It's probably fair to say that it may come to be that the only thing that can moderate and defuse the growing political polarization in the country is an independent media and press that are unbiased and objective in their reporting, portrayals and criticisms and which accordingly foster balanced opinions in the electorate concerning the good and bad and middling takes or leaves of the competing ideologies and consequently has the effect of marginalizing the worst excesses of the far left and right and forcing a reasonableness on the whole process - and it is also fair if not indeed obvious to say that such a balanced state of affairs decidedly does not exist in America nor one imagines anywhere in the democratic West where liberal sympathies tend to more or less dominate, distort and in worst cases outright corrupt political narratives to the left's liking.
So what does that mean? Clearly, the left seems to think it means they win - there's a reason dictatorships seize control of media outlets: next to firing squads and secret police, control of the media is a pretty effective way of disenfranchising the opposition, the ideological infidels - and so with de facto control of media the left with some legitimacy imagines that their hatred of all things conservative will eventually translate into conservatism fading away.
Problem with that is, dictatorships don't simply control media in essence, they control it absolutely [this is where those firing squads and secret police come in handy] - which means that simple media bias, damaging as it may be, is not enough to suppress popular dissent and consequently unless you're willing to embrace the utter repeal of free speech rights and the attendant totalitarianism that goes with such a thing [a fancy that one disconcertingly imagines a fair number of the liberal elite would be willing to indulge] opposition to the misguided conceits of liberalism isn't going away - outcomes matter, and without the ability to control absolutely the people's perceptions of these outcomes dissent will survive and indeed flourish - the NY Times can carry Obama's water and try and put the lie out there that he simply misspoke about the realities of his health care law and wasn't at all perpetrating an outright fraud on the electorate, but they can't force the people to believe that lie no matter how badly the Times may wish it could.
Polarization in a free country will not lead, absent the embrace of absolute authoritarianism, to the abrogation of one's opponents - unmitigated, untempered by exogenous factors or the ascendancy of a free peoples innate love of common sense and compromise, it will simply lead to increasing polarization and the increasing extremism that naturally follows - until the polity breaks up, either in actuality or as a de facto reality on the ground - by which I mean media bias combined with changing demographics may indeed push national elections increasingly to the left, but if that happens, given America's federal nature, conservatives will then look to the states as places where common sense can be preserved - and then people and businesses can decide the issue with their feet: if California turns into a bankrupted nightmare where half the population is dependent on gov't handouts which are funded through outrageous taxation, then people and businesses will leave California and settle in a place where the American dream hasn't been gutted by liberal excesses and delusion.
[of course, that may be the way too optimistic take on what happens should polarization continue to spin out of control - the darker scenarios are not nearly so rational in their solutions - and what really worries me is what happens foreign policy wise should factors increasingly lead to naive, anti-military ideologues like Obama sitting in the Oval Office - something like that could definitely usher in some highly disquieting outcomes]
So what does that mean? Clearly, the left seems to think it means they win - there's a reason dictatorships seize control of media outlets: next to firing squads and secret police, control of the media is a pretty effective way of disenfranchising the opposition, the ideological infidels - and so with de facto control of media the left with some legitimacy imagines that their hatred of all things conservative will eventually translate into conservatism fading away.
Problem with that is, dictatorships don't simply control media in essence, they control it absolutely [this is where those firing squads and secret police come in handy] - which means that simple media bias, damaging as it may be, is not enough to suppress popular dissent and consequently unless you're willing to embrace the utter repeal of free speech rights and the attendant totalitarianism that goes with such a thing [a fancy that one disconcertingly imagines a fair number of the liberal elite would be willing to indulge] opposition to the misguided conceits of liberalism isn't going away - outcomes matter, and without the ability to control absolutely the people's perceptions of these outcomes dissent will survive and indeed flourish - the NY Times can carry Obama's water and try and put the lie out there that he simply misspoke about the realities of his health care law and wasn't at all perpetrating an outright fraud on the electorate, but they can't force the people to believe that lie no matter how badly the Times may wish it could.
Polarization in a free country will not lead, absent the embrace of absolute authoritarianism, to the abrogation of one's opponents - unmitigated, untempered by exogenous factors or the ascendancy of a free peoples innate love of common sense and compromise, it will simply lead to increasing polarization and the increasing extremism that naturally follows - until the polity breaks up, either in actuality or as a de facto reality on the ground - by which I mean media bias combined with changing demographics may indeed push national elections increasingly to the left, but if that happens, given America's federal nature, conservatives will then look to the states as places where common sense can be preserved - and then people and businesses can decide the issue with their feet: if California turns into a bankrupted nightmare where half the population is dependent on gov't handouts which are funded through outrageous taxation, then people and businesses will leave California and settle in a place where the American dream hasn't been gutted by liberal excesses and delusion.
[of course, that may be the way too optimistic take on what happens should polarization continue to spin out of control - the darker scenarios are not nearly so rational in their solutions - and what really worries me is what happens foreign policy wise should factors increasingly lead to naive, anti-military ideologues like Obama sitting in the Oval Office - something like that could definitely usher in some highly disquieting outcomes]
