Someone asked how the 'anti-Trump liberals' would react if Trump actually turned
this nation around and improved it substantially. Here's my reply:
I just don’t think that’s going to happen. That said, allow me to say something else. I’ll be as honest as I can be, but you must realize this is my opinion. It is, however, an educated one. Here’s the thing: Americans live in bubbles. The far left lives in the ‘far left bubble’ where they get their news from certain sources and no other. The far right lives in the ‘far right bubble.’ This bubble is larger, some say much larger, and it consists primarily of Fox News and AM talk radio. The rest of America tends to live in the ‘entertainment, sports and popular culture bubble’ and doesn’t really even think about elections until the week before.
Let us look at the history of the far right bubble. How did this come to be? The old and venerable newscasters, people like Edward R. Murrow and even Walter Kronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, would spin in their graves if they watched the O’Reilley Factor or Fox and Friends. Why? Because they had to abide by the Fairness Doctrine, which required both sides of an issue be reported.
Unfortunately, after Vietnam, Watergate, and the Civil Rights and anti-war movements that changed our society, intellectuals on the right felt they needed to find a way to get the corporate or business ‘truth’ out to Americans because they were afraid we were moving too far left.
Accordingly, future-Supreme-Court-Justice Lewis Powell wrote a confidential memorandum to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In it, he laid out the case for the Chamber to become more activist in challenging what he genuinely felt were ‘leftist’ positions.
Powell laid out a plan for the Chamber to challenge the ‘leftists’ on college campuses, speakers bureaus, and business schools. He advocated the creation and assistance of groups on the right who would challenge the ‘liberal’ system through local political involvement, textbook editing, and the courts.
Later, in 1987, Ronald Reagan vetoed a new Fairness Doctrine bill sent to him by the Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress of the time.
During the 1990s and on to today, we have seen the growth of AM talk radio and Fox News. The message of these outlets has become rather insulated. In fact, there are whole groups of Americans who deeply believe the ‘news’ broadcast by these groups, and who don’t get their news from anyplace else.
In effect, this was an absolutely brilliant insurgency by the right using some of the same brainwashing techniques our CIA learned about during the Korean War, and perfected in the 1960s and 1970s.
This is why, when someone like Kellyanne Conway talks about ‘alternative facts,’ and Donald Trump tweets out wild accusations, they are believed by a substantial number of Americans.
Sadly, this brilliant insurgency move by corporate interests has rendered our country so divided that some perceive a danger of civil war. Do we want to get rid of the gridlock and reinstitute sane public dialog? Then I believe we need to do three things:
1. Overturn Citizens United and get corporate money out of politics.
2. Impose a new Fairness Doctrine, which includes net neutrality.
3. Limit political campaigns to a month or two in duration, and finance them equally using public, not private, monies.
Ah, you’re laughing, I see. And calling me a ‘unicorn.’ Indeed. There’s lots of money out there; billions of dollars in fact, that will line up against these reforms. I’m 58 years old now, though, and I will say this: If you want this country to be what it could and should be, then we need to find a way, somehow, to make these reforms.
The American people deserve more objective facts and less ‘spun’ propaganda.
= new reply since forum marked as read
