So that's why Bill O'Reilly is always bragging about his ratings. I was under the impression the Fox News pug ugly constantly tells us how much bigger his rating share is than his liberal tormenters over at MSNBC because O'Reilly's just an arrogant bully who believes he can win arguments with the "angry left" by simply comparing audience size.
O'Reilly's schoolyard conceit was on vivid display in a dispute with Rachel Maddow two years ago when Fox News tried to incite white working class resentment against black Americans by repeatedly replaying a doctored video it had received from the late right wing provocateur Andrew Breitbart.
The deceptively-edited video falsely showed one-time Obama administration employee Shirley Sherrod confessing how her anti-white prejudices got the better of her as she repeatedly screwed over white farmers trying to get federal agricultural loans. In truth, at least one white couple came forward to thank Sherrod for going out of her way to save their family farm when no one else would.
"This is what Fox News does. This is how they are different from other news organizations," said Maddow on her show. "Just like the ACORN controversy, Fox knows they have a role in this dance. That's not new; that's not actually even interesting about this scandal. Fox does what Fox does."
To which O'Reilly replied on his own show later: "Which is kick your network's butt every single night, madam. "
There is an old adage that it's not a very good idea to ever pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel and paper by the ton. I propose the Maddow Corollary, which is: It is a very, very bad idea to ever pick a fight with a Rhodes Scholar, Oxford Ph.D.who has a whole day to come up with a rejoinder.
And so, after playing the clip where O'Reilly brags about his ratings, Maddow said this: "Here Mr. O'Reilly has a point. You and Fox get great ratings. It is so awesome how great your ratings are. Here's the score card from last night. It is in TV ratings speak, but I think it will be clear enough. Here's Mr. O'Reilly that 757 would be him at 8:00, and that 245 would be me at 9:00, different hour, but you know same point, and don't tell Susan's mom whose actually pretty sensitive about these kinds of things, but we're actually outrated by all kinds of shows. "Deadliest Catch," that's about fishing. We get killed by a show called "The Closer" about which I know nothing about except it kills us in the ratings, and we get smaller ratings than WWE wrestling.... Of course, all of those shows also kill Mr. O'Reilly's show in the ratings as well as everything else on Fox, as do Sponge Bob, reruns of NCIS, and Hannah Montana, Forever, which is totally understandable. They are all more watched than The O'Reilly Factor which is totally irrelevant."
O'Reilly's not the only right winger who thinks size matters. There is also John Hawkins, who runs a right wing version of the Huffington Post called the "Hive." Hawkins wondered aloud in one of his posts how a guy like former Bush speechwriter David Frum (who Hawkins had earlier banned for life from the Hive for insufficient fidelity to the right wing party line) rated a spot on CNN or a column at Time when so many more popular conservatives were left out in the cold.
"What's the purpose of putting a guy like Frum on TV as opposed to all the genuine conservatives who dwarf his traffic and can obviously draw a bigger crowd?" asked Hawkins.
By linking the rightness or legitimacy of their arguments not to the incandescence of their insights or the artistry of their prose but to the raw numbers they're able to gather, O'Reilly and Hawkins exhibit that group-think and tribalism that lies at the core of the conservative mindset.
No wonder the right wing seemed so obsessed with President Obama's legendary "charisma," or the "messianic" powers they imagined the President was able to exert over the teeming hoards he could hypnotize at will.
Yet, according to Boston Globe writer Leon Neyfakh, there may be method to this conservative madness.
In an article in the Sunday Boston Globe's Idea Section, Neyfakh wrote that if you really want to change the way a group thinks and behaves you don't have to win over their hearts and minds. All you really have to do is to "convince them that everybody else is doing it."
To change behavior, says Neyfakh, you don't have to appeal to people's inner virtue or the better angels of their nature you only have to tap into their powerful drive to be "normal."
That is because virtues like respect and kindness don't automatically follow from people who are naturally good, says Keyfakh, "just people who have come to believe that that's what everyone else thinks is the right way to act."
Or, as the Columbia University psychologist quoted by Neyfakh puts it: "The inner conformist is stronger than the inner activist."
This insight about group-think comes especially in handy if you are a conservative movement -- like the one that's been disrupting American politics for the better part of the last 30 years -- out to do more than just win over the hearts and minds of a few swing voters who might turn the next election, but rather are committed to the far more ambitious task of fooling all the people all the time so as to transform a modern, liberal, democratic American culture into one more hospitable to ideas and attitudes that are the antithesis of all those things.
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As for this: "The inner conformist is stronger than the inner activist." Perhaps that is true for the hoi polloi, but I've spent a lifetime as a non-conformist and activist, and I am clearly not alone, tho I will admit I am even more clearly massively outnumbered.
But change NEVER begins with the teeming masses; it always begins with the non-conformists. Neyfakh and the Columbia University psychologist may not know this, but all despots do. That is why their first target when they take over is intellectuals and artists, who are notoriously non-conformist. And Roger Ailes is clearly a despot.
;-)
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Two examples in three years does not define the right. I am not familar with John Hawkins. The Bill O comment was idiotic but, the guy is on 5 nights a week, I think defining 'The Right" on this one comment is a stretch.
Perhaps you should comment on the Press hoping the Libya fiasco will go away or Fox News not being invited to the State Dep conference call might be more offensive to such delicate sensibilities.
Whenever I need to remember what a real honest interview is with a good journalists, I watch this video with Kennedy and Walter Cronkite.
The denial is scary, there is more anger here when someone goes of the reservation than anywhere.
At least on Fox News they identify that they have a bias as does MSNBC, but most of the press is either delusional or insulting when they claim independence.
The piece above is just the tip of a much bigger iceberg I've been trying to define for a decade or more, which is the rise of an intolerant, anti-liberal, anti-democratic right wing movement that has already consumed the Republican Party I once worked for and now aims for much bigger game. It's main feature is tribalism, which is why it is so often confused with fascism, which is itself tribalism writ large, or rather populist nationalism. But the basic dynamics of group solidarity and conformity are the same. The O'Reilly anecdote was just one of many I could have chosen of conservatives flexing their muscles by bragging about the size of their audience in order to reassure that audience that they belong to a strong and powerful group where might (and size) make right.
Elsewhere, I've written of the work of sociologist Eric Hoffer, author of "The True Believer," who was among the first to recognize that mass movements are more about psychology than politics. People join mass movements like the Tea Party, he says, less because of their compelling vision or doctrine than in order to repair their "spoiled" and "frustrated" lives.
Hoffer, who was given the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan in 1983 for his writings on the rise of totalitarianism, specifically Hitler's, noted the central importance of self-esteem to both psychological well-being and the unity of mass movements.
His most important insight may have been that all mass movements are essentially the same in terms of the kind of personalities attracted to them and the benefits they confer on committed members.
Therefore, said Hoffer, it is much easier for a fanatical Nazi to become a fanatical Communist even though those two belief systems are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, than for either to become a mainstream liberal or conservative. Hitler's propaganda chief said the same thing. It's not surprising, then, that today's far right neo-conservatives began their career as committed communists.
For the "true believer," says Hoffer, the substance of a mass movement isn't as important as the sense of security, solidarity and certainty they derive from the movement itself.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident." For the Tea Party right, the importance of that statement from the Declaration of Independence is not its connection with the values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but rather the fact that those "truths" are themselves "self-evident," absolute.
Y0u complain that liberal OS readers go nuts when someone like you "goes off the reservation." Two points. The first, if that is so then the reader going nuts is not really a liberal at all but rather a leftist, using Hoffer's definitions of mass movements above, in which conformity to the group and group ideology trumps the merits of anyone's position and the freedom to express them.
The second is: What do you mean by "going off the reservation?" Does it mean holding what we call a "conservative" economic or political view such as that tax cuts pay for themselves or America needs to be the world's policeman, even if those are unpopular ideas in a forum like this? Or do you mean the advocacy of ideas that undermine democracy itself, such as the idea that "freedom" of speech is not a value because it lets us compete in a marketplace of ideas in order to persuade other people but rather because it gives us an opportunity to monopolize the means of communication so as to manufacture converts?
As I have said before, liberals are audiences for their media while conservatives tend to be citizens of theirs. I suspect that Rachel Maddow and other liberals would be perfectly OK with a law that said they had to give equal time to conservative voices on their shows while conservatives fight that idea tooth and nail. What does that say about the nature of American conservatism today?
Thanks for the response, I think youcompletely ignore the current context of Republican anti-government rhetoric. You have disdain for Republican “hyperindividualism,” but pay no attention to the Democratic alternative, “subsidized-if not free- hyperindividualism.” It is not enough that the Sandra Flukes of America have access through the market to cheap B-C and abortion on-demand. A majority-in many cases- of Americans must be compelled against their consciences to pay for these services. It is not enough for one of the oldest religious charity organizations in the United States to provide adoption services for the neediest children; it must place children with same-sex couples or lose its license. It is not enough for a religious charity to assist almost 3,500 victims of sex-trafficking; it must also promote abortion, or lose its funding. And you feel these people have lost their way?
Not a conservative of record has come out against a “Helping hand”. But, give more credit to members of the TEA Party to know the difference between a nudge and a baseball bat. We can agree that the free market is not always kind but, it pales when compared to the attacks of the left on the Church.
We have seen the largest expanse of Government in my lifetime. A government that has gone after the cornerstones of a civil society, familes, charties ,churches and small business.
Regarding Romney/Ryan not once have they threatened to do away with social programs but improve the current system to make them sustainable. Issues like social security and medicare long have been called the “Third Rail” of American Politics. Did you ever think you would attack anyone courageous enough to wander out on the tracks ?
I get it. We will always differ on where we draw the lines between public and private and what claims the public may legitimately make on private individuals (such as paying taxes for purposes we might not agree with, whether birth control or war-making), or what power private groups like churches can have to shape the public culture in which we all must live in their image. These are not questions to which we can apply right or wrong answers. They are merely facts of life when people of very different backgrounds and beliefs try to live together in a society without tearing one another to pieces.
Odd that you would choose an allusion to the Catholic Church to defend your position. Can there be a more clear example of an institution that has lost it's way? Yes, the Church is a force for good in many ways, but let us count just a few of the ways the Church deserves to be held in contempt for religious malpractice:
First, there's the historical horrors -- The Crusades and The Inquistion, not to mention the indulgences and other scams that gave rise to Protestantism.
Then there's the more recent outrages, such as the failure to stand up to Fascism (possibly because the Church is itself in essence fascist). Some of us haven't forgotten about the Vatican Bank scandal, or ties to the Mafia. And some of us are not impressed with ermine robes and $700 red velvet slippers, while the faithful go starving. The Church has done all it can to quash Liberation Theology, which tried to correct the Church's ignoring such obvious inequality..
As is the case with Islam, the Church has long been complicit in the diminution of women, including the prohibition against women priests. That paternalistic bent also reflects itself in the Church's attitude toward birth control -- which is in essence a scheme to hedge declining membership in the Church. Given that there are now 7 billion people on the planet, no reasonable person can possibly argue for a need to "be fruitful and multiply.
Certainly, there are arguments to be made against abortion, but the practical effect of a ban -- as was made statistically clear in the book Freakonomics -- is to promote poverty and criminality. What the Church's policy against abortion has done in the past was promote back alley abortionists; what it does now is turn Catholic women into criminals (where abortion is illegal) and into social outcasts (wherever it's not). What it has never done -- and can never do -- is prevent abortions by desperate women.
I don't think it's necessary to rehash the Church's abject failure -- nay it's complicity and conspiracy -- in regard to pedophilia in its ranks. That's not surprising, though, given that a high-ranking Church official ran a homosexual pimping operation out of the Vatican.
Sorry, Ted, that this rant ran so long. It may seem off the subject -- I don't think it is. The Church is another conservative institution -- just like Wall Street banks -- that has lost sight of its purpose, and I would argue it has done so for much the same reason: It has operated on the theory that size matters most and that bigger is better.
Clearly, that isn't always the case.
I see "conservatism" as a cult of self-identity. That's how the various subgroups can excuse/agree with things they couldn't excuse or agree with absent the underlying identity linkage. "If it advances the cause it's agreeable," says the selective Jefferson-admiring conservative when Texas schools delete Jefferson as an Enlightenment philosopher, for example. No real difference, but that's how I illustrate it.
You'd have to ask somebody like Jay if they truly believe the lies or supports them as a means to an end. However, note his reaction is to rationalize Bill O's nonsense, not address the substantial issue, and then attempt to neutralize it by comparison. "Attempt" means it's irrelevant and illogical or, if you've raised kids --- neener-neener. If you have a Jello nail gun it might get him to deal with a fixed point, but I doubt it.
Jay is a decent case study, and accessible. He describes the latest Republican gimmick -- hyper-individualism -- as an equal but opposing reaction to the non-existent Democratic “subsidized-if not free- hyperindividualism.” Neener-neener again, and totally false, but a convenient invention to rationalize The Latest Gimmick. Why did the GOP go more quasi-libertarian? They don't have war drums to pound and want to distract from the fact they ran up the debt and crashed the economy. No sir! It wasn't our incompetence, it was The Gub'mint!
Jay parrots an ignorance of the Establishment clause, claiming Congress should make a law respecting an establishment of religion. In fact, he says if they don't, it's a violation of freedom of consciousness. His total misconception of a majority rejection aligns with his 180 degree out-of-sync interpretation of the 1st amend. If the text isn't enough, the Court has affirmed a church operating in a secular business has to follow the same laws as do all businesses.
His gub'mint going after churches and small businesses is simply a fabrication -- a case of emotion overriding reality. I well know how having OSHA show up at my shop was always a bummer, and the IRS can sure be a pain, but the reality is small businesses are very easy to start and generally have very little contact with, much less interference from, The Gub'mint. The idea regulations are stifling s-biz is yet another fabrication. Emotion overriding reality in a pretense of informed disagreement. (That means you're faking it, Jay)
The government expansion part is right, but almost all of that came about by Republican policy. So did most of our debt. But no, it's not Republicans, it's Gub'mint! (snark)
And...Romney/Ryan simply want to shovel taxpayers dollars to private insurance companies, block grant Medicare and eventually turn it into an entirely privatized boondoggle, where a smaller tax cost is replaced by a larger private "tribute" but it will save and won't cost more money because, as Jay well knows, cost only counts when it's a gub'mint tax.
Thanks for being today's case study.
It must be tough to be so brilliant yet so underappreciated. I am glad to be your case study, here is a quarter, tell all your friends.
No question the Church has lost its way. They are about number and never challenge the flock. I think you saw it last night in the debate. Biden should be challenged by the church. Caroline Kennedy she be asked to leave based on her comments through the years, when the Church is silent, it loses its cache.
There has been and still is evil in the Church, there is also greatness. For all the disgusting, vile events, there has been kindness and greatness. The Church needs to figure out. Those that want to turn it into more of a club are winning out these days.