In Eau Claire, Tom Giffey, the editorial-page editor at the Leader-Telegram, described the profusion of cut-and-paste e-mails that his page has received during the campaign. “In the old days, there were Republican or Democratic newspapers, but there was more of a level playing field and both sides had to argue from the same facts,” Giffey said. “Now we’re in an age when you can simply reinforce your own viewpoints. And it’s hard to have a discussion of the facts when you’re dealing with two separate sets of facts””two sets of talking points that came down from on high. With the Internet, all of us were going to be content producers, but it’s become an echo chamber.”
As Dave Herbert, the building contractor at Bonnie’s Home Cooking, put it, “Partisanship has crept into every crease in this country.” In 2008, a customer at a breakfast spot in Appalachia, or a worker at a union office in Columbus, is able to repeat the latest dubious campaign sound bites within days, if not hours. Everyone hates the media, and everyone sounds like a talking head.
Cass Sunstein predicted this in Republic.com.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/07/sunstein/
As Washington arrogates more and more power to itself, expect to see this trend accelerate. Literally everything – food, education, housing, retirement, medical care, police, etc. – will ride on who controls the behemoth in DC, and you will get to pick four of the 537 people who determine all of it.
Washington is going to become less and less stable as time goes on because of it.
John, surely Sunstein’s article predicts the stupidization of the liberals as well as of the conservatives. (And he is right about that.) It might be true that what is stupid about liberal internet discourse has less basis in sheer misinformation, or is subtler, but that’s not necessarily a significant improvement.
The part that struck me wasn’t the ignorance or bigotry, but the sense of hopelessness. If these people are supposed to be our swing voters, I have to say that the election being decided on the basis of such overwhelming negativity does not fill be with positive feelings.