She Blinded Me with Silence, and Hit Me with Technology
You've always suspected that partisanship makes people blind to obvious facts sitting right there in front of them. Courtesy of Peter Wehner, we have a rather unnerving demonstration of just how willfully blind some people can be: An experiment we conducted with our colleagues at North Star Research in a poll for USA Today and the Bipartisan Policy Center illustrates the point (though I alone am responsible for any errors in interpretation here). We presented respondents with two different education plans, the details of which are unimportant in this context. What is important is that half the sample was told A was the Democratic plan and B was the Republican plan, while the other half of our national sample was told A was the Republican plan and B was the Democrats' approach. The questions dealt with substantive policy on a subject quite important to most Americans — education — and issues that people are familiar with — class size, teacher pay and the like. Nonetheless, when the specifics in Plan A were presented as the Democratic plan and B as the Republican plan, Democrats preferred A by 75 percent to 17 percent, and Republicans favored B by 13 percent to 78 percent. When the exact same elements of A were presented in the exact same words, but as the Republicans' plan, and with B as the Democrats' plan, Democrats preferred B by 80 percent to 12 percent, while Republicans preferred "their party's plan" by 70 percent to 10 percent. Independents split fairly evenly both times. In short, support for an identical education plan shifted by more than 60 points among partisans, depending on which party was said to back it. Really, respondents? Really? Wehner continues: The Ayres and Mellman survey is ingenious because it empirically revealed an uncomfortable reality: the views many of us hold are largely dictated by partisanship and ideological affiliations rather than intellectual rigor. Everything needs to fit into well-worn grooves, into familiar categories, into pre-existing patterns. This in turn leads to an almost chronic unwillingness to revisit and refine long-held positions. Our thinking on matters of politics and philosophy and faith not only can become lazy; it can easily ossify. It may be worth asking yourself (and me asking myself): In the last 15-20 years, on what issues of importance have you changed your mind, re-calibrated your thinking, or even attempted to take a fresh look at? Or has every event, serious study, and new set of facts merely confirmed what you already knew? To put it another way: do you think you've ever been wrong? And then all of Twitter said as one, "NO, WE NEVER HAVE BEEN WRONG!" I'm sure some lefty can point to some example of Republican partisan blindness -- maybe we're too quick to insist people can get through hard times without public assistance, or we underestimate the systemic obstacles that people encounter when they try to climb out of poverty. But one of the biggest stories of the young 2016 cycle is the yawning gap between what Hillary allegedly stands for and what the Clintons actually stand for, a separation perhaps best measured in light years. Frank Bruni kinda-sorta attempted to get New York Times readers to confront this: At some point over the last year Democrats placed just about all of their chips on Hillary, reassured by the depth of her experience, aware of how much money she could raise, and inspired by what a perfect sequel to Barack Obama she'd be. He broke the color barrier. Now she'd shatter the glass ceiling that she put all those cracks in. Back-to-back Democratic precedents. Back-to-back Democratic presidents. But the Clintons facilitate a thrilling scenario only to pollute it. They come wrapped in shiny folds of promise and good intentions, then the packaging comes off, and what lies beneath are emails from Sidney Blumenthal,shakedowns of Petra Nemcova. [Bill Clinton's] words were a reminder that perhaps no other former president has lavished so much travel and star power on such an ambitious engine of good deeds. The foundation is an exemplar. Until you peek inside and behold a convoluted braid of public service and personal aggrandizement, a queasy-making brew of altruism and vanity, a mechanism for employing loyalists and rewarding friends, a bazaar for favor trading. Straightforward admiration is no longer possible. What we on the right see, crystal clear, is that that "thrilling scenario" and "perfect sequel" doesn't actually offer that much good for America as a whole. Take the symbolic value of a woman becoming president. Can we think of some women who could be elected president, breaking the "glass ceiling," and still be catastrophic for the country? Jodie Arias, for example. Casey Anthony. Octomom. Electing any one of them would technically "break the glass ceiling" by virtue of their gender the same way Hillary would. "It's time for a woman" basically argues, "Let's pick any constitutionally eligible American who is a different gender than the preceding 44." When those Iowa Democratic focus-group members can't think of a single accomplishment by Hillary at the State Department, it's like a pirate signal jamming the cognitive-obedience programming. If you're a fan of Hillary, and you're convinced she did a great job as secretary of state -- in fact, you think it's self-evidently obvious that she did a great job -- and yet you can't think of anything she actually did in the job . . . isn't that a sign to stop and rethink? Well Done, Guy and Mary Katharine. You're Beginning the . . . Discussion I'm going to be honest here: In lesser hands, End of Discussion would not be a fun book. If you're conservative and you have a pulse, you've probably already noticed the Left trying to shut you up by calling you racist, sexist, homophobic, eager to stir up outrage storms on social media. If you're a political junkie, some of the material in this will be new, but some of it will feel familiar: Brendan Eich losing his job at Mozilla, campus speech police, the demonization of President George W. Bush's judges, the over-the-top protests of Scott Walker in his first term. Here's why I can wholeheartedly endorse and recommend this book: Mary Katherine Ham and Guy Benson are really good writers. This book had me laughing out loud on yesterday's flight. Yes, I know them, and so if I hadn't liked the book it would be really awkward. But trust me -- they threaded the needle on this one. They borrow a term from soccer to finally accurately label what we've been seeing in our public discourse in recent years. They describe Steven Sofier, president of the International Paruresis Association, demanding a Rob Lowe DirectTV ad be pulled for disrespecting those who deal with the real affliction of shy bladder. Sofier had executed a dramatic cultural flop. In the sports world, flop is the term given to a player's theatrical fall designed to draw a referee's attention to a rather minor or even nonexistent foul. Soccer is the sport most famous for its flops but the practice has enthusiastic practitioners in American football and basketball. There is rarely any penalty for flopping, and there is great potential upside -- yardage, free throws, possession -- if a referee is convinced of an athlete's performance. When it comes to speech, America is turning into a country of floppers, figuratively grabbing our shins in fabricated agony over every little possible offence in hopes of working the refs. Was anyone truly offended by Painfully Awkward Rob Lowe, even within the tiny subset of Americans who suffer from shy bladder? Was any real damage done? Of course not, but there was no penalty for Soifer grabbing his emotional hamstring and writhing on the floor dramatically. Indeed, there is tremendous upside -- all of America talked about his shy bladder support group for one day . . . Imagine a basketball game in which thirty-eight minutes are just LeBron James lying on the floor getting awarded call after call. That's what living in a culture of constant outrage feels like. Perfectly, the line about LeBron James has a footnote: "Or just rewatch Game 6, 2013 Eastern Conference Finals, Pacers vs. Heat." And then they write things like the section below, and I just want to throw the book across the room, frustrated that I hadn't thought of that: Our ostentatious eye-rolling over "micro-aggressions" is not an endorsement of rudeness or insensitivity. We'd be a happier, better nation if more people made more of an effort to treat others with kindness and respect. And we'd be a happier, better nation if others chose to forgive or shrug off unintentional or perceived slights from well-meaning fellow citizens. If only there were some sort of "rule," if you will, that captured the essence of this spirit of mutual respect and empathy. Distilling such sentiment down to a single sentence would be golden. Someone could probably sell a lot of books. After "golden," the footnote reads, "Matthew 7:12." ADDENDA: This is it. Last chance. Tonight, I address the Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley, talking about the 2016 election, the direction of the GOP, what I think makes for good campaign coverage, how to preserve your sanity during the election, and probably a few things about The Weed Agency, pop culture, and my upcoming humor book on fatherhood co-written with Cam Edwards. | 
Comments
Post a Comment