Liberals like me have spent a lot of time in recent years mocking conservatives for the silliness of their media, wherein Steve Doocy is a star, Sean Hannity is an insightful analyst, and Rush Limbaugh is a brave crusader for truth. Beyond the jokes, we’ve talked a lot about the pathologies produced by the self-reinforcing worldviews propagated in the conservative media ether. One of the key features of those media, and what differentiates them from partisan left media, is the way they talk about the rest of the media. Liberals may like to watch MSNBC, but if you watch MSNBC you won’t be reminded ten times an hour that everything you see in your newspaper or on another television station is a vicious lie concocted by conservatives to deceive you as part of their plan to destroy the country you love.
But that is what you’ll get if you watch Fox, listen to Rush Limbaugh, or consume many other kinds of conservative media. It’s not just a diet of information congenial to your beliefs; it’s also a message of distrust of any other source of information that isn’t explicitly conservative. Which is why it’s not in the least bit surprising that many conservatives were so shocked by the results of Tuesday’s election; if you’re soaking in that rhetoric, the idea that a majority of American voters could voluntarily choose to give Barack Obama—the socialist, the foreigner, the apologist, the black nationalist—another term in office makes no sense whatsoever. It cannot be.
Yeah, oh the horror! Heh. Suck it, bitchez.
[...] But perhaps it’s time to look at the conservative media as a weakness, even the right’s Achilles’ Heel.
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The next four years will be boom times for conservative media; it’s always good for business when your enemies are in power. They will continue to infuriate liberals. But the next time you see Fox propagating some absurd fantasy of Barack Obama’s perfidy, or see Limbaugh and Carlson ramping up another episode of race-baiting, remind yourself that they’re probably doing the most harm to their own side.
And that, folks, is a good thing.
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