Politics in America

[tschu]

State of American Politics: Today Rush Limbaugh proposed that being a "political leftist" led to Robin Williams killing himself

[BigRedBuster]

I think part of this is that we just tend to remember the past more fondly than it actually was. Nastiness is always a big part of the deal. That being said....

 

We've become better at winning elections and worse at governing.

 

Politics has become both a game and a science. Everything, from the color of a necktie to the hairstyle to God, Guns, and Gays is poll-tested and focus grouped to death before anything happens. The result is a deluge of trite talking points that don't even scratch the surface of the issue at hand. Even presidential addresses have been dumbed down. Debates ask candidates to detail Social Security reform in 60 seconds and advertisements are rarely longer than that. We even have an expression for it: in politics, if you're explaining, you're losing.

 

The same science still applies once in office. What polls well? What do my client groups insist on if they're going to support my re-election? The result, all too often, is a series of policies that make little to no sense when taken as a whole.

I agree that nastiness has always been here to some extent. However, here is the difference. In 1948 when Truman defeated Dewey in an extremely close race where it was so close a Chicago news paper erroneously printed that Dewey defeated Truman, we didn't have instantly 24 hour news channels constantly going over and over and over the crap to a point where they have to start making up stuff to both appease their radical viewership and to fill space on air.

 

Our media has become so out of whack with reality in this country that their need to HAVE news out weighs their need to actually report TRUE news.

 

FYI...It's not just TV and radio media either. It is also the internet. The total BS crap that you can find on the internet or get in some stupid email that gets passed around is beyond comprehendible. BUT, if someone is looking for validation of their beliefs, then these feed into it and they are more willing to believe everything they read.

 

This has lead to the radicalization of the bases which only forces the candidates to have to pander to those radical bases.

[Scratchtown]

I don't feel like the President is the one pulling the strings on decisions anyway. It doesn't matter if it's a republican or democrat. I also believe in massive voter fraud, again, regardless of party. I feel sorry for the people who think that the voting process and everything including debates are openly honest. They're not.

[carlfense]

I also believe in massive voter fraud, again, regardless of party.

What evidence forms the basis for your belief?

[tschu]

 

I also believe in massive voter fraud, again, regardless of party.

What evidence forms the basis for your belief?

 

Also, define exactly what you mean by voter fraud.

[Husker_x]

 

I have honest discussions about facts with people all the time. But that's person to person, eye to eye contact. It even happens over the internet occasionally.

 

Unfortunately this doesn't extend to the media because the media––especially the cable news brand––is mostly comprised of echo chambers (though the comedians tend to do a better job than the pundits at balancing the books). I don't want to draw a false equivalence here: I think the left is far more prone to substantive criticism of Obama and other major figures like the Clintons than the right. The right also criticizes its own members, but usually their complaints simply reduce down to "X is not conservative enough, Y is really a liberal/appeaser/progressive/socialist/RINO," and most of the time they can't be bothered to explain further. But then the modern right is like something out of a Stephen King novel. To them compromise is like a curse word.

Could it be that the right suffers too much from being shot at more by the media - or the feelings of that. It is "us against the dems and their MSM" so they aren't as critical of each other. The far right, while they own Fox (which is becoming a bit more centered) has always contended that it is conservatives against the Big 3 networks, CNN, MSNBC, etc (even though Fox has by far the biggest cable rankings: )?

 

But then one could look at the 2012 primaries - it could be argued that the very substantive debate caused Romney to loose the election - the repubs went at each other's throats and Romney's team was one of the worse.

 

 

I would say it's more like the right-wing media has adopted its base's persecution complex. They pretend as if they have no presence in the media, but by their logic anyone who is not them is by definition a "progressive" or a "limousine liberal." Facts and data never enter into it. It's just a tribal mantra. Fox "News" does have the largest audience in cable news television. They boast about it incessantly, but their zeal to pump up the importance of their own ratings (not really that impressive when you dig into the numbers and the audience demographics), they also claim they are marginalized by a leftist cabal.

 

I do not recall a substantive debate in the 2012 election cycle. I remember a clown show where one conservative tried to chest beat harder than the conservative to his left/right about how much more conservative he was than any other conservative who has ever been conservative in the history of conservatism Ronald Reagan. I expect to see a rerun in '16.