: Imagine!…Winners and losers…
If you want to know why recent proposals to create liberal talk-radio and TV networks won’t work, and why conservatives seem to be controlling the national discourse, check out this morning’s Doonesbury cartoon and Geoffery Nunberg’s column in The New York Times. Nunberg writes:
Mr. Bush is hardly an Eisenhower Republican, of course. He’s not about to style himself a “progressive moderate,” much less warn against the dangers of the military-industrial complex. But even if his me-tooism is largely symbolic–and highly selective, at that–it has left the Democrats in a rhetorical bind. Unlike the 1950’s, this is a period of sharp partisan divisions over most important issues, and yet the Democrats are struggling to find language that makes their differences with the administration clear. The phrases that signaled many of the great themes of liberalism–”inclusiveness,” “community,” “corporate responsibility”–have become bland, universally sanctioned values that no longer connote the political program that brought them to the ball.
Political generations are short-lived. And the rhetoric of one cannot carry over into the next because terms that once defined political differences become appropriated across the political spectrum.
In addition, consider the way liberals tend to argue their positions:
Liberals don’t want to hear other liberals sounding like Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh.
UPDATE (12:30 p.m.): In answer to e-mail scolding me for that last statement: I am not suggesting that there are no leftist flamers in the media. Rather, I think average liberals find them annoying (leftist and liberal not necessarily being equivalent terms). As a centrist liberal (yes, I feel the need to qualify it) I do not read or otherwise pay attention to, for example, Alexander Cockburn.
Often people think that such a political position as centrist liberal means that were merely fence sitters who are generally too apathetic to take any form of side.
Yes, that’s an accurate description of how some people think. But, in fact, the political spectrum is quite expansive as I’m sure you are aware. Only those of limited political understanding think that the principled positions exist only on the poles (they often have a simplistic, linear understanding of complex political thought).
Another error such people make is the assumption that centrist thinkers are apathetic–another good observation you made! Polls and numerous political studies, however, indicate that the apathetic most often identify themselves as independent (that’s NOT to say that professed and active independents are apathetic). I’ve always found that a bit curious. The apathetic actually demonstrate a measure of shame in their apathy, hence the desire to grab hold of a label.
The sad thing about the apathetic citizen grabbing the independent label is that it waters down the truly interesting, and highly principled, positions of many politically-active independents.
Thanks for your thought-provoking comment!
Alexander Cockburn is a Marxist, not a liberal. I’m certainly no fan of Coulter, and Limbaugh is more entertainer than serious political commentator, but I think Michael Moore, or maybe Al Franken, would be a more apt comparison.
Bruce…good points! (Geez…I’m such a loser!). Cockburn is certainly left, and I want to keep that distinction alive along a simplistic linear model. But, yes, I think perhaps Moore or Franken would be better comparisons in some ways.
Both Coulter and Limbaugh are entertainers. But that observation does not comment on their socio-political impact, rather it comments on the quality of their performance/thought in society. they are entertainers that some folks take very seriously.
I would assert that Coutler and Limbaugh have greater impacts on thought than does Franken or Moore. I believe the former sell more books and have more viewers/listeners. And Cockburn…geez, he’s a nobody by comparison.
Moore and Franken are anti-American because they think they are being “uber cool.” They are really very much into grabbing their 15 minutes.