“Life was better when women didn’t have access to low-cost healthcare and mammograms!”
“Life was better when people either married the opposite sex or went into the clergy!”
“Life was better when we could take our guns into any ol’ coffeehouse we chose and shoot people if we were having a bad day, and say we were standing our ground!”
“Life was better without net neutrality!”
“Life’d be better if we had the fine, fresh, clean water Flint, Michigan has!”
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In all seriousness, probably this:
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Can’t I just watch Arthur again, instead?
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Yes. I was basing that comment on the few conservatives I know. Anecdotal of course. I was going to explain how they are different than the typical outspoken Trump supporter that makes it into the news. But in the end they held their nose and voted for trump so fuck it. Not worth the time.
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Hell, given that most people’s understanding of history is from old reruns and period pieces, a lot of them have probably edited out those “inconveniences”. Look at their hostility towards any media they find challenging in any way – whether it’s the news reporting on somehing they don’t agree with, or entertainment that puts non-chariactured women and POC’s in lead roles. There is a reason NCIS and Big Bang Theory top the network ratings: casting that’s familiar, and simple plotlines that largely confirm their worldview. They want the TV life they were promised growing up, not this gritty reboot.
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From what I glean of your paragraph, your word choices of “reruns,” “media”, and mentions of television, is it fair to guess then that someone with only radio, internet and books but no television would be less likely to understand and side with Trump supporters? Can a case be made that test pattern == teat pattern?
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Hey, NCIS is perfect accidental propaganda. Soooo, watchable, with that seductive worldview slid gently in there, underpinning everything.
(In truth, I don’t think Bellisario is doing anything other than skewing to his targeted audience - look at his list of priors, he’s good at that. But the effect’s the same.)
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Everything you mentioned is inextricably intertwined with the reasons in my comment.
We’re talking about the same folks; marks who subconsciously wanted to be duped.
They are ‘frustrated’ because that American Fallacy I mentioned? That long con was only directed at White people; everyone else inherently knew that they were never even considered a part of the equation.
They are ‘scared’ because all many of them have ever had was the ‘cold comfort’ of not being Black (or Brown, or Gay… etc.) Take away that unofficial privilege, that automatic assumption of being the ‘normative’ archetype, and what do such people have left?
To quote a line from Mississippi Burning;
"If you ain't better than a nigger, than who ARE you better than?"
Lastly, the aforementioned ‘relentless insistence’ is a symptom of entrenched cognitive dissonance which stems from decades of psychological manipulation by big business… people who are complacent, insecure and poorly educated are easy to control and manipulate…
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When I read your comment LBJ’s quote “If you can convince the lowest white man that he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll even empty his pockets for you” blinks brightly and furiously in my head.
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As much as I hate to admit it’s true, he was right.
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Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman would certainly argue in that direction. TV is a very passive medium compared to reading or even radio. It requires far less thought and imagination than the others to consume.
I would also throw in the argument that plot and character complexity also plays a role – older TV didn’t have complicated plots or characters. Single storylines with relatively flat characters was the norm. There were no Hannibals or Luthors. There were sharp delineations between the good guys (“coincidentally”, us) and the bad guys (“coincidentally”, them). Simple, non-challenging narratives that don’t require a lot of imagination. I do think you’ll find a major difference on that front when it comes to the kind of person who would cast a vote for Trump and his ilk.*
*In general, of course. People are complicated when you get down to the individual level, and there are always outliers.
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And yet the talk shows of forty, fifty, sixty years ago were more cerebral. Even comparing the loopiness of a live Steve Allen “Tonight Show” to Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show.” I’m finally at the age where I can enjoy Dick Cavett show reruns or period pieces as fascinating snapshots of history.
There were Republicans back then, but they seemed like they’d be less dogmatic (except for the KKK, John Birch Society, etc.) and easier to get along with. Even Woody Allen and William F. Buckley could thrust and parry jokingly, if with some discomfort. I can’t see such debates taking place now on TV: debaters have only their prepared talking points, talking over people, and as a last resort putdowns.
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Within the first few episodes [1], they had a plotline based on a murderous secret lesbian enviro-terrorist hijacking the nuclear sub she was crew on.
NCIS was extreme-right propaganda from the very beginning.
As you suggest, it might be purely motivated by apolitical greed, but I doubt it.
[1] Sub Rosa, episode 1-7
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There are some really interesting results in this ABC/Washington Post Poll:
I’m having a really hard time accounting for how the left isn’t more enthusiastic about 2018, and why Trump isn’t more of a factor. Maybe we’re in a bubble that’s causing us to overestimate how outraged people are. That having been said:
- “The survey also suggests that a shifting electorate could end up propelling Democrats to major gains if voters who have skipped previous midterm elections show up to cast ballots in 2018.”
- People who strongly disapprove of Trump vastly outnumber those who strongly approve of him.
- This poll was conducted prior to the (apparent) collapse of healthcare reform.
Regression analysis of the generic ballot puts Democrats in easy striking distance of he House:
…but Democrats aren’t doing much to counter voter surpression:
And, as always, we don’t know what will happen between now and November 2018.
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The real bubble is being around people that give a fuck, because the lion’s share of the US’ eligible voters do not vote and will use just about any excuse possible for why they don’t. Religious people always vote because they have a national social community devoted to getting their members to vote Republican, and the majority doesn’t sway from that message.
The Democrats would win by simply making voting and healthcare their top political issues, forcing the GOP to reveal their hand at voting suppression efforts instead of letting them hide behind a noble cause. The GOP is hurting badly with the healthcare debacle, they failed in 2015 and blamed the Democrats and failed again with a majority and tried to blame the Democrats and that didn’t work nearly as well. It’s easy pickings.
As is, this poll says things will be business as usual.
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Excuses such as:
- They live in a gerrymandered red state, and their vote is functionally pointless.
- They are a working class person who risks unemployment and destitution if they dare to ask for the day off required to vote at an urban precinct in a red state.
- They’re a person of colour who is justifiably wary of the police intimidation common at Confederate polling booths.
- They’re a part of the shocking percentage of African-American men officially disenfranchised by a blatantly racist “justice” system.
- They’re an ordinary American who refuses to continue endorsing the decades-old effort by both major parties to return the American working class to serfdom.
Upper- and middle-class America needs to stop blaming the poor for their problems. The shockingly low turnout at American elections didn’t just happen; it is deliberately manufactured and maintained.
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