Guiliani is the most surface, facile example that doesn't come close to understanding why our politics are devolving over time. It isn't because a politician is on a silly television show. It's because politics themselves are packaged as a form of engagement and entertainment.
We have contemporary terms for these things. Clickbait. Manufactured outrage. Ratios and tweetstorms.
Politics in the age of cable news and social media have become an idle preoccupation and entertainment instead of a custodianship of government and culture. Today I will be mad about something or argue with someone about something or pile on with my group about something. Next week? We will have forgotten what that Very Important Thing was, because the channel has changed, there's a new show on, and now this is our Very Important Thing. Until the next week. And the next.
We flip through Very Important Stories the way one does channel surfing. It doesn't last long, it leaves little trace it was ever a thing, and as a result, not as much changes as it ought to.
Think about how we consume stories. Since we're here, think about DU. Imagine what stories are on the front page of GD on any given day. Look at the ones there today. Of them, how many are lasting and important? How many of them will you think about tomorrow or next week? Hell, how many will occupy your mind even one hour from now? How many will consume your time and result in you or anyone around you actually taking some action in regards to what you're reading? And if you're not taking action in response to what you're reading, what are you doing?
You're passively consuming, the same way we passively consume other entertainment.
How we consume media has transmuted political material and discourse into a kind of background white noise that comes and goes almost unnoticed and anesthetizes us to anything of real consequence.
We're a nation of couch politicos.
= new reply since forum marked as read