t political at all, it was emotional and cerebral and human. All of my experiences and my studious absorbance of the people and stories around me has shaped me into the woman I am today - what my Dad would fondly call, a ‘bleeding heart, millennial, Democrat.’
John: Conservative is the most accurate description of my political views. To anyone over 40, classic liberalism will make sense to you, but the term “Liberal” has changed so much, I wouldn’t use the term now. I’ve often commented that liberals feel while conservatives think. A vast oversimplification and not intended as an insult. Both ways of reacting and making decisions have their value and place. As an engineer, I blatantly fall in the thinking category and always have. So you can say I’ve always been heartless, if you want. I was part of the “Reagan Youth”, likely the only time a conservative President was even reasonably popular on many college campuses. I would say there are two big drivers for me and my political views. The first is individual freedom. Our founders were an historical aberration - setting up a system that said the government is to serve the people, not the other way around. I could go on for pages about the importance of that and how I fear we are losing it. The second is simple pragmatism. Does it work? Few things frustrate me more than politicians continually pushing the same failed policies and the same false promises, particularly when they are wasting our tax money to do so. We know these things don’t work, and they still push them and people still vote for them. I guess there is now a third driving force - cynicism. My high ideals of youth have been pushed aside by the realizations that politicians - of both parties - push things they know don’t work, but help keep them in power. So politics has become a frustrating addiction. I get more and more frustrated and wish it were just a bad TV show that I could turn off. But it’s not. Lives are dramatically affected and lost around the world because of American political decisions.
I love the passion in Carley’s response and she frankly embodies much of the goodness of liberal feelings, but I know she is quite a thinker as well, so I’m confident she will meander towards conservative views as time goes by. In the meantime, our disagreements make for many interesting conversations and opportunities to learn.
How would you describe Republicans and Democrats in today’s climate?
John: I would say the Republicans are the bad guys and the Democrats are the very bad guys. As supporting evidence of much of what Klein says about polarization, I vote against the Democrat far more than I vote for the Republican. As a conservative, I view individual freedom, which requires limited government and individual responsibility, and capitalism as the two primary drivers of American exceptionalism. I know that is a controversial topic that could provide a book length’s discussion on it’s own. I’ll try to simplify my view of it as the idea that the founding concepts of America are exceptional and historically unique, but Americans themselves are not exceptional. Sure we have been blessed with exceptional people as have most countries. The founding principles, however, are so exceptional, that ordinary people with all their flaws and attempts to bypass the system, still made this the greatest and most successful country in world history. Even with all our flaws, no country is the dream of people around the world like America is. We have been working towards those ideals for more than 200 years and still have a ways to go. It’s more than frustrating that, 150 years after slavery ended, we still have too many people who do not have real access to the American dream, but there is a lot of human nature in the way. The original ideals are not what is in the way. Democrats, as a whole, strayed from this perspective a long time ago and, in my opinion, are now actively attacking these primary foundations of our country. The few voices left in the party that still push for individual freedoms and capitalism are being cancelled out. Republicans strayed later and less. Many Republican leaders still talk a good game, but on the whole, they do a poor job of defending these two exceptional pillars of our society, individual freedom and capitalism.
An important point about how we look at the two parties, even in the way this question was worded, is that we personify them, as well as other groups with too many personal characteristics. It’s part of the “groupthink” mentality that corrodes our communications and adds to our polarization. Both Democrat and Republican parties exist to gain power. That is the fundamental reason for their existence. Parties are not racist or open minded. They are neither good nor evil, but the individuals involved are all complicated combinations of these features. Assigning virtue to one party or large group such as one race or one side of the political aisle is as wrong as assigning evil intentions to the other. We could spend days pointing out examples of both moral and courageous actions as well as corruption and hypocrisy in both parties. You can argue that liberal and conservative individuals are motivated by goodness and you’d be right in most cases, even for many politicians, but not for parties. As part of our polarization, our country has fallen way too far into the trap of labeling groups by the actions of individuals, or worse, by a distorted narrative assigned to them by the dominant forces of the media.
Carley: It’s hard to answer this and resist the temptation to outline every subgroup and fracture of each party in an attempt to accurately define the whole. I will resist the urge and look at things from 30,000 ft above. To me, Republicans are the party of ‘resistance to change’. A party dominated by white, wealthy, men that refuse to see the world around them as it is. However, if I look closely I see a small group of well educated, very grounded, rational, Republicans - who are woefully out of touch with the dangerous majority of their party. I see a party that glorifies the past and allows that to cripple them when bracing for the future. I used to see a party that was willing to be realistic, that had the same emotional goals as Dems but knew we had to be more realistic about how to get there. Most of that sentiment has faded as I have watched Republicans crumble from within and resort to more and more radical methods of achieving political power. They are a party hijacked by their own weapons - digital propaganda and white majority. Now let’s talk Democrats...when I look at my own party I see a party that is motivated by goodness and love for all - but one that is tortured by its own refusal to walk away from the political machine and its games. I see a party of brains and intellectuals with all the weapons of information and truth at their backs - but a total lack of realistic understanding of how to wage them. The Democratic party is plagued by hypocrisy within - the moral high ground comes with an inability to compromise. We have also been plagued as we cling to the whiteness of our party’s history - we embraced minority communities, but never gave them the socio-economic tools to truly participate in our politics effectively (voting access, felon rights to vote, housing policies, etc.). With one hand we claimed to empower minorities, and with the other we helped knock the legs out from under them. It’s time for change within both parties - for youth involvement, for diversity, for updated policies, for money to matter less and our country’s well-being to matter more.
Klein discusses studies that show that the more an individual engages with politics, the less they trust and the less informed they become about the opposing party (page 149). Do you feel that the ‘other party’ is corrupt?
Carley: I think this is an interesting question, because it’s so deeply entwined with how we are digesting politics in the modern age - whether it’s the WSJ or Facebook, it’s all social media algorithms. Entities outside of ourselves are determining what we see and how we see it, activating some of the deepest parts of ourselves that we don’t even realize are there. This leads to people behaving in extreme ways they may never have dreamed of - and I feel that making that disclaimer before answering this question is important. Simply - I think both parties are corrupt. I think they both lie, I think they both serve interests outside of what we are aware of, and I think both are deeply addicted to power with very little ability to wield it responsibly. However, I do believe that within the last two decades, the Republican party has become and is - far more corrupt than the Democrats. The word corrupt may mean different things to different people. In this instance, I am using it in the context of its dictionary definition - having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain. Now, before my Dad has an aneurysm reading this, I will concede that I believe the only reason the Democrats haven’t achieved the same levels of corruption is out of incompetence, not out of a refusal to do so. For example, the modern day tools such as digital propaganda that Republicans have been wielding to reach the level of corruption that I am accusing them of - the Democrats may claim they have abstained from them out of ‘good-heartedness’, but the data shows they just aren’t as good at it. I want to be clear that I am speaking on a granular level - I don’t have enough time or patience to unpack the corrupt and absolute control that the people and companies with wealth have over the Republican Party. My main point is this: America doesn’t run on Dunkin anymore, America runs on Data. It is an undeniable fact that the Republicans were the first to utilize people’s online data in order to control their voters, starting with Ted Cruz. This practice exploded in conservative politics - leading to the Cambridge Analytic scandal and eventually Trump’s presidency. Then we arrive at the 2020 election, where Trump has pledged to spend over $30 million on Facebook ads alone - with little to no accountability for their ad content. I work in marketing - these ads are my profession - and I can tell you right now that this is absolutely the most corrupt situation our country has been in in the modern day. Social Media Propaganda has become a widely accepted practice in the Republican Party, and it is being used to manipulate what you see, how you feel, and how you behave. And they know that. They are waging weapons grade technology and intel in order to control their own voters. There are a number of other reasons I find the party corrupt, but there weren’t many that the Democrats weren’t equally guilty of. Paid digital propaganda is the defining factor that currently sets the parties apart right now, and that has actively created hate, division, and death in this country. That being said, the Democrats won’t always be behind on this trend. Joe Biden is already pledging a significant amount to online advertising. This is an issue we will have to tackle as a nation, together.
John: With apologies to all my Democratic friends and family members that I love and respect, I view politicians of both parties as inherently corrupt, only I see the Democrats as more corrupt. This is, of course, the Democrat politicians and leaders, not Democratic voters. I could give a litany of examples, but will skip that. It’s not the main point. Power inherently corrupts, whether at the local police level or the FBI, and especially at the congressional level. I have seen countless high minded, well intentioned politicians of both parties get elected to root out corruption. After a couple terms, the tone is gone. Our founders never intended for career politicians for good reason. Our parties are a very powerful duopoly - almost as bad as a monopoly - and they are deeply entrenched, getting rich and powerful off their side hating on the other side. They are deeply invested in polarization, just like the media. The system is corrupt and no person or group has been able to do much about it. In my high minded youth, I thought some politicians could actually effect real positive change. In my more experienced and cynical age, I vote to limit the damage in hopes that someday a better system can somehow get in place. Now, why do I think the Democrats are more corrupt? Because the media and the cultural elites cover for them and they know it. Republicans know the media will question their every move and even distort it to make them look bad. Not because the Republicans are better people - they are not - but the media does its job with them and doesn’t for Democrats. Fox News does work against the Democrats, but their efforts are a small percentage of the media influence. And I’ll add that no media outlet or institution should be working for or against either party. They should be informing their readers and viewers and be critical of bad behavior wherever it happens. But those days are long gone in our hyper polarized world.
We have freedom of the press specifically because the founders knew power corrupts and it was intended to be a check and balance on a free people’s representatives. It’s really only working on one party now and that is very dangerous. As a recent example, two major newspaper op-ed chief editors were forced to resign. One for publishing an article from a sitting US Senator that posited an opinion shared by a majority of the country about using military force to quell riots when the local police are overwhelmed, a view supported by a majority of Americans. The other for simply using a headline that read, “Buildings Matter Too.” This “Cancel Culture” that is becoming dominant within the media, is the exact opposite of the free media and free exchange of ideas that we need for a healthy country. If you think I’m biased, name anyone anywhere who has lost their job from stating a liberal or leftist opinion, unless they were “cancelled” for not being left enough.
In this book, Klein discusses the power of group dynamics (pg. 60) - how do you feel that those dynamics play out in your party? Are there any issues that separate you from your group/party but you haven’t felt comfortable speaking out about?
Carley: I think that the group dynamics that Klein describes play a huge and starkly different role in both parties. I think particularly with Democrats, group or ‘tribe’ dynamics are the true undertow in issues of race, gender, and equality. This is a very interesting moment to discuss this issue, because it is something that is being teased at within the Democratic party in the wake of George Floyd. Democrats have championed equality, especially race equality ever since Bobby Kennedy got MLK out of jail in the 1960’s. We became the ‘party for Black people’, in that moment. But since then there remained a majority of white people at the table, making decisions. One Black person in an interview I saw recently said he was tired of white Democrats saying they would take on the burdens of the Black community - but never stopping to involve black community leaders on how it should be done. White people are still calling the shots on how to ‘end racism’ in America. We are seeing this in high contrast right now - in the wake of George Floyd many white people were the ones who were leading the destruction at the riots (this I can say I saw personally). White people were the ones taking down paintings at the Capitol, renaming Military Bases - but if you ask a Black person what they wanted to happen, many have said publicly ‘that’s great and all...but we just want the police to stop killing us.”. Democrat leaders will do everything BUT break up the police union, and it is becoming quite visible during this time. This issue in particular is one of the ways in which white Democrats command the conversation about race, and why it is so important to elect people of color. But the undertow is incredibly strong to magnetically snap to these white championed ‘anti-racist movements’, and you may be publicly scorned if you do not. I am guilty of jumping onto certain movements without stopping to think who might be leading it, and if any people of color are a part of it. Is this what Black people want? Or is it what white people think Black people want? The Democratic party right now, in many ways, is built on what white people think Black people want. And they make it very difficult socially, to jump off that ship. In my opinion, it has made it difficult to educate people within our party and outside of it on the issue of race - and for many, the stakes are high. When one tweet can end your career - are you going to learn about racism and your personal journey with it, or are you going to say whatever everyone else is saying to avoid being called a racist? Many willing white people are stifled from becoming anti-racist in favor of appearing as anti-racist, because of a hostile environment created by white Democratic leaders. I cannot and will not speak for Black people, but from what I’ve read from Black leaders is that we need to be creating an environment where white people can make mistakes, say the wrong thing, listen to why it was offensive, and learn from it. The idea of ‘cancelling’ someone is where I break with my group or ‘tribe’, but fear speaking out on it (some exceptions apply). I worry that white leaders are so desperate to prove their anti-racism that they set trends, examples, and make laws in such a fever that they don’t stop to consult leaders of the Black community on how best to proceed. Electing leaders of color is the first way we can begin to end this telephone game that is costing the Civil Rights movement so much of its momentum.
John: This is one area we are very much in agreement. I applaud your well articulated argument. I will add the perspective of an old and cynical conservative: The Democrats have been buying black votes for 50 years with empty promises that sound good but are no different than the arrogant stance they are taking now - that somehow this is a problem for whites to solve. Democrat leaders have been telling Blacks for generations that they are incapable of achieving on their own, that the world is stacked against them and they can get nowhere without Democrats, namely old white Democrats, leading the way. The message hasn’t changed. Then they won’t let minorities out of failing schools and will overtax and overregulate the businesses trying to provide them jobs. Blacks are clearly just as capable of leading successful lives as anyone else and they need better schools and better opportunities, not more condescending empty promises.
To answer your question, there are several things with which I disagree with the Republican party and I would hope any intelligent opinionated person would say the same about either party. I certainly don’t think of the party as being the source of any wisdom or great perspective. There have been a handful of individual Republicans that I’ve respected over the years and found to be good sources of ideas and sage viewpoints, but not the party itself. And I’ve never felt uncomfortable expressing those differences. That should not surprise you. The main reason is that I consider myself a conservative, not a Republican. I vote Republican because the party, as a whole, tends to push for things that are more aligned with my views and for other reasons listed in this discussion. I often disagree with the Party, particularly with Trump in charge, because he is not a conservative in principle. He’s a pragmatic businessman. He sees the value of tax cuts and reduced regulations, which i agree with. Surprisingly, he’s willing to take advice from actual conservatives on originalist justice appointments and that has worked reasonably well overall, in my opinion. But I’m far more open to legal immigration than he is and would prefer more free trade and fewer tariffs. Though I agree with America and Americans being a higher priority for a president, the antagonistic and belligerent style that he employs in negotiating both internally and with foreing entities is counterproductive in the long run. However, I will give him credit for being the first president to confront China on their many trade abuses. That was way overdue. These are just a few of my differences and agreements. Unfortunately, our elections are binary choices and the choices on both sides of the aisle just seem to keep getting weaker. I’ve voted for the lesser of two evils for a long time.
What emotions do you feel when you read something you disagree with politically/morally? Use the ‘trigger statement’ written by your opponent, to write about your emotional response:
Carley:
Claims That Democrats’ Have Hypocritical Allegiances With Super-Pacs
I asked my Dad to write a ‘trigger statement’ (above) to set off my answer to this question. But it doesn’t trigger me, or make me angry, because I agree with it. Democrats have an incredibly hypocritical stance on Super-Pacs - but my reaction is important to note. In Klein’s book he discusses, to the dismay of my Dad’s blood-pressure I am sure, that Republicans have become more radicalized than Democrats have. This is rooted in the very emotional and immovable characteristics of Dems and R’s. A 2016 Pew survey found that anger at the opposing party was a prime motivator for Republicans. It found that for Republicans, holding a ‘very unfavorable view’ of Democrats increased their likelihood of voting by 12 percentage points, and were more likely to have donated to a campaign by 11 points. For Democrats, those numbers were only 6 and 8 points respectively. Anger at Democrats turns into political action for Republicans - and the reverse just isn’t as true for Dems. The results of this study have reinforced a pre-existing and organized effort to tie Republicans in a personal and emotional way to their party - making them more likely to react in anger and feel personally threatened at the opposing party’s activities. This leads them to vote and engage more, but it also allows them to be more susceptible to certain methods of communication, like fear-mongering propaganda. Take a closer look at the ‘Fake News’ movement and you’ll see exactly that - Republicans feeling personally violated by what they view as ‘LIES’. What they are really reacting to is journalistic lean, which should be bothersome - but the easy solution to it is to diversify your news sources. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to eliminate news sources as a response to fake news/journalistic lean, further narrowing what they are digesting. They statistically digest an increasingly narrow amount of publications, allowing their leaders (specifically Trump) to unify and strengthen their emotional and tribal messages, sending their voters down a rabbit hole of extremism. I could talk forever about that, so here’s an article instead. That statement my Dad wrote above doesn’t anger me or violate me personally, and liberal leaning media isn’t training me to feel that way either (unlike Conservative media is doing with its base, and here we are seeing the difference). That right there is what I believe gives many (certainly not all) Democrats the clarity to view many issues without a thick fog of anger and threat to our core values (issues of race equality definitely are an exception). As liberals we are naturally more inclined to challenge the system and what is being told to us. This trait allows me to admit easily that Democrats are highly reliant on Super-Pacs and that they also lie about that fact. There is a growing movement in our party to call out that hypocrisy - but those candidates are often raked through the coals by prominent Conservatives and even many Democrats, labelling them as ‘extremists’. These types of candidates represent a threat to any politician on either side of the aisle that is benefitting from the current monetary and power gains that Super-Pacs are providing them. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the quintessential example of this - an American minority who rose the ranks out of poverty to win decidedly over an incumbent by sheer hard work and true engagement with her community - refusing to take a dime from Super-Pacs. Yet she has received the scorn of Republicans and Centrist Democrats alike, she represents a threat to the very practice that has allowed them to rise and retain power.
John:
Claims that Conservative News Sources Are More Likely to Use Propagandism
Just a brief response before I answer the question - Carley, I think your stats were taken before the Democrats and media went absolutely apoplectic over Trump’s election. You can't say that Republicans are driven more by anger than Democrats anymore. “I’m not Trump” seems to be the entire election platform of Joe Biden right now. Klein clearly showed that emotionally manipulating your followers to anger or fear of the opponent is far more effective than drawing support for your own. Both sides of the aisle use that strategy. Of course, with candidates like Clinton, Trump, and Biden, what choice do they have?
Back to the question - this claim was one of a litany of statements that Klein made in the infamous Chapter 9 that completely set me off. His corollary that liberal news was “steeped in the traditions and practices of objective journalism” was just as bad. I can usually listen to views with which I disagree without getting angry, but when I think the person is being dishonest or insulting, I tend to get angry. That is human nature. If the attitude is to teach and learn, we can disagree with no problem, but when there is no effort to teach, just arrogant and condescending insults, particularly when they are based on untruths, it brings out anger in anyone. Chapter 9, “The difference between Republicans and Democrats” was exactly that to me. Klein was insulting, misinformed, and completely illogical in his arguments. And that is just the polite way to respond to it. Before that chapter, Klein was obviously biased toward the liberal side, but his insulting claims about conservatives and Republicans were mostly anecdotal and did not take much away from the useful and informative parts of the book. Chapter 9, on the other hand, in my opinion, blew away any pretense of objectivity. It was if he interviewed all his leftist friends about their thoughts on conservatives and Republicans and wrote the chapter based on that. He clearly made no effort to get a conservative’s view on any of it or present any positive perspective on conservatives or Republicans. He made no effort to be neutral or objective. To me, this chapter was a clear example of the way the media and the “cultural elite” think of conservatives and how they assist in the polarization of the nation by promoting such insulting nonsense as if it’s fact. The echo chamber of the left is vast and self supporting, so no one calls him on it, at least no one that he listens to. That is a huge factor in the country’s polarization and Klein seems completely blind to it. His obviously arrogant view is that any conservative who disagrees is just an ignorant denier who can and should be ignored. And you can use my angry response as a pretty accurate indicator of how roughly half the country reacts to the daily insults, both direct and indirect, that we hear from the media, Hollywood, academia, and other portions of the “cultural elite.” So, if he was paid to piss me off, it worked.
On page 10, Klein discusses ‘Negative Partisanship’ - do you feel that you have come to like your party more? Or come to hate the other party more?
John: I thought this was the biggest “light bulb moment” of the book. Recognizing the power of criticizing the “other” over describing positive elements of “your side” was powerful and well described. Recognizing that the media is paid to piss you off - and that is on both sides - and understanding the economics behind it was eye opening. There is also an easy extension to realize that the same concept applies to the political parties. Both parties profit (literally by donations as well as for the power gained) from getting you angry and fearing the other side.
I have been taught to deal with confrontation by assuming the other party is intelligent and well intentioned and any differences or conflict are due to differences in perspective, assumptions, or limited information. That is true in most cases and has helped me deal with countless difficult personal confrontations. When disagreements are in person, people have to deal with a negative reaction from someone they insult or disagree with, so those assumptions and the perspective they provide are a learning experience. However, when you’re looking at a screen, it is easy to forget that and fall for the idea that “THEY” are just evil idiots. You can read the comments section of any online media outlet and see that far too many people react this way and feel no hesitation to express their vitriolic reaction. Social media drives this in a similar manner. Since people don’t see the negative reaction of the person insulted by their comments or their “funny” post, they feel free to go ahead. But the damage still occurs and the animosity and polarization just continues to grow and the media and politicians take full advantage of the process to stoke the flames of anger of fear to their own advantage.
Carley: I can state outright and with utmost confidence that I have grown to hate the other party more than I have grown to like my own party. I have grown in huge ways to like and enjoy specific members and representatives within my own party, but I have much of the same praises and complaints about the Democratic Party that I had 5 even 10 years ago. I think this is such an important point of this book - the power that politicians can wield when presenting an ‘attack from the Other’ is unparalleled. It also is in no way a new concept. Experts and civilians alike have joked and lamented for years that presidents always try to go to war when they are up for reelection - fear of the other. Trump literally can’t command his base when he doesn’t have a clear enemy to go up against (we are seeing that now).
If you’ve read my answer to the last question you won’t be surprised to read that I feel, and the data supports, that this exercise is historically more prevalent in the Republican Party, dating back to segregation. However Trump’s 2016 victory catapulted Democrats into the abyss of ‘hating the other’. But I have a unique perspective, I grew up in Texas and I was raised by intelligent Republicans. I am unusually resistant to the idea that all Republicans are Trump worshipping racists. I know that there are responsible, intelligent Republicans out there who genuinely want to make the world a better place for everyone. I see that - more than many in my party could understand. However, I increasingly believe that those unicorns - the rational, informed, and educated Republicans - are harder and harder to find and that they are increasingly out of touch with the majority of their party. I have also watched them descend, albeit slower than those around them, down the slide of radicalization. But here I stand, guilty of exactly what I’m writing about, traveling further and deeper down the slide of dislike or disrespect of the Other party. This thought distresses me, it is so hard to find truth in our world these days, and I find myself constantly questioning the truth - what if I am as guilty of these crimes as the Republicans I speak of? What if there really is a party that is right and one that is wrong? Eventually I find comfort in the fact that there is no end destination on the journey to truth - as long as I am questioning it constantly, I am moving forward.
Truth will always be hiding just out of sight, but as long as we are fighting for something that we believe to be what is best for everyone, not what is best for ourselves, we can always know we are on the right path.
Describe Trump’s rise to power in your own words.
Carley: There are so many things that contributed to the election of Donald Trump to the position of the Presidency that I could write a book about it, but many much more intelligent and diligent people than I have already done so. In broad terms Donald Trump is president right now because technological advancement has allowed Nixon’s Southern Strategy to have a moment of rebirth - and because due to a number of archaic policies like the electoral college and borderline voter suppression, you can still win the presidency in America on the white, mostly evangelical, vote alone. This is increasingly less true by the day as birth rates and immigration of black and brown people are set to outpace the white population in the next few years. Even since Trump was elected the percentage of white evangelical voters went from 17% to 15% (that’s a lot if it’s your main voter demographic). This disappearing demographic is certainly the one who carried him over the finish line in 2016, but it won’t in 2020. But we are talking about his rise - Trump is also in the White House today because he is an incredibly savvy and apt marketing professional. I work in marketing, and I can say with confidence that Trump has never been a true real estate mogul, or a true casino operator, university founder, or president, he has always been a marketing campaign alone. But he is good at it - and as the black and brown populations in this country began growing at a pace set to exceed white population growth within the decade, and as misinformation and polarization began to skyrocket, a man named Roger Stone noticed.
Roger Stone (recently pardoned by Trump) is a political operative famous for taking the low road, and for using every weapon in his arsenal no matter how ruthless, dangerous, or absurd - to get someone into office. He is a Nixon fanatic who likes to watch the world burn. He knew the world was ready for Trump, and he wasn’t wrong - many a cynic, myself included, knows that people like Roger Stone usually aren’t wrong. Republicans hated Hillary Clinton, they were terrified of the ‘Other’ races that were gaining momentum in the country, and they were racked by economic and social despair in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and 8 years of Barack Obama. Americans set the table, Trump and Stone simply pulled up a chair. Right now in July of 2020 we are seeing what Trump looks like without the conditions that were so fair to him in 2016 - he has no boogey-man to fight (other than the virus which he is unable to fight), he has a clearly shrinking base, and is left a king naked in front of his court. I will never claim, as many Democrats do, that Trump has an agenda - that he actively gained power in order to repeal the rights of marginalized communities, reverse environmental progress, etc. I won’t even give him that much credit. The man behind the curtain is and always has been Roger Stone. Trump voted Democrat for much of his life, he wages tariff wars, and actively opposed the Iraq war and Bush. Honestly Roger Stone exhibits many liberal habits as well, famously attending Pride parades and more. They are not men of ideals, they are opportunists.
This is a story about two men who wanted to gain the most power they possibly could, the most in the world. If the conditions had been right, Trump would have run as a Democrat. He wanted to win, Roger wanted to get someone to the White House, and they hitched their wagon to the GOP and to Facebook to get it done. The Republican party worked for Trump because our nation is turning more brown and black everyday and liberalism and human rights are gripping the population. The extremist and shrinking ideals of the Republican party fit his bill perfectly, since touting them would create the most division possible. When they were founding one of the largest propaganda-for-profit machines in history, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg et al titled themselves ‘the Disruptors’. Trump is just one of the gang - his weapon, marketing. The result - disruption. (more info about Trump and Facebook)
John: I agree with much of your description of Trump, the marketer. Trump is not a brilliant man. He has no great plot or plan. He’s a combination of massive arrogance and massive ADD. He thinks he can make great decisions based on intuition and one page briefings with 3 bullet points, which seems to be his limit. But he does have a very strong intuitive sense of what much of the nation is looking for. He has an uncanny knack of identifying and capitalizing on the weakness of his opponent. He tapped into the anger and frustration of about half the country, where Hillary and the other 16 Republicans failed. Personally, he was #17 of 17 of the Republician candidates and I came very close to not voting for either candidate for the first time in my life. But he did win and I did vote for him, never having held my nose so tight. As good as your description was, I think you’re falling for some of the same left’s narrative talking points that Klein did and overanalyzing it. Trump’s election had nothing directly to do with race or racism. Democrats seem to have “race colored” glasses on for every political issue. Conservatives, on the other hand, view ideals from the perspective of the individual, not the group. Party and race are way overstated. We have frankly viewed racism as mostly solved, and an issue to move beyond. Now, in 2020, we have learned that we were mistaken about this, but I’m talking about 2016. Conservatives and the right, and much of the white working class was frankly tired of being insulted on a daily basis in the newspaper, on television, and in academia by the so called “cultural elite”. We “deplorables” who “clung to our guns and bibles” were sick and tired of big heavy handed government, high taxes and regulations, and attacks on our faith and principals, all the while being called idiots and racists. Trump was simply a giant middle finger to the politically correct. He was voted in to fight back, because no other Republican candidate seemed willing to confront the “politically correct” and the “deep state” head on. When we say we want him to drain the swamp, we mean it. None of these issues are about race. Since 2016, the Democrats and the “cultural elite” have doubled down on their insults and condescension towards Trump supporters. We’ve put up with 4 years of a corrupt FBI, the Trump Russia collusion hoax, impeachment, and countless manufactured distortions about the man. So most Republicans and conservatives, including me, are ready and willing to put Trump, with all his flaws, back in office with both middle fingers high in the air. Polarized? Hell, yeah.
As a side note, Trump’s list of flaws and weaknesses is so long, why in the world has it been necessary to make up so much crap? Nazi? Tyrant? Not even close. The cancel culture of the Left is far closer to Nazi tyranny than Trump could ever conceive of. He frankly doesn't want to get rid of his opponents. He thrives on the battle as much as the result.
Second side note - Trump was voted in to fight back and he’s very good at it, which is why he looks so weak in 2020 when he needs to be unifying and not winning. He has no idea how to do that.
How do you feel that the “Browning of America” (page 121) has changed your party?
Carley: On page 122 Klein says, “Demography and culture, not economic and political developments, hold the key to understanding the populist movement.” This was in answer to the question - why are populist candidates so successful with the right wing and not the left? Conservatives have historically addressed race since the 1990’s by claiming that immigrants and Black people are becoming so loud that the voices of ‘Joe Plumber” are being lost. Which isn’t untrue, what they are lying about is that that can be reversed. They use the phrase ‘silent majority’ as a dog whistle that can be heard only by white people that are beginning to feel their power of majority slip. Silent majority is a way of making middle to lower class white people feel as if they hold the power of the majority that they did in the past. In the past that demographic was the majority and held all the power - this is the past that Trump references in his slogan ‘Make America Great Again.” Another dog whistle. It’s a slogan taken word for word from the 1980 Reagan campaign - intentionally. Many Republicans believe that they can be anti-racist and support Trump, but they cannot. Whether they realize it or not - his campaign is designed to idealize a time when white people had all the power, and to trick white people into believing that they are still the majority but they just aren’t being listened to. The truth is they just aren’t the majority they once were. His campaign teaches Republicans to dream of their past prosperity and comfort and says ‘vote for me and we can get there again’. He never has to say outright that that means reducing the role of people of color in our government and workforce, many of his voters don’t even realize that it means that. But some of them do - and that is why we are seeing the rise in white supremacy movements. A good marketing campaign gets the viewer to visualize themselves with the things they dream of (riches, women, etc.), while also convincing them they need that product to obtain them. It’s what I call the Mirror of Erised Theory - which is a very nerdy reference to a mirror in Harry Potter that reveals the onlookers’ deepest desire. The Trump machine is a perfect example of this for Republicans - smart R’s see a promise of a good economy, racist R’s see a man publicly saying all the things they used to have to say in deep corners of the internet, religious R’s see a man wielding a Bible and talking of church, and the disenfranchised R’s see a man who is the very picture of what they think it means to be rich. It doesn’t matter if what they are seeing is true, and the engineer of this phenomena (Trump and co.) know this. The ‘browning of America’ put Trump in office, but I also believe it is what will get him out. In 1960 Bobby Kennedy bailed Martin Luther King Jr out of jail. He set Democrats on a path to welcome the Black community. Overwhelming Democratic support from the Black community is still prevalent to this day - it has diversified the Democratic party enormously. White men represent about 40% of the Democratic caucus and are decreasing every year. Inversely they represent about 86% of the Republican caucus and are on the rise. This right here is how the browning of America has affected our parties - Democrats are embracing it, albeit slowly and with many many missteps along the way. Republicans are not - which is shrinking their base, causing them to get angrier and more defensive, and unsurprisingly riding that anger into the crescendo of the dying star that I call the Republican party. Democratic candidates have long labored to appeal to many diverse groups with differing and sometimes contrasting demands. Republicans have had to work harder and harder, getting more and more radical, to appeal to a shrinking and increasingly extremist base. Republicans will have to face their issues of race, or they will cease to exist in this lifetime.
John: There you go with your race colored glasses again. I think you are spouting the party lines and are misunderstanding both Trump and why conservatives voted for him. Conservatives never have and never will try to win over groups or races by portraying groups as being antagonistic to other groups. Republicans might but they are lousy at it, because there are still too many conservatives in the party. “Groupthink” is counter to the fundamental beliefs of conservatives. We should appeal to all who believe in capitalism and individual freedoms and opportunities and the race of the person in the discussion is immaterial. This view used to be called classical liberalism and is the basis of the success of our country, so naturally more whites that have historically benefitted from the country’s success will be in agreement with it. Those who have been held back or have not benefited logically will be more inclined to fight against it. But the ideals are not why they’ve been held back. The flaws of the individuals carrying them out are the reason.
Race has never been a point of conservative thought because it is about the individual, not the group. There have been plenty of racists in both parties and I’ll remind you that the Republican party freed the slaves and is responsible for the 1964 civil rights act. It was Democrats that fought both of those. It is the Republicans that push for school choice and school reform, not the Democrats. It is the Republicans that are pro life and blacks that have suffered the most by far at the hands of Planned Parenthood. It is Trump that drove the lowest unemployment for all minorities in the history of our country. All your descriptions of Republicans as racists is just another distorted party line with no basis in fact. Any description of either party as racist or not racist is misplaced. The parties exist to gain power and nothing else. Individuals within either party, including Trump? Sure, you can make an argument for that, but not for the party as a whole.
It is accurate to talk about parties and power because that is what they exist for, but all the talk of power of groups and races is straight from the left’s playbook, because that is how they think. It is Marxist in its foundation and it is the opposite of how conservatives think and the opposite of what is helpful to this country. To Marx, it was the Proletariat oppressed by the Bourgeoisie and now, to the Left in America, it’s minorities being oppressed by whites. Slavery and Jim Crow prove there is a history of that, and racism clearly still exists, but it is on the individual level, not the systemic level. It’s been illegal for more than 50 years and we’ve been passing laws since trying to provide advantages to minorities.. Destroying the system by defunding police and cancelling out those who disagree is all about gaining power, not about trying to improve the lives of any minorities. The second part of the current debate is that conservatives and most remaining liberals view “fair” as equal opportunity while the Left, distinguished from true liberals, views “fair” as equal outcome. This is the root of both Marxist ideology and identity politics. In that worldview, the groups that have not succeeded, who have not thrived in our capitalist system, are the oppressed. In America it is expressed by race, not class as Marx described it, but it's the same thing. Historically, there is certainly truth to the oppression of blacks because they have been deprived of equal opportunity. But the left now defines the entire capitalist system as racist because blacks have historically not thrived, and as a group, still are not. Why doesn’t seem to matter. The unequal outcomes alone proves “systemic racism.” However, to a conservative, racism is an individual opinion against people of another race and cannot be systemic unless the laws specifically discriminate, as the Jim Crow laws did. But now, our affirmative action laws favor minorities. Colleges blatantly discriminate against Asians and, to a lesser degree, whites . So we do not see “systemic racism,” primarily because we define it differently. Much of the arguments, as so often happens in our polarized political environment, can’t be resolved because we define the terms differently. And, of course, since both the media and politicians profit from the conflict, they have no interest in clarifying things.
The American system, as flawed as it is, simply provides more freedom and opportunities than any other does or ever has. That is why it is still the dream of billions around the world to get here. Solutions should be to provide more freedom and opportunities for all individuals, particularly those Americans who have been blocked from it in the past. The changes need to spread equality of opportunity, not try to dictate equal outcome, which always fails. Tearing down the whole system is no solution, and the threats to do so are just to gain power, not to actually help anyone.
Strategically, the Republican party certainly does need to appeal to more minorities, but the selling points are the ideas that apply to all individuals, not the groupthink power struggle that seems to motivate Democrats and leftists. They can do that primarily through school choice and more charter schools as well tax and other incentives for businesses and jobs in low income areas. They can promote their pro-life policies, which are strongly supported by a majority of minorities. Republicans have plenty to offer. It would be nice if the party had a leader who could articulate that, but we don’t.
Klein states in broad terms on page 91 that politics can ‘make smart people stupid’. How do you feel this has played into your personal political views?
Carley: I think that politics, like any other human endeavor into group/tribe dynamics, makes us stupid. For example - sports. People have literally burned their own cities in the aftermath of unfavorable sporting outcomes. Politics plays the same game, entangling itself intentionally with our core values, our emotions, and our futures in a knot of nerves. That knot of nerves grows larger as we grow older and become further entrenched in our own beliefs, until they fire at the slightest touch. Politics making people stupid is not surprising to me, but I think there was a deeper meaning to this in Klein’s description that stuck with me. It doesn’t just make anyone stupid, it specifically makes ‘smart people stupid’. He cited a study where liberals and conservatives were shown math problems that either fit or didn’t fit with their ideology. Among liberals, when posed with a question that showed that gun-control legislation reduces crime they tended to get the problem right. When the same math problem was framed to show that gun-control legislation had failed, almost all got the answer wrong. Conservatives exhibited the same trend, according to their ideologies. But interestingly, the groups that were the least adept at math were 25% more likely to get the answer right when it bolstered their ideology. But those with very strong math skills, were 45% likelier to get the answer right when it fit their ideology. The smarter people are, the more likely their personal belief systems will factor into how they digest and synthesize information. The more intelligent and engaged of us that follow politics, tend to read and research with the sole goal of proving our own points. That group of people, regardless of party affiliation, is also more likely to be able to seek out information that fits into an argument for their own belief - making them believe it to be true even more vehemently. I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t point out that this article exercise is a prime example of that, at least for my Dad and myself. But for you, the reader, this exercise is one that breaks that statistic - presenting contrasting views on the same page, in response to the same questions, with no clear angle or winner. This is meant to disrupt your natural inclination to fit information into the cookie cutters in your mind.
John: I would say “passion makes people stupid” and many people are passionate about politics so they get carried away and the brain stops working the same way. Carley, since you were an evolutionary biology major, you’ll be aware of this. When humans get stressed or excited or scared, their adrenalin ramps up and the ability of their brain to think logically is impaired. Nothing new. Science has known this for a long time. That’s why being “cool under pressure” is so rare. Whether it’s politics, football, relationships, or whatever, passion trumps logic every time. So I agree with Klein. I just don’t think it’s unique to politics.
Do you believe the media is important? What about it is broken?
Carley: It is so important during these times to critically analyze our media platforms and I am going to try not to write an entire dissertation here. Conservatives are not wrong when they say the media is broken - but they are wrong when they say it's because ‘mainstream media is fake’ - they are typically reacting to journalistic lean or misleading context, not outright false information. But there is an explanation behind the increasing lean we are seeing in journalism. I could spend my answer to this question justifying the liberal media, their extensive fact-checking and genuine search for truth, or Democrats’ statistical likelihood of digesting a higher variety of media than Republicans, etc. But I am instead going to talk about the biggest threat to our media and information right now and it doesn’t involve politics at all. One of the many things ‘The Disruptors’ (self-proclaimed title of the founders of Facebook) did not foresee when kicking off the age of social media was the effect it would have on traditional media. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are forms of entertainment and engagement, and they command peoples’ attention - making themselves a direct competitor for traditional news outlets who have been forced to move the majority of their reporting online. The algorithms that give a fake article about the ‘9/11 Hoax’ 100,000 shares are the same algorithms that The New Yorker must use to get viewership for their articles. But the problem is that those algorithms weren’t designed to favor intellectual or factual-but-boring information. The Disruptors are famous for touting their utopian beliefs and for absolutely refusing the title or occupation of ‘gatekeeper’. Yet still they sit huddled and hoodied in dark rooms, determining the algorithms that dictate what sort of information will be valued above all else. In the end they decided that the information that draws the most eyes and actionable responses (likes, clicks, shares) should be valued above all else. And thus the course of history was changed forever.
QAnon, sometimes referred to as ‘Pizza Gate’ is an online fanatical deep state theory that claims all of America’s rich people and politicians are in cahoots and running a child sex ring. It is so outrageous and curious that if I linked it here you would most likely click on it to get more info whether you think it might be true or not. This theory is important because it is a perfect example of the most powerful information pipeline in existence right now. It runs from the deep corners of the internet (for example the notorious platforms such as 8chan or the subreddit recently banned called r/The_Donald) to online propaganda ‘celebrities’ like Gavin McInnes, to Fox News, to Trump’s Twitter account and even to the New York Times. There are now hoards of individuals whose profession it is to launch extremist propaganda and ideas through this pipeline (they used to call it the Tucker Pipeline referring to the frequency at which Tucker Carlson would pick up their latest claims), until they are accepted as a part of our nation’s conversation. And they are extremely good at it, able to toe the line of socially acceptable and mind-numbingly hateful with precision. THIS is what ‘fake news’ should mean right now. For some of them their social media accounts attract two, even three times the circulation of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal COMBINED. How can a well researched Wall Street Journal article begin to compete with the clickability of the unspeakable and the outrageous? With even more attention to accuracy? No. They are forced to stoop to the rules of the game dictated by the algorithms. Media like the WSJ now have to spend their energy testing headline after headline, cover photo after cover photo, until finding the one that results in the most clicks (usually by eliciting activating emotions such as outrage or disgust - hence increasingly divisive news media). Don’t forget, this metric has absolutely nothing to do with how many people read the article, just how many people like or share it. They are fighting to cling to their journalistic standards - but right now the trolls are winning, and we don’t know how to defeat them. They aren’t just responsible for conspiracy theories either, they are responsible for creating huge followings for extremist ideologies - often violent and hateful ones like Boogaloo. We cannot fully stoop to their level, although the media has succumbed a good deal. But even when we put propagandist efforts in the spotlight and into our conversations we only give them more viewers. They relish the New York Times covering ‘Pizza Gate’ because for as much outrage as it elicits, it creates an equal and opposite reaction spreading the narrative like wildfire. However if we were to ignore them completely, they would be running the world. In short, I am not asking you to be more trusting of traditional media, I am asking you to spend more time diversifying your media intake and verifying it - maybe once a day read some traditional media you normally wouldn’t read and see if you can verify the sources. I am asking you to hold social media platforms responsible for the Fake News that they propagate exponentially. I am asking you to shift your ‘this is fake’ reaction to a ‘this seems misleading, I’ll read more’ reaction. If you have been struggling to find Fact in the media, don’t blame journalists, don’t even blame Editorial Boards - it’s counterproductive. Dismissing the mainstream media gives power to propaganda. We have to ask why misinformation is winning and fix the problem at its source by demanding algorithmic change. We need to blame the algorithms that are flooding our timelines with propaganda disguised as news, and that are forcing the media to pander to their viewers with more and more outrageous information and headlines. Be aware of how social media is affecting our news platforms and ourselves, and triple the amount of research you do before accepting something as fact. Trace it to its source - every time. Until our social media platforms accept that this is their responsibility, we will have to do it ourselves. You are not exempt from this phenomena, no matter who you are, propaganda and misinformation has undoubtedly seeped into your Facebook feed just as it has seeped into traditional media. But writing off the media right now is like taking out your car engine because the breaks are broken. Support candidates that value anti-propaganda legislation for social media companies and inform people about this issue. Only then will we see a change in our news media platforms and how they handle ‘truth’. This was a long answer, but I consider this issue vitally important to our nation’s future. If you would like to learn more about this I highly suggest the book Anti-Social by Andrew Morantz or a podcast called Rabbit Hole by the New York Times.
John: As I mentioned earlier, a free and transparent media is absolutely essential to a free country. The first thing tyrants do in any takeover of a country is to control the media. When the media is controlled or actively working for the people in power, freedom is curtailed and ultimately lost. Our founding fathers knew this and wisely set up the freedom of the press as one of the many checks and balances in our political system. The media has always been biased and that is likely tied to a tendency of young feeling liberals who are passionate about expressing themselves - like my daughter - being drawn to journalism. There is nothing wrong with that in general, but, in my lifetime, I have seen the media go from biased to somewhat activist starting with the Vietnam war and the resignation of Nixon through Reagan. Under George W. Bush, after the 2000 election and the controversy surrounding it, the activism became more obvious. Under Trump, the media has dropped all pretenses. The mainstream media, as a controlling majority, not the entirety, is simply the PR arm of the Democratic party actively working to get Trump out and the Democrats back in power. I could give a list of examples as they happen on a virtual daily basis. The mainstream media controls the narrative that the country talks about and how they talk about it. Even more importantly, they also control what we don’t talk about. The few conservative news sources that exist, like FoxNews, provide somewhat of a check and balance, but they cannot change the narrative. They are just too limited to do that. I will admit a few FoxNews commentators are just as guilty of working with Republican leadership as the bulk of the media is with Democrats and it’s just as wrong and dangerous, but has much less impact simply because of the numbers involved.
Despite the 24-hour news cycle, the important stories or just critical perspectives that are ignored because they don’t fit the key narrative are immense. As an example to support my claim that this is continuous, just on the day i wrote this, I read three separate articles (CNN, USA Today, and NBC) about Nancy Pelosi saying that the Republicans were “trying to get away with murder, the murder of George Floyd.” This is a horrific statement, terribly divisive, and based on nothing logical. Did any reporter or any of the articles criticize her or point out that this happened in a Democratically controlled city in a Democratically controlled state and that all police forces are locally controlled? Is anyone other than Republicans calling for an apology? Of course not. The narrative was that Republicans were complaining. This is standard practice. When Republicans do something bad, the narrative is about them doing something bad. When Democrats do something bad, the narrative is that Republicans are complaining about it. It fits the media’s narrative that all Republicans are bad and Pelosi can freely say such things with impunity. Just today’s example of polarizing venom supported by the media-Democrat collusion.
Carley, this is not refuting what you described very well. You’ve given me a better sense of the dangers of social media, but since I spend so little time on it and get virtually no political information from it, I have a different perspective and it’s focused on the mainstream media. I’m sure I’m missing the impact of the social media fake news phenomenon and I would trust that both sides of the aisle are guilty. However, I think you’re either missing or discounting the blatant activist nature of the mainstream media and their intentional control of the public narrative and the level of influence it has. I recall my mom telling me about a powerful media person, back in the 70’s when they really controlled what people knew, say that the media got Nixon out of office and they could get him back in if they wanted. I don’t think it’s changed that much.
Klein discusses how, as politically informed individuals, we can represent our own parties extremely well, but not so much the opposing. In your opinion, what are the biggest strengths and weaknesses of your own party’s political media platforms?
Carley: As I contemplate my answer to this question I am tempted to outline the echo chamber in leftist media. It undeniably exists, but that issue is not unique to Liberal media - in fact Republicans have distinctly less high circulation publications and news stations, which arguably creates an even stronger echo chamber. In my most generous estimation both parties of media are at the least, equally guilty of the ‘echo chamber’. I could talk about ‘cancel culture’, which undeniably exists in liberal media - but it arguably also exists in the conservative world for those who speak out against Trump. My biggest issue with leftist media right now is their unwillingness to get creative in the war of misinformation. I will be the first to admit that I don’t personally have a well formulated idea as to how to combat the rise in less than reputable click-bait publications - but it seems that the liberal media hasn’t even tried. With one hand they claim that they are upholding the pinnacles of journalism - and with the other hand, they are playing the same dirty algorithmic games that are increasingly propagandizing and divisive. I also believe that this fatal flaw is well supported by the leftist media’s addiction to Donald Trump. What the layman doesn’t realize, and what Donald Trump definitely realizes, is that it really doesn’t matter very much how negatively CNN covers Trump or how positively Fox News covers him. Division is politically beneficial for him, which is why he encourages it in our media. What matters is that he is on the screen - the phrase “all press is good press” is a truism for a reason. The New Yorker reporter Ronan Farrow wrote that he had been let down by the decision by major liberal news platforms to aggressively cover Donald Trump early in the election. They didn’t have to give him 80% of the 24 hour news cycle, they made a decision to do so. Just like the Facebook Disruptors, media elites claim they aren’t the decision-makers. But they are. Big Media has never admitted to the true role they play in our Democracy and the effect of their decisions on what is ‘news-worthy’ and who deserves coverage - and more importantly that those decisions are made based on profit, not what’s best for our country. This is their fatal flaw. They are buying into the very systems that will end up being their biggest downfall - circulation numbers over accountability, outrage over accurate coverage, protecting themselves first and honesty second. Outrage is winning over Truth. And when the biggest news organizations like the NYT aren’t actively fighting that, they are perpetuating it. But how can we blame them? We forget that our news organizations are for-profit businesses, and we shouldn’t be blaming them for adapting to an environment that we ourselves created. One that is poisonous for truth and only the outrageous survives. You can rant and rave all you want about the New York Times not publishing a conservative opinion piece - but that doesn’t make them liars. It just means their profits are ever more closely tied to creating news that appeals to their consumers. Their job is to get readers. I will never understand why people expect their newspapers to be non-partisan when they know that isn’t what people are buying right now. There was once a time when consumers preferred centrist and non-partisan publications in the mid-20th century. That time has long passed. In the ‘90’s Republicans launched their own news platforms, our nation was polarizing, and our publications followed suit. Our media isn’t the problem, they are evolving their businesses to succeed in an increasingly digital and polarized nation. Media isn’t going to change until we as a nation change. We are the hand that feeds, not the other way around. If ‘Fake News’ bothers you, then grow up and put in the work that is required to digest news media responsibly during a time when they must cater to a polarized nation. Double check facts and figures, look into how the quoted studies were conducted, research a journalist’s other articles to see where she displays lean. Read the same article in multiple publications, study where they diverge. If you hate the media so much, stop relying on it to do the work for you and roll up your sleeves. CNN, NYT, Fox News, a conservative blogger, none of these sources individually will inform you accurately. You must create your own meta-analyses. If you want to change how journalism is done then stop trying to change the story and change the rules by which they play. Truth has to matter again to YOU before it can matter and become profitable again for the media.
John: Frankly, Klein proves his own point by completely whiffing on his various descriptions of conservatives and Republicans. In an early chapter, he, in essence, said that the racist “Dixiecrats” just switched to the Republican party and this is why the Republicans are so racist now. Not sure whether that is more inaccurate or more insulting. It's certainly both. His description of the Dixiecrats was accurate - funny how he all but refused to call them the Democrats that they were. They were the resistance to the Civil Rights bill under Johnson and every attempt to increase rights for blacks in this country for decades prior to that. It was absolutely racist. No question. But that was the 60’s and before. He leaves out 30 years of history. In the south, in the 60’s and 70’s, when I was growing up, virtually all adults were Democrats simply because their parents were Democrats. As he described well, parties were not about ideological views then like they are now. Everyone was a Democrat (except my parents, actually. Probably because my dad was from Minnesota, my mom was educated in Boston, and they lived outside of Texas for many years). Race was a huge part of it in the 60’s. No question. It took until Reagan (positive reaction) in the 80’s and Clinton (negative reaction) in the 90’s to cement the South as Republican. Even though it was the whites who were switching, race had very little to do with it. It was over limited government, taxes, abortion, and other conservative values. As the ideological split gradually became more clear, the South finally figured out the Democrats had left most of them behind as they consolidated around ideologically liberal platforms. His implication that racism is a “conservative” view is also offensive and flat wrong. He repeats that on multiple occasions. Klein sees no real difference between the Jim Crow laws in the first half of the 20th century, which everyone agrees were very racist as well as pushed by Democrats, and wanting strong borders now, which is not remotely racist for conservatives. Controlling our borders is about jobs and security, not racism. To a conservative, racism is an individual act or problem. To a leftist like Klein, capitalism, or “the system” is oppressive of minorities simply because outcomes have not been equal, so any support of the current system is, by definition racist. This is why they tend to view capitalism and capitalists as racist. This is a fundamentally Marxist definition that labels whole groups wrong and bad - ironically a particularly bigoted and hateful sentiment, but that’s a different discussion. Like many leading leftists, he seems to see everything through a racial lens and half the country just doesn’t think that way. His view of conservatives and Republicans is distorted and appears to be simply the liberal, or, more accurately, the far left’s view of them. He doesn’t understand the conservative’s emphasis on individual rights and individual opportunity and responsibility and, as far as I can tell, doesn’t plan to try.
How can we make our country and our parties more united in the future?
John: Without some outside catastrophe, such as a war that joins us against a common enemy, which no one wants, it will be very difficult, if not impossible in the near future. As we have seen, not even a global pandemic could unify us. As Klein described well, it is human nature to group ourselves and self-polarize. Since the media and politicians, the two most powerful and contributing entities to the current problem, both profit from further division, there is no way it will happen until either they change or their “customers” get so fed up that they tune them out. I don’t see that happening anytime soon. If there were a great unifying and inspiring leader promoting change, then we could make progress, but the current system does not allow for a unifier to get through the primaries or an election. Term limits would be a big plus, but I don’t see that happening. It was popular a while back, but the ones who vowed to self limit did so and they’re all gone and the issue is dead. A small start would be for more people to simply understand the motives behind the media and the politics - that they are paid to piss you off and gain power by dividing us - better enabling healthy skeptical responses to them and maybe a market for a return to objective media. In the long run, we need far better schools, at all levels, that pushed for diversity of ideas, welcomed conservative thought, and actually taught objective logic and critical thinking, but that is the foundation of western civilization that is being rejected on all fronts. So, no, I don’t see much hope of unification any time soon. Too many people in power are profiting, both in money and power, on the “fear and anger industry.”
Carley: Polarization is a tricky knot to untie. I used to think that a huge global crisis might bring everyone together, but with Coronavirus we are seeing that that is clearly untrue (so far). I believe that concretely, we need to ban paid political advertising on every platform, and I think that we, as Americans, need to become students again. We need to study how algorithms are affecting our news media. We need to study the news; read every publication you can get your hands on. Study what ‘lean’ reads like, study what ‘lies’ read like. We need to stop cutting verified news sources out of our diet and start adding – diversifying what we are reading. We need to limit how much day-to-day news we get from individuals with microphones - for example, Ezra Klein or Ben Shapiro. We need to learn the language of news…being able to tell the difference between fact and opinion is a muscle we need to flex constantly. You should be able to read an article and with two different colored highlighters color what is ‘opinion’: projection, assumption, or leaves enough room to be misleading; and color what is ‘fact’: references a direct event, quote, or sourced statements. I’m serious. Try it. Categorize every line of the article. Do it for WSJ, do it for NYT, do it for Daily Mail, do it for Cosmo. Use old articles that won’t involve your emotions. You will start to read current news and easily pick apart their rhetoric, which sentences you can hop over and which ones contain truth. I am not just being high-minded, I’ve done this. I relish finding misleading or opinion statements in my morning NYT, knowing I am safe from it. I relish pointing it out in Fox News when my Dad emails me their articles ;) We need to stop writing off the media, and just put in the work required to digest news responsibly during these times. We need to absolutely stop watching ALL 24-hour news cycles. We need to learn more about the people that are creating and feeding online extremist pipelines through carefully curated content, cult-tactics, and the dark side of our social media algorithms. We need to stop unfollowing people we disagree with, building our own echo chambers. We need to hold big tech accountable for exacerbating misinformation and propaganda, for profiting off our data, and for allowing paid political advertising. We need to focus less on every nuance of national politics and get involved in local politics. Your local politicians will return your calls, you can actually affect change. This year I helped a group get infertility treatments covered by insurance in the state of Colorado. That was huge and incredibly rewarding – being involved in local politics is a proven way to chip away at polarization. Klein says on page 266, “…there’s a real reward from rooting more of our political identities in the places we live. First, we tend to live among people more like us, so the politics is less polarizing. Second, the questions are often more tangible and less symbolic, so the discussion is often more constructive and less hostile.”. Another one of Klein’s suggestions for depolarization is to stop viewing our political goals as a final solution or an overdue solution. “There isn’t an end state to American politics. The search for a static answer will always be folly. There is no one best way for the system to work. What works in one era fails in the next. That’s okay. The point is to get to that next era with the most progress and the least violence.”
We must remember that we will never reach our goal of a perfect society, and that decisions can be reversed, societal upheaval can last for centuries, our plans and ideas have flaws, other peoples’ plans and ideas are capable of merit. We must be more patient with each other – in real life and on social media. Start paying attention to when something lights a match inside you, and blow it out. Stop expecting the news media to tell you the full story and the absolute truth, and do the fact-checking, research, and extra work yourself. Unfollow most political accounts and platforms on social media and turn off your ability to see political ads. Keep reading, keep talking, keep loving each other and remember that politics do not define the roots of us as humans. Really, it doesn’t.
To quote one of the greatest leaders of all time, who led during a time of extreme misinformation, polarization, and crisis – Professor Dumbledore. “We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. (Insert Villain)’s gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open. We must unite inside [America], or we’ll crumble from within.”
THE END.
Thank you for reading this piece and for taking time out of your day in order to learn more and make our country a better place. I hope this piece helped humanize our politics for you and that we all walk away with a little more grace for each other. We can and we must work together. NOW GO REGISTER TO VOTE YOU INVALID.
