Dec 23 2007
Americans “Open” Their Minds To New Opportunity, Look Beyond The Partisan Zero-Sum Games
Evan Thomas has produced a real piece of irony today in Newsweek. He arrogantly calls it “The Closing Of The American Mind”. Of course a ‘closed mind” connotes someone unwilling to see potential, to grasp change, to recognize new opportunities. But what Thomas and Newsweek are guilty of is one of the most blatant cases of projection from a tired, worn out and biased news media. The story is about Americans tuning out the extreme partisans left and right, which to means those with the “closed” minds really are the ones who cannot abide and compromise, any progress, any chance the opposition could gain even marginally. That is his point:
But the real divide, the separation that may matter more to the future of American democracy, is between the political junkies and everyone else. The junkies watch endless cable-TV news shows and listen to angry talk radio and feel passionate about their political views. They number roughly 20 percent of the population, according to Princeton professor Markus Prior, who tracks political preferences and the media. Then there’s all the rest: the people who prefer ESPN or old movies or videogames or Facebook or almost anything on the air or online to politics. Once upon a time, these people tended to be political moderates; now they are turned off or tuned out. Aside from an uptick in the 2004 presidential election, voter turnout has drifted downward since its modern peak in 1960 …
It’s axiomatic that democracies need an informed and engaged citizenry. But America’s is indifferent or angry.
This is another “no one is listening to me!” whine. Note that last line. According to Thomas we dumb Americans cannot possible be informed (aka educated) if we are fed up with the immature and unprofessional antics of the far left and far right. We get bombarded by name calling and double digit IQ assessments of issues, and it is our dumb fault we have turned of the chattering heads who provide so little “RESULTS”. That is a word Thomas and his SurrenderMedia comrades should take the time to study. Instead of crying ‘wolf’ and becoming hysterical over science they cannot begin to grasp (global warming, embryonic stem cells) they should realize much of this country understand the issues of the day much better than they do.
I can see this same pattern all across the frustrated left. Their agenda is stalled and no one cares outside the leftward fevered swamps. I see it on the right as well, in the form of purity wars which just are not taking off. I just cannot get over the arrogance left and right throw out when people disagree with their pet ideas. We are either idiots or traitors. Just contemplate the image of our ‘el Presidente Jorge Bushitler” and you can appreciate the 3rd grade level of discourse emanating from the partisans.
The ones who have closed their minds are not the ones who have rejected possibilities outside their narrow partisan views. The ones who fear changes they disagree with are the ones who have closed their minds to the new ideas of their fellow citizens. And that is why mature, serious, professional Americans have tuned out – they are sick of the static – not because they are uninformed. The fact is the center still determines who wins in politics – just ask Ned Lamont and Tom Tancredo.
Addendum: I want to point out one more arrogance I found in the article. It revolves around the idea that collecting information is more important or difficult than understanding the information. Here is what can, at best, be a case of naive arrogance:
But others note that the Web tends to be long on opinion (which is cheap to produce) and short on actual reporting (which is expensive and strains the capacities of old-line news organizations shorn of viewers, listeners and readers).
Political junkies can find anything on the Internet, but what they look for tends to reinforce their prejudices.
There are folks like me who work on systems that are made up of literally millions of parts and must operate for 5-10 years in the most demanding environment in the universe – space itself. We have to understand the millions of parts and how they interact and how they behave when off the surface of planet. Now my career really is no different than the surgeon, highway engineer, architect, policeman. We all can grasp, process and understand large amounts of information in our respective areas of expertise. The journalists are typically the ones who represent complex subject matter at a level of a 3rd grader. They do what little they can to grasp and distill information down to a sound bite. They do not distill it down to knowledge or insight – they can’t.
Now there are journalist wannabes in the blogosphere, but there are millions of professionals are much more adept at processing and understanding the essence and context of the information so dutifully collected by the press. The news media has always been weak on information comprehension and has been taking its licks in this modern age by the average American processing their reporting to a much higher level of analysis, insight and knowledge. For example, folks like me were analyzing the news out of Iraq back in March and could see the depth and breadth and force of change coming. Unlike those who reported the news, we could see the meaning of the news.
The media can collect information. But the blogosphere, which is really a lens focusing hundreds (if not thousands) of minds, is much better at analyzing events both long term and short term. The media is losing to the blogosphere because the American people have recognized this fact, and now go to the blogs for analysis and insight – the next level of information processing which comes AFTER information collection.
AJ,
The scariest thing is that I can understand the static…
Time to turn it off!!!
No new ideas – left or right – in a decade. Maybe longer. I still think the Left is far more trouble. They act like spoiled children. They can easily explode. The wingnuts just boil in a corner. No action there.
I agree with this:
> I see it on the right as well, in the form of purity wars which just are not taking off. I just cannot get over the arrogance left and right throw out when people disagree with their pet ideas.
There is nothign more embarassing than to see conservatives whining like a little babies because Candidate X only shares 80% of the agenda.
When did this demand for total lockstep adherence begin? Did George Bush alienate conservatives to such an extent that any compromise is now seen as naive-itay.?
Vince,
Bush had to find common ground to get legislation passed. It was and is the far right Bush bashers who started the civil war. “el Presidente Jorge Bush” was coined by the fools who destroyed the party because they could not get their way. Don’t blame Bush because these hot heads lost self control. Self control is paramount to leadership. Bush is not the one name calling.
>Bush had to find common ground to get legislation passed.
NCLB, Medicare Prescriptions, Illegal amensty, Dubai Ports, Harrier Myers are things he had to do? Hogwash!
>It was and is the far right Bush bashers who started the civil war. “el Presidente Jorge Bush†was coined by the fools who destroyed the party because they could not get their way.
The fools saved this country until the Democrats pass it in the middle of the night eventually.
>Don’t blame Bush because these hot heads lost self control. Self control is paramount to leadership. Bush is not the one name calling.
Well it is interesting that one of the few times he did do that, he did it agianst conservatives.
V ince,
Those were things he decided to do, and the far right decided to kill the party when they could not deal with it emotionally.
Don’t come to this site looking for sunshine – the far right destroyed the party, and I will remind them of their mistakes forever.
The traitors were the ones screaming traitor as they stabbed the ‘impure’ in their backs.
Evan Thomas can’t resist a dig with the title of this piece. “The Closing of the American Mind” was an important book by Allan Bloom, a friend of Wolfowitz and other “neocons” based on his observations as a professor. The liberal education system has narrowed American thought as Professor Bloom guessed it would. If Thomas thinks he’s anywhere near Bloom’s league by using this title he is more of a fool than I thought. Crazy as some right wingers are, they wouldn’t sacrifice the nation to Al Qaeda for power. The left is eager to do it.
One thing I do agree with, there are a lot of people out there who just do not want to hear it anymore. I know people who refuse to look at blogs, watch the news or listen to talk radio. They all the say the same thing {more or less} they are tired of listening to the never ending bitching and moaning and whining and fighting etc. They just want to be left alone.
This is the downside to too much information.
Vince:
I think it has something to do with the fact that there is money and power in raising hell. Bush is still pretty damn popular with Republicans as a general rule. The folks you are talking about are never happy with anyone. That is the way they want it.
Terrye: I think it’s a bit presumptious on your part to claim to know what groups of people I’m talking about and that they’re never happy.
I am only speaking in generalities. I am responding to the nonstop bitching and moaning I see on line, on cable etc.
The fact is Bush is the most conservative president I remember in office. Some conservatives can say he pissed them off because he was not just what they wanted, but who could make these people happy and actually get elected?
Reagan was not a fiscal conservative, he was not a social conservative. He did not build fences, he tore them down. Bush’s father was a moderate. I was born in the 50’s and Eisenhower was not Ron Paul for heavens sakes. In fact he was not even a Republican into the party bosses talked him into joining the party so that he could run for office.
So people on the right can complain about Bush not being a real conservative or whatever the most recent hissy fit is about, but it is not as if there is a strong tradition of right wingers in the White House.
And you know something? in the last three years it has been one hissy fit after another from the self pitying purity people on the right, so if some of these so-called disgruntled conservatives do not want people to think they are always unhappy, maybe they could lay off bitching all the time.
I also find it interesting on the political shows … Hannity is a good one for this … that they portray Reagan as some kind of arch conservative. Reagan was very libertarian. He himself was conservative but he never felt a need to push those values on other people. That is why so many Democrats voted for him. He didn’t alienate people from the opposition party. He was inclusive. He thought that America needed conservative places and liberal places and people should “vote with their feet” and everyone should have a right to live in a place that reflected their community values. Washington DC should get off people’s backs and stop trying to dictate a monolithic culture from DC. We have regional cultures and that is one of our great strengths. The South is different from the Midwest and the Midwest is different from the West. We should celebrate those differences.
A suggestion for our governments both state and federal. Make it against the law to do any government business in any language except English with the exception of business associated with assisting foreigners coming into and going out of the country.
And think about Nixon. Of course his raging paranoia did him in, but he was not known as a strong conservative. He appealed to a wide range of people. I think that like Reagan, many of his personal views could be seen as conservative, but he did not push an agenda that ran people away from the party.
If he just had not gone off the deep end, he might be remembered as a pretty good president.
I wasn’t alive back then but from what I understand there was something price controls… I can’t even conceive such a thing being done now.. anyone know what that was about?
“There is nothign more embarassing than to see conservatives whining like a little babies because Candidate X only shares 80% of the agenda.
When did this demand for total lockstep adherence begin? Did George Bush alienate conservatives to such an extent that any compromise is now seen as naive-itay.? ”
80%?? LOL, I consider myself a “Conservative” first and your 80% is a Tad Skewered as far as I’m concerned!
Let’s see, For Gay Marriage, Stricter Gun Laws, Abortion, Shamnesty, Higher Taxes, Socialized Medicine, Concern for the Terrorists over the Citizens of this country, etc!
I voted for GB twice, I will NOT vote for Rudy, Romney, or McNutt!
No more, Lesser of Two evils, It’s depressing and Disgusting! I will be writing in either Duncan Hunter, Fred, or Tancredo!
I think you may be missing the point just a Tad, remind me again how the RNC is doing in campaign contributions!!
Someone needs to Wake up !