“Why Republicans are surging” || David Brooks, New York Times

 

Above: from my post here. Liberals read/watch almost exclusively liberal news
Moderates and Conservatives read/watch much more widely

Says David Brooks, /snip:

I’ve been watching the campaign speeches by people like Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor in Arizona. G.O.P. candidates are telling a very clear class/culture/status war narrative in which common-sense Americans are being assaulted by elite progressives who let the homeless take over the streets, teach sex ed to 5-year-olds, manufacture fake news, run woke corporations, open the border and refuse to do anything about fentanyl deaths and the sorts of things that affect regular people.
In other words, candidates like Lake wrap a dozen different issues into one coherent class war story. And it seems to be working...” “Why Republicans are surging

Thing is, each of these things that Brooks quotes, above, and which troubles him, is true. Like in my post yesterday --  there’s surprise on the Left about things said by Republicans that are patently true. Indicating how deep in the pit many on the Left are. In a swirling vortex.  (I’m not saying there are no delusions on the Right. There are, many. Just that there are some deep seated delusions on the Left that are not understood by them, because they are in such a vortex).

Let’s look at the items in bold above, that Brooks seems to believe are just a “narrative”:

• “...homeless take over the streets”: That’s objectively the case in many cities in Pacific states: LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland. As Michael Shellenberger, a Time Magazine “Climate Hero”, eco activist and man of the left who has done a deep dive on the issue, shows how well-meaning progressive policies in these cities has caused -- or worsened -- the homeless problems. We have relatives living on the West coast. They attest to how bad it’s gotten, having to step over homeless and their detritus, wherever one walks in central LA and even along its famous beach front. We have friends who have fled Portland because of it. 
• “... teach sex ed to 5-year olds...”: again, this is happening all over the US. The response from the Left is:  “it’s not happening. But if it is, it’s good”. It is happening and it’s not good. Plenty of evidence from teachers, parents and the online curricula attests to this. 
• “... manufacture fake news...”: Where to start? How about a monster bit of fake news: “The Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation story”. This was the summary of a letter by 51 former intelligence analysts, who at the time they said it, they knew was false, as the FBI had the laptop and knew it was Hunter's. Joe Biden used the “laptop is Russian disinformation” story in the final debate to deflect attention from his own misdoings. Joe knew at the time it was false. Because he knew the laptop was Hunter’s. In other words, he lied. And it was a lie that was hugely consequential, given he won by 21,500 votes over three states. That’s a pretty big manufacture of fake news.
• “... run woke corporations...”: Again, where to start? There’s Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, over in the west. There’s Disney, Blackrock, New York Times, over in the East. And plenty in between. It’s inarguable that most major US corporation are now driven by a woke agenda. Not to mention places we would never have thought of before, like the Military. 
• “... open the border...”: The Biden Administration, on day one, rescinded previous deals with Mexico and previous tough border-enforcement measures. The result is the largest increase in illegal crossings in the history of the US. From around 100k per year, they are now running at 2 million. 
• “.... fentanyl...”: it’s true that the current administration is doing nothing about the import of a drug that is causing the deaths of nearly 100k per year. 

The reason for going through these, is that David Brooks, and most of the commenters, seem to think that all these things are whipped up from whole cloth by Republicans, that this a “narrative” that somehow, and unfairly, “seems to be working”. It doesn’t seem to connect with Brooks that the reason the are working is that they are true. 

This is the same as the  MSNBC interview with a Republican focus group the other day, in which the participates were correcting the interviewer, and knew more about the issues than she did. But which Democrats, because they don’t know the other side of the story, read as “misinformation”. The reason they’re in such a bubble is that they consume the mainstream media. The mainstream media is all on the Left. Liberals tend not to Right-of-centre sources. Whereas people on the Right are also exposed to mainstream media (because it’s mainstream) but also have other sources. This was shown by various polls that I’ve posted in the past, see at top.

The net result is that the extent of the bubble, the vortex, is sometimes breathtaking for those of us who are not of the Left, and also not of the Right. Not to say we don’t have our own vortices, we do; everyone does. But the swirls is not quite so strong. Or at least there are counter currents. 

I find it breathtaking that a well-informed focus group is seen by the Left as “misinformed”, when they are the opposite. I find it breathtaking that a major columnist for the NYT should consider a list of major issues, all of them palpably true, just some form of “narrative”, which to him, unaccountably, “seems to be working”. This is truly troublesome stuff.