Allow me to set the scene:
We are at a dinner party being thrown by a mutual acquaintance. Said mutual acquaintance is pretty well connected, so the turnout is really good. Everyone has their cocktails and hors d’oeuvres and chit-chat is being made. You’ve been talking politely with the person you’re sitting next to—they have 2 kids, nice spouse, mortgage, the works. All is going well until, in the middle of a conversation about an article you read in the Sunday Times, your conversation partner says something that you’d heard elsewhere before, “Hey, speaking of interesting stuff, did you know that they built the Interstate System with straight sections so they could land planes on them during the Cold War in case of an invasion?”
That little bit stays in the back of your head while the rest of the night goes on. What that person said tripped a sensor in your mind used for detecting implausibility. “But doesn’t the US have tons of private airfields that could be used in a crisis?” you wonder to yourself. After some more pondering, you decide it doesn’t seem to add up, so once home you hop onto the Internet, browse over to Snopes.com and check it out. Turns out that person was dead wrong. You chuckle a bit, and then move on. However, you weren’t the only guest that person talked to that night. In fact, you find out from the party’s host the next day, that the espouser of the Interstate myth was a very trusted and well known friend to more than half of the partygoers.
“Yeah, he’s a really smart guy! Hey, he told me something really interesting about our Interstate…” You’re stopped right in your tracks.
Folks, the American people have elected that popular party guest.
Conservative bloggers and pundits—and by that I mean Fox News—have been going on and on and on about the following idea
“The president will be accompanied by 40 aircraft, 3,000 people, a fleet of cars and 34 warships, according to a string of blow-by-blow news updates. The Press Trust of India quoted an official in the state of Maharashtra pegging the cost at $200 million a day.” (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11/04/security-entourage-earning-epic-reputation-ahead-obama-india-visit/)
Oh my god! What an enormous waste of taxpayer money! $200 million? Right! It toally would be…if it were true at all.
There are a couple rather frightening conclusions to draw from all of this.
1. The inmates are running the asylum.
Yes, there have always been nuts on the right-wing—remember birthers (oh right I forgot my district’s congressman is one)? But now these nuts have the task of setting policy agendas.
2. There is zero accountability.
Despite the craziness of this $200 million figure and the allegation surrounding it, Democrats have not been striking back and calling people like Bachmann out. Meanwhile, right-wingers take a lack of response as confirmation using a, “they’re not talking about it, therefore it must be true!” train of thought.
3. The Right has created a media clubhouse.
…and the rest of the media can only peer inside. In today’s sound-bite media landscape, Fox News has positioned itself brilliantly. They’ve made it so that one pundit can say “Obama is spending $200 million on his trip to India” in the morning during the “news”, and then a commentator like O’Reilly or Hannity can say, “the media are reporting that Obama is spending $200 million on his trip to India”. Since they have the entirety of the most-watched 24-hour news network in lock-step, the poor viewers will never hear that the $200 million figure is quite literally a lie. And that is how a lie becomes an Interstates-as-runways trope.
The Democrats, other media outlets and informed individuals must step up their efforts to inform the Fox News watchers of the world. Today, it’s an inflated travel expense figure, tomorrow, who knows? On December 19th, 1998, in a culmination of the GOP witch hunt of President Clinton, the House of Representatives voted to impeach. 12 years ago, the Right were only just laying the foundation for their media echo-chamber clubhouse and look what they accomplished. Now, it’s not only fully constructed, but its bulwarks have been reinforced with the brains of half of the country.
As a short aside, I have something to say to my fellow liberals:
Stop linking me to http://www.whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/.
“But Ian!” you say, “this clearly shows how unfair you’ve been to the President!” (yes, for those of you who don’t exist in my personal life, I am not the biggest fan of President Obama—he’s not progressive enough for me).
My problem with this website and its popularity has to do with shades of the same discourse-disease I detail above the line. What this website has done over the course of a single week is muddy the discussion about the Left, from the Left into a simple link. Any disagreement and critique of the President’s policies I’ve engaged in both in person and on the Internet has been met in some way by this website.
What that site has done is convinced Democrats that they don’t need to engage the President’s policies anymore—they have their pressable button of propaganda. Sure, the thing is sourced (sort of), but there are omissions and misleading statements.
Issued executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay
Right, sure, he is going to be closing Gitmo. But that’s only half of the story. The fact is that they’re simply moving the Gitmo prisoners to another prison, further inland.
There’s yet another omission that seems like it would be a no-brainer for a Democratic, supposedly liberal President, why didn’t they include
Repealed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
Oh, right, because he didn’t repeal it, even when given the chance to.
