A Brief Explanation
I had to take last week off because, well post op for transplant can be hilariously odd during snow storms and threats of them. This is the second note, and next week I’ll be back with the next series. So sorry for my time away. Let’s get to the topic.
The Wrong Mix
One of the ways I keep up as I stay within the restrictions the doctors have set for me, is watching content. Leftists, Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians. I watch all of them to keep an understand of the normal voter’s information sources. It can be a good way to get a break from following the actions, decision making, and strategy of the political class, both elected and their powers behind their thrones. In watching all of this, I came across an interesting similarity that I want to talk about for a bit with you today. And that is that they all don’t know how to handle mixing the right people for topics.
The same problem comes from different places for left vs. right. On the right, the problem is obvious, they don’t mix people with any actual differences within conservative mindsets. As you notice on programs as traditional as Fox and Friends, and as obsure as whatever Sargon of Akkad and Dave Rubin are up to these days, there are 2 things inherent to right wing panel and collaborative work. The first is that you cannot get into issues that upset the majority right wing power, While that is currently Trump’s MAGA, previous it was the Tea Party, and previous to that it was the Neo-Con movement of Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America. Between these you have of course, more traditional republican conservative right wing groups and the religiously conservative groups. Which is why even during the fall of the Tea Party prior to the rise of MAGA, you had geniune disagreement and coalition building to accomplish conservative ideas. That interplay when one group dominates power though, is clearly no longer in play.
The second inherent issue is that any outside opposition is either presented as absurdity, see most of the guests on the O’Reilly Factor, anyone who debates Candace Owens, and until he is freed from the clutches of CNN, any time they put Marc Lamont Hill into a discussion with conservative hosts. This is by design, but not as useful as it seems, and I’ll get to that in a moment. The other presentation of outside opposition is as weak and ineffectual. The clearest example is the time of Alan Colmes being on Hannity & Colmes. While ultimately Colmes was really just another center to center-right moderate, he was billed by FOX and by Hannity himself as a hard hitting liberal on par with Hannity’s hard hitting conservativism. The current state of Hannity as a solo act should be all you need to see that for the farce it is.
But ultimately these presentation issues are not design flaws from the right wing perspective, they are design features. In the landscape of right wing media, everything is propaganda, and often it isn’t just to bring in new recruits, but to reinforce the hold on the current membership. It could almost be said that it is a permanent purity test culture. Are you loyal to the party? If so then you must agree with what you’re being told. Besides, do you see how useless the other side is? Do you see how evil they are? How they have a personal vendetta against everything that makes you the great and special person you are? While I’m laying these tactics out in harsh and unambiguous terms, once you look deeper at how talking points turn into ideology and that into media presentation you can see it. But that really worked best before social media and international connections became ubiquitous. More on that in a bit.
The Left and the Democrats have the same problem. Which of course is part of the problem. Because they want to appeal to the center and center right for growth instead of center and center left as well as the left, Democrats have an antagonistic and often times diametrically oppositional position to the Left. This manifests in some of the things I’ve already talked about in previous pieces, but also as the source of both group’s media problem. When you think about Leftist and Center left podcast or TV panels, who do you see? Usually you see 3 categories. The first, is the same setup as the right with a bunch of similar minds that agree on a single sacred cow which must not be challenged in any meaningful way. The second, is the both sides-ing with people who are aggressively disagreeable, likely as performance, and openly hostile. The third, is the one I loathe the most. A panel of people not really equipped to address the topic in any honest fashion, but instead as judgement of those who would.
Am example that pops up frequently is the discussion of male loneliness from the left perspective. Often these debate panels are focused on judgement of the figures men attach to, the impact of patriarchy on society, and very little time is given to solutions, or the human aspect of these problems. I recently watched one that had what I would consider a traditional masculine presenting man on, and of all the people talking he was given the least time to address things like the nature of male grouping and friendships. contrast this with the same kinds of panels on the current issues effeting women or other marginalized groups and you will find often there are not just solutions, but a care and concern for the humanity of the people being addressed. Nowhere is this more obvious than any panel discussing American black men. I’m not going to get into depth on that because it could be a piece all unto itself. And as much as I love Khadija Mbowe witty and deep perspective on topics; as much as I enjoy hearing a fellow attorney like Olayemi Olurin, who’s style and approach should be a good template for most, both often miss some of the things that would give heft to their analysis, that may only be obvious to others. Usually both cover by trying to get someone at least perceived by them to fit the related communities, but even they tend to fall short of getting someone who might be respectful yet challenging.
And this is a problem for all groups, Left, Center, and Right. he landscape of commentary online used to be confined to internet based, radio like, podcasting. Or in the older days, it was blogs and online magazines. I know, I used to run a fairly successful one. But as social media began to dominate as the base for commentary and discussion, the optics of the echo chamber you want to create became much more of the math to make it stand out. This isn’t an argument for stodgy civil disagreements that look more like Lincoln Douglas debate tournaments. No, but it is an argument for all three to more honestly incorporate opposition. Candace Owens talking to Bill Burr. Khadija Mbowe having a 1 on 1 conversation with Aba of Aba and Preach. These are just a couple of easy top of my head ideas. But you get the point, I’m not suggesting some normalization of anyone to their opposition, just a more honest discourse. With the chance that in doing so there is actual effect on the groups they all claim they want to educate and break from their opposition’s viewpoint. Will they? I mean I can’t call it. I’d gladly go on any of the people whose content I talked about, left center or right, in this piece to be that opposition. But, they would be very angry very quickly, because I don’t toe lines as y’all have read. But until you see me announced, let me end here and get back to prepping for the next series piece.