Monday, August 29, 2016
I wonder if it is even possible for the mainstream American press to cover an election intelligently. It all seems like Cokie Roberts murmuring that both sides do "it", whatever it is that day. The effect of this is to normalize stuff that is actually illegitimate by creating false equivalencies. At this point Congressional Republicans seem to be going all in on delegitimatizing HRC. They know they can't win, but with the press complicit they can obstruct her ability to govern. This happens because essentially no-one is prepared to critically analyze the policy proposals embodied by the two parties, and that is, in turn, because the Republican party really has no coherent policies apart from the policies that failed catastrophically during the Reagan, Bush and Bush administrations. It takes Democratic administrations a stone-cold eight years-- nearly a decade-- to undue the damage, and by that time the skein has been lost, and the electorate becomes focused on the trivia that the media reports. Emails, for chrissake. Decades old disproved rumors. The horrible thing is that the cumulative effect of the media's malpractice has resulted-- perhaps inevitably-- in otherwise rational people losing their perspective. My friend Lawrence Brose recalled that during his legal ordeal he found himself wondering, "What happened to my sense of critical acuity?" That's what happens under a barrage of attacks, even if the attacks aren't directed at you. Our collective sense of critical acuity becomes collateral damage. "Just. Make. It. Stop." our mind screams.
// posted by Bill @ 11:33 AM 
Post a Comment