If you get all your views from a handful of sources all saying the same thing, does it become true?
A plain blog about politics wonders if
the GOP is so far into its own echo chamber it'll screw up its chances this fall:
The immediate electoral relevance of the big epistemic closure discussion wasn't whatever difficulties it causes for Republicans as far as developing policies for the future; it's that people in a position to make decisions may be removed from reality and make foolish mistakes as a result, costing the GOP seats in Congress.
Do we know if this is true? Nope. It could be that Mitch McConnell actually knows the truth about the Bush-era tax cuts, and is just spinning; it could be that national Republicans realized that Angle and Paul were disasters for them, but had various other reasons for going along (yes, they're disasters for the Republicans; even if they win, they're going to drain resources that could have been used elsewhere had mainstream conservatives been nominated and won easily).
Do I think it's true? Granting that this is basically speculation...yup. I think the odds are very, very, high that John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell keep Fox News on wherever they're hanging out. They talk to people who get their news from FNC, from Rush Limbaugh, from conservative blogs. They, their staff, and the people they talk to read the Weekly Standard; they don't read the New Yorker. I think that both Cornyn and McConnell are practical politicians, not wild-eyed ideologues, but they're practical politicians living in a world in which people don't read the New York Times, certainly don't watch the network news, and don't seek out neutral sources of information. It's a world in which one hears over and over again that ACORN and the New Black Panther Party are major scandals, that unemployment benefits cause unemployment, and that the Obama administration made the budget deficit explode. The truth is, it's pretty hard if you live in that world -- or even if you just depend on those who live in it -- to keep this stuff straight.
No comments:
Post a Comment