The monopolyplace of ideas by @BloggersRUs

The monopolyplace of ideas

by Tom Sullivan

George Lakoff's simplifying assumption for explaining people's political persuasions was based on whether their "strict father" (conservative) or "nurturant parent" (liberal) cognitive frame for rearing children was more dominant. If you'd rather not wade through 450 pages to better understand the conservative model, Shel Siverstein, the children's book writer, reduced it to two lines in his song, "A Boy Named Sue":

"Son, this world is rough
And if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough

That's even simpler.

Johnny Cash made it famous, singing, "It's the name that helped to make you strong." Not a good father. Not a good husband. Not a good citizen. Certainly not a good president. But strong, you know? Which is why ours is not about to be outgunned by any of his predecessors.

As for strategy, liberals give their conservative counterparts too much credit. It's simple, too. At the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C. this weekend, Steve Bannon announced he is going to war against the Republican Party. (He'll settle scores with the left later.) The Hill reports Bannon boasted his former boss, the sitting president, will "'win with 400 electoral votes in 2020,' following reports that he had lost faith in the president's ability to complete his current term."

Which is to say, as does Hullabaloo alum David Atkins, that "it’s all bluster and no real strategy." At least for the front men. The billionaire backers and the remaining sane-ish Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have a semblance of strategy. But what passes for strategy is, as Silverstein described so colorfully, simply alpha-dog behavior behind a half Windsor knot.

Which is to say, there is often less than meets the eye to the chest-thumping and Value Voters Summits and competing in "the marketplace of ideas" rhetoric. What matters is not values or the Constitution. What matters is dominance, and whose dog and whose religion is in charge.

“We tried nice guys,” Value Voters Summit attendee Pat Flynn of Catholics for Freedom of Religion told the Guardian. “We had John McCain. Mitt Romney. They were nice, smiling at everybody, but they couldn’t beat out Hillary." What values voters value isn't values. It is to crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women. (2 Chronicles 17:35)

So there was, naturally, much bashing of “creepy little scribblers” from the press who expose such values to sunlight. (Like Adele Stan.) The press recording and accurately reporting what people do and say at such events is, of course, a longstanding gripe the right has against a free press.

“It’s frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write. And people should look into it,” said the man who pledged January 20th to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. (And who seems not to have read the 25th Amendment before Steve Bannon mentioned it sometime later.)

The Baltimore Sun, after quoting from the Constitution about the government not "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," had a more to teach him Sunday about its origins:

How the heck did that get in there, you may ask? It turns out that even with these pesky limitations on federal power, some people at the time feared that the Constitution would give the national government too much authority. So these anti-federalists insisted on specific protections for the rights of individuals against possibly tyrannical government actions like cruel and unusual punishment, seizure of property and forced self-incrimination. (There’s another one in there about the right to keep and bear arms that we’re pretty sure you’re familiar with, Mr. President.)

But surely the author of that amendment didn’t intend it to protect the press from saying mean things about the president, did he? Um, actually, yeah. It turns out that’s exactly what James Madison thought the First Amendment means, as evidenced by his opposition to the Sedition Act that was passed during the John Adams administration to insulate the president and his allies from criticism.

It set out criminal penalties for those who published “any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with an intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either, or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States.” And to be clear, the Adamsites had a pretty broad definition of “false” to include anything they didn’t like; they thought everything was “fake news,” too.

Just in case in addition to the 25th Amendment the 45th president was unaware of the Sedition Act.

Silencing critics, if not successfully drowning them out, has been a long-term goal behind the growth of conservative media organs such as Bannon's Breitbart News. The Columbia Journalism Review considers what happens if the conservative project succeeds:

IT DOESN’T REQUIRE AN OVERLY ACTIVE IMAGINATION to picture the post-apocalyptic news landscape that so many conservatives seem to be working toward. Media fragmentation accelerates to warp speed. Agenda-driven publishers—be they professionally staffed websites or one-man YouTube channels—churn out narrowly tailored news for increasingly niche audiences. There’s still plenty of factual reporting to turn to when you want hurricane updates or celebrity news, and adversarial investigative journalism doesn’t quite go out of style. But it’s easier than ever for news consumers to ensconce themselves in hermetically sealed information bubbles and ignore revelations that challenge their worldviews. For most people, “news” ceases to function as a means of enlightenment, and becomes fodder for vitriolic political debates that play out endlessly on social media. (Like I said, it’s not hard to imagine.) Inevitably, the rich and powerful—those who can afford to buy and bankroll their own personal Pravdas—benefit most in this brave new world.

Reducing the press to rival outlets with the loudest, most dominant able to define reality to suit them is what the billionaire backers of conservative media are hoping for—not competing in a marketplace of ideas, but monopolizing it. It's not Orwell, but an oligarchs's version of Orwell. There is no principled allegiance to truth. There are no values to fight for. That's for the rubes. There's just dominating:

The concept of an obstinately objective press has been under assault in America for some time now, of course, and not just from the right. Critics like NYU’s Jay Rosen argue persuasively that news outlets do a disservice to their audiences when they coat their journalism in a sheen of artificial neutrality. Better to aim for transparency, the argument goes—to be honest about where you’re coming from, and to then strive for fairness and open-minded engagement. But there is a considerable difference between the proponents of this theory and those who cynically celebrate the “weaponization of information” and the rise of “alternative facts.”

The so-called marketplace of ideas only works when reality serves as a regulating force. For constructive debates to take place in a society like ours—and for national consensus to emerge on any given question—it’s essential we start from a broadly agreed-upon set of basic facts. Who will provide them if the mainstream media collapses into a melee of warring partisan publications?

Inevitably, the rich and powerful—those who can afford to buy and bankroll their own personal Pravdas. See above.

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