(Mike Thompson via GoComics.com)
The current top-rated Washington Post article is Steven Pearlstein’s”Turned off from politics? That’s exactly what the politicians want“:
If you asked Americans to identify the most noticeable change in U.S. politics over the past two decades, they’d probably answer that politics has become more polarized and that this has made it harder for the government to address the problems the country faces…
Contrary to what many believe, the central effect of such negative advertising isn’t to move voters from supporting another candidate to backing yours, as Mitt Romney and his allies have discovered during this primary season. The main effect is not even to move undecided voters into your column. No, the real effect of negative advertising is to energize and solidify support among your ideological base while turning everyone else off to the other candidate, the campaign and the entire electoral process. Negative advertising isn’t about changing minds; it’s about altering the composition of the voter pool on Election Day by turning moderate voters into non-voters…
Energizing the base has another important advantage: It increases campaign contributions from both small donors and rich zealots. That money can be plowed back into yet more negative advertising along with sophisticated get-out-the-vote efforts on Election Day. This self-reinforcing cycle creates a strong incentive for politicians to abandon the center and move permanently to the ideological extreme. You do not energize the base through moderation and compromise.
What makes this an effective and rational strategy, of course, is the phenomenon known as “free riding.” When you think about it, it’s pretty irrational for any of us to vote. During these endless campaigns, it takes an extraordinary amount of time and energy to inform yourself about the candidates and their positions. And it takes time and energy to interrupt your daily schedule and vote. And for what? Rarely, if ever, does any single vote make a difference in the outcome. The rational thing is to just stay home and let everyone else do their civic duty while we still enjoy the full benefits of democracy…
The speech (“adapted from the Harold Gortner Lecture“) is worth reading in its entirety, although I refuse to categorize it as an “excellent link”. It’s a compact example of the whole company-town DC-insider prescription for reform — a modern parallel to the theological disputation of a medieval scholastic on the physical manifestation of angels as expressed by the number that might dance on the head of a pin, or of antique doctor-philosphers discussing possible treatments for a patient afflicted by an excess of black bile. Pearlstein notes a very genuine problem, concisely describes the particular methods and practices that have lead to the current unhappy situation, and prescribes… a rigorous application of Moderate Centrism, because (as described by the most respected practitioners of the art) BothSidesDoIt. Even though, he is saddened to acknowledge, the weakened condition of the patient is such that any treatment may be merely palliative, if not immediately fatal. When alien anthropologists in some distant future seek to understand the collapse of American democracy, they’ll be looking for documents like this.
So… apart from our Failed Media Experiment & Political Establishment, what’s on the agenda for the start of the weekend?
Kittehs to the rescue
Dear Anne Laurie,
I love that you’re using these cartoons, but please LINK to the source instead of just saying “(Mike Thompson via GoComics.com)”. The one included here is unreadable, whereas I’m sure the original location has a large size one that’s perfectly readable.
You’re linking tot he source of the excerpts you quote, please do the same for the cartoons you include: http://www.gocomics.com/mikethompson/2012/04/21 . (And yes, if you click on the cartoon there a large, readable version pops up.)
NotMax
Sigh. A random busload of 7th graders would exhibit more tolerance and maturity.
danielx
Shorter Steve Pearlstein:
Both sides do it! Both sides do it!
If the Dems’ ideological positions were truly as “extreme” as Pearlstein proclaims, they’d be calling for Noam Chomsky as Secretary of State, Ralph Nader as Secretary of Labor, nationalization of the oil industry, and immediate defense budget cuts of 40%. Democratic pundits would be calling for public hangings of Wall Street executives and confiscation of all privately owned firearms…among other things. Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart would have audiences as big or bigger than Rush Limbaugh’s and Bill O’Reilly’s.
Have I missed something?
Fuck Villagers and their false equivalencies, and fuck Steve Pearlstein and the horse he rode in on too.
Now that’s getting the day off to a proper start. My, I feel better.
Raven
Art sales and cultural event abound in Athens this time of year so, outside of area beautification, it’s that.
Cheryl from Maryland
@NotMax: Glee also has serious bullying, mean cliques and extreme douchiness. I guess that explains O’Reilly and Carlson.
Phylllis
Grocery run & then to the garden shop for bedding plants. Supposed to be rainy all day tomorrow, so I see some housekeeping in my future.
Mustang Bobby
I’m in Independence, Kansas, a small town of about 9,000 in the southeast part of the state (not to be confused with Independence, Missouri, the suburb of Kansas City). I’m here this weekend for the 31st annual William Inge Theatre Festival, where we remember the life and work of the author of such plays as Picnic, Bus Stop, and Come Back, Little Sheba, and honor a living American playwright with an award for distinguished achievement. This year’s honoree is David Henry Hwang, author of M. Butterfly.
In this small town in the middle of one of the most conservative states in the country, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that not everyone in the town is a tea bagger. Yes, they’re conservative, but when you gingerly skate out onto the pond of politics, most of them try to distance themselves from Gov. Brownback and his batshit-crazy policies such as shutting down every abortion clinic and decimating funding for the arts in schools.
Maybe it’s because they’re being polite to the visitors; us elite theatre freaks from the coasts who drop in once a year, and they hide all their “Where’s the birth certificate?” signs, but I’ve been coming to this festival since 1991 and it’s never as crazy as it sounds on the TV.
Anyway, I’m here for one more day to give a paper at the scholar’s conference portion of the festival, shamelessly promote my play (on sale in the lobby) and hang out with some of my new friends.
rikyrah
@danielx:
thank you
jeffreyw
Spent a good part of yesterday hauling dirt and grading a small patch of lawn next to a newly installed concrete walk. I seeded it heavily with Ky 31 fescue, scattered fertilizer, and raked that in. Spread 3 bales of straw to finish it off just before a nice gentle rain set in. May go over to the farmer’s market this morning, I still need some flat leaf parsley for my container garden.
Mrs J is making progress, she can get around on crutches now and made her first unassisted trip to the basement sewing center.
El Cid
When US foreign policy directors aim to wipe out popularly-rooted insurgents, they aim the pain at the population, so as to starve the insurgents.
It was true in Vietnam. It was true in Guatemala, and countless other locales.
Different methods, different targets, same logic.
Narcissus
Does anyone know what the fuss is about CISPA and is it basically a SOPA rehash our corporate overlords really really want
I thought this was settled like a month ago.
Southern Beale
My beloved Nashville Predators have crushed the Detroit Red Wings in the first round of the Stanley Cup finals. We are FUCKING ECSTATIC. First time since 2006 that the Wings have been tossed in round 1, and we did it in 5 games.
WE ARE AWESOME.
So, that’s what’s going on in my life.
Chris
Voting in the French presidential election, that’s what’s on the agenda.
Feels incredibly weird to vote in an election where both parties are more or less reasonable. Okay, say what you want about Sarkozy and the UMP, but you know what I mean: no one’s calling for teaching creationism in public schools, or privatizing the welfare state, or invading a country because of something a completely unrelated group of people did.
piratedan
i guess the big question is, how do we, the balloon juice proletariat, translate our passion for politics and what we would consider to be informed political dialogue and decisions; get other folks who continue to be meh, involved and committed to be better citizens like ourselves. We know what the other side of the rabbit hole looks like, a theocratic conservative paradise of gated communities and a well armed militia of religious patsies shouting Freedom! and Ni-Clangs! upon demand. How can we hold the media accountable to doing their actual jobs? How do we help cultivate better candidates?
someone did mention last night on Maher’s show that when America was created, there wasn’t the huge wealth disparity that we see today because America was so new and the ideas so raw that folks hadn’t figured out how to game the system yet. It appears that money is the big culprit, we place an enormous value on it to the point where it cultivates and feeds our lesser natures to hoard what we have and deny anyone else from obtaining it. Again, trying to prescribe a finite amount of something that has never been measured before.
WereBear
Sigh. I kinda like all those things. But I knew I was, deep down, an unrepentant commielibbleedinheart.
Slept in this morning, (until EIGHT!) and feel the best I have in a couple of months, before the Blitzkrieg of illness and their accompanying varied antibiotics played havoc with my system.
Various tasks this weekend that are finance related and horribly boring (as in, not bringing any IN.)
But a bright spot is my housebound MIL getting into her Chromebook with the help of my eight year old nephew, her grandson. She is calling today for a gmail tutorial, and she sounds excited about the exploring she has been doing.
Corbin Dallas Multipass
@Southern Beale: I really hope the caps get to play your boys at some point. Good on the preds.
Raven
@jeffreyw: Been thinkin about ya’ll. My K31 is coming up pretty well but our water bill is insane!
Montysano
Today is Record Store Day, which means this old fart will be lined up at the door when our wonderful local record shop opens. Hoping to score limited release vinyl from The Civil Wars, the Black Keys, and Carolina Chocolate Drops.
jeffreyw
@Raven: [Mrs J waves atcha]
Jennifer
@piratedan: Hate to say this, but I think things may be too far gone already. I think they were too far gone by the time the 2000 election rolled around, when the Bush campaign and its corporate sponsors didn’t even try to hide that they were going to attempt to buy the election. When that strategy got them close enough to steal it, there was no turning back.
Before it’s all over and done, I think we will end up in that gated community theological hellhole, because even among those who vote who aren’t raving lunatics, there’s all too often the desire to believe that just “throwing out the bums” when things haven’t gone as well or as quickly as hoped is the solution to the problem, which when one of the parties is batshit insane is clearly not so. But your less-informed and less-committed voter doesn’t know that and is all too likely to vote on the basis of who they think they’d rather have a beer with.
On the other side of that gated community theological hellhole stand the guillotines. Which, once we’re in the hellhole, is about the only way out.
I dunno, maybe that’s as it should be. We wouldn’t be where we are now if government hadn’t become so beholden to great wealth that all great crimes of the past 30 years have gone unpunished. You think back to Iran-Contra, the S&L bailouts, 2000 election theft, Enron, phony pretenses for war in Iraq, the mortgage meltdown….there have been only a very few who have been punished for any of those. When law no longer serves as a brake on criminality, criminality becomes the norm, which is where we are now. I don’t see that changing; at this point, the only way large crimes are going to be punished is with mob rule, because the bought-and-paid-for goverment sure isn’t going to do anything about it. As such, there’s really no way to avoid going into that hellhole – we’re always just one criminal act away from it.
Kristine
Taking pups to the vet this morning. Routine stuff. A few errands, then a mix of indoor and outdoor work. The chill has returned to far NE Illinois. Highs in the 50s through the weekend.
Wondering if my hockey season will end tonight. Poor ‘Hawks. They work so hard to come back, then lose in OT.
Sal
Dude…. No.
This is crap. If Mittens ads did get the base then why was Frothy Mix kicking him in the balls when it came to teabagger poll numbers?
Janet Strange
@Mustang Bobby:
One thing I’ve been pondering is that when my relatives are expressing their opinions about what we politics obsessed types would call policy, they sound like Democrats. They say, “We should do this, that is a bad idea, I can’t believe they passed that stupid law, why don’t we . . . etc.” And all the things they are saying are the opposite of what Republicans say and do.
Yet they still vote for Republicans. All I can think of is that it’s the constant lying by cable news and pundits of various media about what liberals/Democrats are all about. My relatives really don’t know that what they want of government is what Democrats are trying to do and they opposite of what Republicans are in fact, doing.
One of my sisters said about abortion, “I don’t think it’s the government that should make the decision, I think it should be up to the woman.” But she’s opposed to “doctors paying women to get pregnant and have abortions to get the stem cells for their research.” Another was upset that the income limits to qualify for Medicaid were so low so that someone with a small pension and Social Security can’t get Medicaid to help pay for nursing home care. “Don’t you think they should help more people?” she asked me. But she’d never vote for a Democrat because Democrats want to take away her Medicare that she’d be totally screwed without.
They are “but the Democrats are WORSE” Republican voters even though they disagree with a huge amount of Republican ideology because they have a totally false idea of Democrats and liberals in general.
I still think that what tipped the balance in 2010 was not the teabaggers (they were recruited from the hard core Republican base and were going to vote R anyway) but rather it was older people who believed (based on the the chain emails I got) that Obama was going to pay for Obamacare by destroying Medicare. I know several people who voted for Obama in 08 and then voted straight R in 10 for just that reason.
Steeplejack
Both sides do it? So then where are the fire-breathing, far-left Democrats the process must be producing just like all those ultra-right-wing Republicans?
Jamie
It strikes me that both parties are getting more conservative, not more polarized.
Jamie
and with Citizens United its not going to be getting more liberal in the foreseeable future
WereBear
Yet, at the same time, there’s never been more abundant ways to bypass the usual routes and get messages out through the Alternative Media chains.
What we are seeing is the Cronkite-Confidence built by actual journalism being eroded by such propaganda shenanigans. The generations who believe what they are told are being slowly replaced by the youth who have been getting immunized against our Media Virus because they hear what is being said; and recognize the dissonance. Because they still can.
cckids
@WereBear:
This. I’ve always believed that the reason so many older people fall victim to Faux News is they grew up with Cronkite, Murrow, et al, people who weren’t just reading a script designed to outrage & grow fear in their audience; they were trying to inform. Also, they don’t see the distinction between the “news” and “opinion/entertainment” shows on Fox; not that there is anything but a semantic difference there. The numbers shift so radically with age, though, I do have some hope for the future.
burnspbesq
@Jennifer:
“We wouldn’t be where we are now if government hadn’t become so beholden to great wealth”
I’m curious: just when was the Golden Age when American government, at every level, wasn’t beholden to great wealth?
dmbeaster
If only Pearlstein would take his own advice and stop writing this crap. He is basically arguing that apathy is a virtue and is the best response to sharp ideological divisions; “if only people didn’t care so much and argue so stridently for their point of view!”
Vomitous, and as much of the problem since dumbing down discourse and not caring about policy is a major factor in what ails us.
Gary Fuckett and the Mindless Gap
Self-destructive stupidity may be the defining characteristic of American civilization. Or judging from European and Japanese economic policies, the defining characteristic of the human species.
nellcote
@piratedan:
I can’t think of a greater disparity than actual plantation owners and actual slavery.
dmbeaster
@burnspbesq: Exactly. Although lets be clear – the issue of wealth and government became a whole lot more acute with the industrial revolution. So much of our current politics seems like a replay of 1875-1910 issues, which was probably the apex of wealth controlling government.
Chris
@burnspbesq:
I think the New Deal/liberal consensus years (1932 to 1980) came closest. YMMV – I don’t know as much about the early years, before the Civil War, as after. And obviously great wealth still had immense sway over the government. I just think that’s when it was weakest.
Bill Murray
@burnspbesq: burns she said “so beholden” not just beholden. So the implication is that there was a time when the government was less beholden to great wealth, not that there was a time when the government was completely unbeholden. Maybe try to focus on reading all the words next time
Chris
@Janet Strange:
I agree with this too. If you can get them to stop “talking politics” and move the topic to “so what would YOU do if you were in charge,” there’s a bunch of them who’ll absolutely start spewing liberal idea after liberal idea. But the minute they find out it’s a liberal idea, their brain hits RESET and that’s the end of it. We hate America, see, and we make the baby Jesus cry, and also have cooties.
danielx
@Jennifer:
Pretty much…the ‘rule of law’ that we heard so much about during the Clinton impeachment hearings is a not-very-funny joke. The last time the rule of law was taken seriously in regard to systemic corruption in the market economy was during the savings and loan crisis twenty five years ago. Thousands of charges were files, and hundreds actually convicted and jailed. Government misdeeds taken seriously? During Iran-Contra, again twenty five years ago.
I’ve concluded that once one reaches a certain level in government/corporate America – it’s hard to tell them apart these days – one is never going to face any serious consequences for any legal violation committed. If such violation isn’t retroactively legalized; be it noted that most of the misdeeds committed during Watergate are now legal.
Mnemosyne
@danielx:
“Rule of law” is one of those things that conservatives are very, very concerned about right up until the Republicans are in power.
One of the most egregious examples is that John fucking Yoo spent a whole lot of time wringing his hands about the “rule of law” and the “imperial presidency” while Clinton was in office. Once Bush was in, he couldn’t change his mind fast enough.
WereBear
Exactly.
If you notice that one of their reasons to come into power is to avoid the consequences of their terminal fuckheaddery; it all becomes clear.
I say it again: modern business has no idea how to run a business. They rig the rules so they can essentially hold a gun on their customers to make them give the business money. Customer service, value for the money, and ethical business practices… they scoff at such!
They don’t know how to make money without being cheating parasites. The sooner we squish such attitudes, the better for all concerned.
Clime Acts
Except of course that we do NOT live in a Democracy, we live in a really fucked up Republic, designed from the beginning to keep the unwashed masses in their place.
Daulnay
The rise of bitter factionalism endangers republics more than anything else. Negative advertizing polarizes. Anyone who has read the Federalist papers and thought a little bit recognizes that such advertizing is a clear danger to our republic.
Why isn’t it widely and severely condemned?