My friend sent me the following text message today:
My friend lives in Atlanta, Georgia and often has occasion to decry the strident blowhards he sees in the South from the conservative side of the political spectrum. I can sympathize, although I have never lived in the South or had much exposure to “Red state” politics.
I live in California and work in the public schools there, so I have the same problem from the opposite problem: aggressive “progressive” liberals. So I responded to his message from Georgia with one from “Blue state” California:
Why are there so many blowhards in political life nowadays?
Why does this kind of outlandish hyperbole gain any traction among actual elected officials? Spoken by supposedly responsible persons in the U.S. Congress?
Because if you think President Biden in 2021 trying to get Americans to get COVID-19 vaccination shots is comparable to Nazi “brown shirts” in the 1930s, then you are not worth taking seriously.
And if you think America today is not much more than “stolen land” and unfree “Black people,” you are also seriously at risk of coming across as a simpleton.
Do they want us to take these comments at face value?
Or are they grandstanding for the press? Trying to gain attention in a social mediascape where outrageous statements and resulting attention are better than no attention at all?
Is this where we are at? Ted Cruz and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Josh Hawley and Rashida Tlaib? Marjorie Taylor Greene and Cori Bush? Steve King and Ilhan Omar? Really?
Why would any sober educated person give much time and attention to any of these people?
This is what our political conversation looks like nowadays?
Two extreme visions of America which cannot live with each other in peace?
No wonder I, and so many others, cruise through the political news while holding our noses — if we don’t skip it entirely.
We Americans deserve better.
Or maybe we don’t deserve better?
Maybe the problem is as much with the American people at large as with their leaders?
Someone elects these politicians to Congress, after all.
Someone likes them — or at least votes for them.
Although I find that hard to understand.
Not every provocation requires a response, and mature adults know how to deescalate a political fight.
5 Comments
Jay Canini
A lot of it is an issue with algorithms in social media that feed people what they want to hear/read/watch. Blowhards are like crack in that regards.
In the old internet one needed to actively search for information and conspiracy theorists were locked in their own forums far out of view. Now Facebook et all give people what they want to see and it conditions them to want more. The Russians know this as they organized a protest from both ideological sides, with both sides being none the wiser 🙁
There’s a longform article called “Democracies end when they are too democratic.” from New York Magazine (May 1, 2016) which talks about how the breakdown of rational discourse and central authority can cause a democratic system to implode and be taken over by a tyrant. It first talks about why Plato viewed democracy dimly and how the founding fathers put in checks and balances to prevent a tyrant taking over, and yet how some of the safeguards eroded away and the rise of the internet further put the US in a precarious situation.
rjgeib
Thank you, Jay. You make several excellent points.
Iscariot
Your conclusion that the American people as a whole could also have problems reminded me of a quote about democracy “In a democracy, people get the government they deserve and they deserve what they get .”There is no point in just blaming a few politicians, we must remember that they have been chosen by the people(atleast a few of them) to lead.
rjgeib
You are right.
Jay Canini
I would also add that I think there’s a toxic feedback loop between politicians and some of their voters: the voters are influenced by internet propaganda and echo chambers (notice how news media has become especially partisan and people take in what’s on Facebook as fact), and in turn the politicians are afraid of alienating some of these voters and change their positions to cater to these voters. I remember the days people told me “don’t believe what you read online” and now.. people do 🙁