By amoswise Community Daily Kos Once upon a time in America, in the closing years of the twentieth century actually, Joe Schmoe was visiting his cousin John Doe. They had pizza and watched the game. When it was over John Doe changed the channel.
“Ever watch Fox News?” He asked.
“Never heard of it,” said Schmoe.
They tuned in just in time for the Bill O’Reilly show. Mr. O’Reilly enumerated the issues he wanted to discuss, and Schmoe thought it sounded interesting. Within minutes, however, Schmoe found himself frowning, and before five minutes had passed he stood up.
“That shit’s gonna rot your brain,” he said to Doe, and left to take a walk.
John Doe, however, continued to be a devoted viewer of all things Fox. He voted for George W. Bush, who failed to give credence to warnings that might have prevented the attacks of 9/11, then used those attacks to involve America in a war that had nothing to do with them, a war he justified with evidence he knew was misleading and downright false. He then capped off his tenure by failing to foresee and prevent the Great Recession, second only to that of the Great Depression.
None of that kept Mr. Doe from voting for John McCain. McCain might have saved the economy, or might not have. Barrack Obama did and Mr. Doe rewarded him by voting for Mitt Romney because—conservative. Plus, there was that time Obama wore a brown suit.
When Donald Trump came along, Mr. Doe was for almost any other Republican. Until Trump won the nomination. Then Mr. Doe’s hand was forced. He held his nose and voted for Trump because—SCOTUS seats. So Mr. Doe got his judges and, gee, it was too bad about that pandemic thing.
By Trump’s second candidacy Mr. Doe still didn’t like him but he liked Hillary even less. What about her emails, he told himself and again voted for Trump. Fortunately, this time, he, and the country, were saved from a second Trump term.
Joe Biden became President and, following the liberal Democratic blueprint he lowered the cost of medications, expanded overtime guarantees, prevented discriminatory mortgage lending, cracked down on “junk fees” and overdraft charges, bolstered rural economies by directing agencies to promote competition and take on monopolies, penalized college programs that trap students in debt, put $50 billion toward subsidizing microchip production in the U.S., allocated $1.2 trillion into the nation’s infrastructure, took the number of uninsured Americans to an all-time low, added about 15 million jobs, raised the wealth of ordinary families to a record $156.2 trillion, and had by the end of his term income increases outpacing price inflation.
That’s just some of what he did specifically for the middle class, and omits his record on foreign affairs and climate change. Nevertheless, John Doe again held his nose and voted for Trump because—the price of eggs.
And now Democrats are seeking answers. What went wrong? What did we do wrong? Who did the wrong thing? Who did not do the right thing? Social media is rife with “the problem is” posts. And many of these problems might even be true. Maybe Democrats didn’t brag enough about their accomplishments. Maybe they didn’t reach out to John Doe. Maybe John Doe is being bamboozled by right wing media. And so forth.
But the core problem is this: why did John Doe choose Fox News in the first place?
Yes, having chosen it, he gets misinformed, gets lied to, gets led around with a ring in his nose. But that’s after the fact, that all comes after he’d already chosen it. Joe Schmoe saw within five minutes it was malarkey. Why didn’t John Doe?
I believe the answer is, because they told him what he wanted to hear. So then the question becomes, why does John Doe want to hear what Fox is spewing? I think that question needs more attention, that understanding it may well point a way forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment