The Closing of the American Mind

Newsweek ^ | Dec. 31, 2007-Jan. 7, 2008 issue | Evan Thomas

[Lorianne]

Partisan warriors may love our polarized political culture. Everyone else is turned off, and tuning out. ___ There are, as they say, two Americas. There is the America of the rich and the America of the poor, as Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards likes to point out. There is the America of Red States and Blue States, populated, as columnist Dave Barry likes to joke, by "ignorant racist fascist knuckle-dragging NASCAR-obsessed cousin-marrying road-kill-eating tobacco-juice-dribbling gun-fondling religious fanatic rednecks" and "godless unpatriotic pierced-nose Volvo-driving France-loving leftwing Communist latte-sucking tofu-chomping holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie perverts."

These divisions seem to grow, and to grow more antagonistic, by the year. But the real divide, the separation that may matter more to the future of American democracy, is between the political junkies and everyone else. The junkies watch endless cable-TV news shows and listen to angry talk radio and feel passionate about their political views. They number roughly 20 percent of the population, according to Princeton professor Markus Prior, who tracks political preferences and the media. Then there's all the rest: the people who prefer ESPN or old movies or videogames or Facebook or almost anything on the air or online to politics.

[Lorianne]

Slate synopsis: Newsweek has an alternative take on what really divides the "two Americas." It's not money, or political affiliation, but political passion. "The junkies watch endless cable-TV news shows and listen to angry talk radio. … Then there's all the rest: the people who prefer ESPN or old movies or videogames or Facebook or almost anything on the air or online to politics." — J.L.

[Zhang Fei]

Well, some people watch football. For others, politics is football.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

from the article: "There is in modern political polarization a strong whiff of the old paranoid style of American politics: the left imagines big corporations plotting with neocons to protect Big Oil, while the right imagines a conspiracy of big media, Hollywood and academe to subvert traditional values."

And then there is the citizenry of FreeRepublic who mostly believe both positions and would never be caught reading a hard copy of Newsweak.

[LibFreeOrDie]

A lamestream journalist, quoting professors, telling us that OUR minds are closed??? Hahahaha!

[digger48]

I don’t watch cable news, and since I listen to Glen Beck and Rush, I’m not subjected to “angry talk radio”.

If I want that, I’d listen to Air America. But it’s all but non-existent. Even the Loony Left didn’t want to hear THAT day after day.

[ThomasThomas]

I also see a divide between those Americans that believe we can do it better! And then then those who believe better let the government do it.

I only listen positive and happy talk radio.

[rockinqsranch]

Good post!

[Dr. Frank fan]

I've felt for a while that politics has receded in importance to become something like, say, a long-running soap opera that has a core legion of devoted followers, but which the majority of the population is vaguely aware of.

Hopefully, this trend will continue. Ideally, politics in the future will have so little tangible effect on peoples' lives that they won't have to pay attention to it at all.

I first formed this idea when the debates over Iraq revved up to full force, BTW. I observed that there was a hardcore legion of folks who were simultaneously (1) emotionally, almost psychotically rage-filled over Bush's decision to invade Iraq, and (2) whose lives were not and are not affected by "the Iraq war" in any measurable, tangible sense whatsoever. (You can find some such people - Buchananites and Ron Paul supporters, for example - on Free Republic, BTW)

In fact, this faction seems to constitute the vast majority of the "anti-war" crowd. I realized that to these people, "politics" was basically just a TV show they felt very very strongly about. And like when Cagney & Lacey was cancelled, or Felicity cut her hair, or Bo & Luke Duke were replaced by their cousins, when Bush decided to invade Iraq, this was a "plot turn" that the "politics" followers considered unacceptable even though its reality for their actual lives is essentially nil.

Of course, the phenomenon exists on both sides of the spectrum :-)

[BenLurkin]

a conspiracy of big media, Hollywood and academe to subvert traditional values

Conspiracy? No -- simply a general movement of like minded, godless, anti-American Marxists.

(With no apologies to Dave Barry)

[gusopol3]

It's hard to imagine the leaders of the two parties sitting down at the end of the day to share a drink and a joke, as President Reagan was able to do with Democratic House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill in the 1980s or President Johnson was able to do with Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen in the 1960s.

I hate these guys who pretend not to remember how the left savaged Reagan as a war monger and actually preferred Gorbachev, or the vilification of Goldwater by everyone from Bill Moyers to the American Psychiatric Association. And the topper, Nixon- hatred.

[Eagles6]

This needs a Barf Alert!

[RichInOC]

Hey, Evan, I'm partisan and it drives me bats**t sometimes.

[ModelBreaker]

The old order—a larger, more politically moderate voting public—was a matter of choice, writes Prior, or rather a lack thereof. In 1970, at about 6:30 p.m. at least two or three nights a week, about half the country could be found watching the evening news on one of the three major networks. The broadcasts tended to be fairly sober-minded, on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand presentations by trusted anchormen like Walter Cronkite. The network news shows had to be evenhanded because they appealed to such large and politically diverse audiences, and because the networks had to mind a "Fairness Doctrine," imposed by Congress in return for granting precious broadcast licenses on the narrow bandwidth of VHF TV. The huge audiences watched them because, with only four or five channels to watch on most TVs, there wasn't much else on.

Well, there's the money quote. The author longs for the old days when the left had a complete stranglehold on the media as opposed to today, when the stranglehold is only almost complete. If he feels that way, it is only natural that he sees today's climate as polarized--more than one opinion is widely available today. That sucks if the only opinion disseminated by the media used to be yours.

[SIDENET]

"godless unpatriotic pierced-nose Volvo-driving France-loving leftwing Communist latte-sucking tofu-chomping holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie perverts."

This just described half the population of the Puget Sound region.

[SkyPilot]

BS.

What Newsweak doesn't report is what is the foundation for every "culture war" out there.

Good versus Evil.

Neither of those terms is allowed to simply be "in the eye of the beholder" either.

They are defined by God Himself.

[kcvl]

He is the grandson of the late Norman Thomas, a six-time Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. He is married to Osceola Freear, has been linked to several other women journalists and is the father of two daughters, Louisa Herron Thomas and Mary Osceola Thomas. They live in Washington D.C.

After his award winning coverage of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, it was revealed that he himself was involved (while married) with 20 year old TIME magazine intern and novelist Louise Wareham.

******

His father Evan Thomas II was an executive with the book publishing house Scribner’s. His grandfather was Norman Thomas (1884-1968), disciple and successor to Eugene V. Debs, founder of America’s Socialist Party. Norman Thomas was the Socialist Party presidential candidate in six elections from 1928 until 1948.

“I believe,” wrote Norman Thomas, “that the hope for the future lies in a new social and economic order which demands the abolition of the capitalistic system.” Oddly, Norman Thomas was an ordained Presbyterian minister who had been converted to the socialist faith while attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

[Cicero]

Sheesh. Does anyone have a tinier, more firmly closed mind than Evan Thomas?

[Brad from Tennessee]

I say to Evan Thomas: “Physician, heal thyself.”

Boston Globe 8/23/04:

Evan Thomas, the assistant managing editor of Newsweek, put it plainly last month. . .”Let’s talk a little media bias here,’’ he said on the PBS program ``Inside Washington’’ on July 11. ``The media, I think, want Kerry to win. And I think they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards . . . as being young and dynamic and optimistic and all, there’s going to be this glow about them that is going to be worth, collectively, the two of them, that’s going to be worth maybe 15 points.’’

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/08/24/some_of_kerrys_biggest_fans_are_in_the_press/

[Brilliant]

The media’s fault.

[sirjohn]

“A lamestream journalist, quoting professors, telling us that OUR minds are closed??? Hahahaha!”

Bingo. We’re supposed to let them lead the zeitgeist, define tthe terms, and tell us what to think about it, in their quiet little snide manner.