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babylonsister

(170,960 posts)
Sat Dec 1, 2012, 03:34 PM Dec 2012

Is the right-wing media bubble impenetrable?

http://www.salon.com/2012/12/01/is_the_right_wing_media_bubble_impenetrable/

Saturday, Dec 1, 2012 11:00 AM EST
Is the right-wing media bubble impenetrable?
Nearly a month after their blow-out defeat, Republicans still refuse to confront their demographic challenges
By Joshua Holland, Alternet


Republicans are responding to their recent losses not by moderating their rhetoric or rethinking their policy preferences, but by retreating deeper into the conservative bubble — and hardening it lest any objective reality intrude.

In the Wall Street Journal, William McGurn approached the idea that villifying half the country as lazy “takers” dependent on the largesse of the makers may not be a way to win over the masses. He wrote, “Maybe Americans who have reason to feel insecure about their futures don’t find a government that promises to be there for them when they need it all that menacing.” But he then rejects the notion and calls for better propaganda. “Conservatives’ top priority,” he writes, “should be promoting an alternative—that in a highly competitive, global economy, the only real economic security for ordinary Americans is the security of opportunity.”

snip//

That cocoon is about to grow, and William McGurn may get more, if not better, conservative spin. According to CL Atlanta, “Cox Media Group, the parent company of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, plans to launch an ‘independent (nonpartisan), anti-propaganda’ national news website for conservative audiences that is ‘rooted in the South away from the right and left coasts.’” Because Fox and the rest of the dedicated right-wing media apparently aren’t enough.

snip//

Even the supposed “break” from Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge by a handful of Republicans like Linsey Graham, R-South Carolina, and Saxby Chamblis, R-Georgia, is a sham. The “rogue” senators will likely earn themselves a primary challenge from the right, but the reality is that their push for new revenues by eliminating unspecified deductions while keeping rates on the wealthiest Americans low was the idea put forth by the guy who just lost an election to Barack Obama.

This is a movement that has swallowed its own rhetoric to such a degree that it is not capable of looking at the reality of its demographic challenges and adapting. It’s a movement that’s unprepared to accept the growing unpopularity of its positions on social issues. Republicans created a dedicated information infrastructure to combat what they saw as widespread bias in the media and academia, and now it’s that same mighty wurlitzer that will prevent them from adapting to a changing America.
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Is the right-wing media bubble impenetrable? (Original Post) babylonsister Dec 2012 OP
Gravitational collapse imminent. tanyev Dec 2012 #1
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