I know that most people on DU understand this so my post is preaching to the choir, but it cannot be said enough that if Nixon had Fox News and the right wing radio and internet echo chamber, it would have been much more difficult to get him to resign than it was. As I say regularly when discussing this, there have always been sharp divisions in the US between conservatives and liberals you can see it in our history. When people say "we have never been so divided", I usually say, "wrong". It isn't about the division per se, that has always been there. It is about how we perceive the world at this point.
We have always had to argue from a similar set of facts. Conservatives spun it to their way, and Liberals to their view. I know that I am biased but I think that ultimately facts and society follow a more liberal course as change is constant and diversity is the likely outcome of a world where more people interact with each other on a regular basis. I think that conservatives understand it too, but are obviously resistant to it.
With the emergence of right wing media, conservatives can maintain a bubble and receive information that directly feeds their desire to maintain their point of view. They have their own set of "facts" which is very different from the actual facts shared by the majority of people. Conservatives have always had the power and money, but have rarely if ever have the numbers to "win" based on their message. What they always lacked is the ability to consolidate a message that would secure enough of a base where they could win by turnout. Nixon and Ailes thought about it extensively and Ailes worked on it. Reagan was the first useful fool, a B actor and salesman who presented a good face to conservatism. He gutted rules about "fairness" in broadcasting and loosened the rules on media consolidation. Right wingers also saw AM radio, a dying format as a way to get their message out unimpeded. By the 90's there were a bunch of right wing radio stations and Fox News came on board with the advent of the 24 hour cable news cycle.
The result is that there is a solid group of people who hear absolutely NOTHING from the general perspective and who have been conditioned to believe that anything that doesn't sound like what they are being told from the right, is false information.
= new reply since forum marked as read
