Having convinced themselves that urban liberals are being themselves just to spite the right, conservatives can justify spending oodles of time and energy trying to come up with ways to spite liberals just for the hell of it. It’s all just a con job. Audiences aren’t being asked to tear jealously at oil billionaires, even though they live a much more lavish lifestyle than bike-riding hipsters or bespectacled scientists. No, the targets of “you think you’re better than me, smartypants?” hate is being channeled at people who are sharing ideas that are a direct threat to the corporate and religious authorities who rightfully fear that evidence and reason could hurt their profits and their hold on power. That’s why a $50 cocktail in the hands of a Koch brother is just a cocktail, but a $15 cocktail in the hand of Rachel Maddow is grounds for accusations of being high and mighty. Leadership on the right has very good reason to believe that if their followers actually engaged with the arguments being offered by those evidence-loving, reality-based liberals, they might start finding those arguments persuasive. So the key is to head it off at the pass, convince their audiences not to listen to the arguments in the first place. You can’t actually hear the evidence for global warming if you’re too busy slagging on the messenger for thinking he’s so smart with his PhDs and his facts. Which is exactly where conservative leadership wants their audiences to be.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 12:50:38 +0000
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