If I was the king of the nation's attention, I would force everyone to read this entire thread. It explains soooooo much about the current state of our political culture, especially the asymmetrical nature of polarization. https://twitter.com/mattsheffield/status/1324909413161865221
I know many non-conservatives will read this and be unsurprised. This is how they've thought about conservative "media" for years, and they were right. But here's why this matters to me...because epistemological pluralism matters to me...because I care about democracy.
Even the most well-intentioned, reality-based journalists can fall prey to groupthink. No one outlet or perspective has a monopoly on the truth. Practicing good epistemological hygiene requires that one seek out perspectives that challenge one's own.
I teach a class on the History of American Conservatism, so for professional (and citizenly) purposes I check in with conservative media outlets now and then. I feel like I'm Charlie Brown with the football, constantly in search of a factual, good faith conservative media outlet.
Most self-described "conservative" news outlets resemble Breitbart in that they literally employ zero actual reporters. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1253767063107076096?s=20
What conservative media does, more than anything else, is produce "narratives" that serve their purposes. They justify this to themselves because this is what they think "the liberal media" does. But this is a self-serving lie they tell themselves. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1231017347747500032?s=20
The roots of this oversimplified narrative about "the liberal media" goes way back...it's been a key facet of conservative messaging since the 1950s, but really picked up steam during the Nixon Administration. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1177330228898566144?s=20
The impact has been to create the false appearance of two equivalent sides to every issue...when those sides frequently do not have equal grasps on reality, or just basic morality. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1302626929682477057?s=20
A key job of conservative media, for decades now, has been to normalize anything and anyone to the right of the GOP so as to help expand their shrinking voting base that is overwhelmingly white, elderly, and evangelical. This is why the GOP mediascape is so hellish right now.
This was apparent back in 2017. Breitbart, an utterly fringe and unserious outlet in 2010 had, by 2016, come to occupy the imagined "center" of GOP politics. If that had happened, then what currently "nutty" things would the GOP normalize? https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/942518404598054912?s=20
I think it's possible to believe in pluralism and also to say that most conservative media is total garbage, and that no one should read it until they get their act together. Here's a thread where I explain why I think RW media is undeserving of our trust. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1142475168867950592?s=20
My thinking on these issues has been heavily informed by this brilliant book by @andrewmarantz. At one point he says that journalists covering the Trumpist right could choose between being even handed and telling the truth. They could not do both. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Antisocial/smSIDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP1&printsec=frontcover
One of the chapters is entitled "To Change How We Talk is To Change Who We Are." I think this names a key dividing line in the culture war the right has been waging since I was in college in the late 80s. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1043520879156637698?s=20
The American right has weaponized the concept of "freedom of speech" so that it now means basically "I will defend the right of the most revolting people to say whatever dehumanizing things they want to." They think "how we talk" has zero connection to "who we are." That's wrong.
The thread I linked to way back at the beginning of this thread is basically a call for more and better gatekeepers on the right--people who will distinguish between accurate and inaccurate stories, between gratuitous cruelty and brash truth telling.
Until those gatekeepers emerge (and I have little expectation that they will), the RW mediasphere will continue to serve as a bigotry factory. I chose the word "factory" intentionally. They do not just reflect pre-existing bigotries and hatreds, they also produce them.
You can follow @SethCotlar.
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