A RIGHT-WING ECOSYSTEM

 

[Note:  From time to time, this blog issues a set of postings that summarize what the blog has been emphasizing in its previous postings.  Of late, the blog has been looking at various obstacles civics educators face in teaching their subject.  It’s time to post a series of such summary accounts.  The advantage of such summaries is to introduce new readers to the blog and to provide a different context by which to review the blog’s various claims and arguments.  This and upcoming summary postings will be preceded by this message.]

[Further note:  Merry Christmas to all.]

To further solidify the right of center alliance in the national polarized political landscape there is a “right-wing media ecosystem.”  The public has been given an insight into this ecosystem as a result of various researchers like Robert Faris, et al.[1]  They found that that media group made up of such outlets as Fox News set up two dynamics in 2016 that zeroed-in on the Clinton Foundation.  Picking up a long-standing practice of opposition research, they augmented it to a new level.  It was noted for how deep, well-researched, and how far back it went.

          Of interest, to those who follow such developments, it began before Trump was part of the story.  It seems this turn was initiated with the publication of the book, Clinton Cash, which brought out how the Clintons received speaking fees and donations to the Clinton Foundation for, as the allegation says, policy decisions – when Hillary was secretary of state – or policy proposals.  The book states the Clintons’ wealth ballooned to $130 million and according to its author, Peter Schweizer, was the product of corrupt payoffs.

          Problem is, according to the reportage including a Newsweek review, the book does not provide evidence other than questionable timing.[2]  But this shortcoming did not inhibit Steve Bannon and his Breitbart News from distributing a film version of the book.  All this was strategically timed to be released as the 2016 Democratic Party convention ended and was expecting the usual post-convention bump. 

This was joined with a well-organized email campaign to highlight the release of the film.  And to top it all off, once word began to filter into mainline media, the ecosystem went all out promoting the story and the film.  With this development, that regular media could not ignore the “story” and added it to its list of storylines. 

No one can tell how much harm this whole media blitz did to Clinton’s run for president and the election of Trump – who benefitted and became the center of the ecosystem’s attention.  They, the compilation of effects, legitimized these accusations against Clinton.  A lot of later analysis has discussed the fairness of these activities.  And, in turn, has led to a discussion as to how the mainline media could have – and could in the future – be more aware and more of a supervising entity to avoid such manipulation of the news. 

The main obstacles to policing these moves would be First Amendment rights especially those relating to free speech and even to freedom of the press.  It seems the media, in this case was played to advance dubious charges against the Democratic candidate and, one can argue, probably, along with many other factors, swayed the result of that election. 

Subsequently, questions arose such as who funded Schweizer or what interests backed his efforts and the activities that followed?  Whoever they were, they led to what is called a media ecosystem that survived the 2016 election and is alive and well today.  Perhaps the results of the 2020 election will play as a damper on it, but this writer believes it won’t.

One hopeful result from the 2016 experience is that mainline media and news outlets have learned some lessons.  It is still observed that through Fox and now Newsmax, along with a vibrant right-wing, social media world, right-wing propaganda does not suffer from a lack of eyes and ears.  And it has become noted that foreign governments not friendly to American interests have found ways to infiltrate or otherwise influence what appears on those ecosystem outlets.

Also, out-and-out false messaging has characterized a good deal of what those outlets report.  Misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 election, for examples, has been currently part of the mix.  According to recent polling, they have been able to persuade a good number of Americans about not only false information but dangerous information.  According to a Fact Tank article in July,

Most Americans (71%) have heard of a conspiracy theory circulating widely online that alleges that powerful people intentionally planned the coronavirus outbreak.  And a quarter of U.S. adults see at least some truth in it – including 5% who say it is definitely true and 20% who say it is probably true, according to a June Pew Research Center survey.  The share of Americans who see at least some truth to the theory differs by demographics and partisanship.[3]

Along with this belief in a conspiracy, there are significant numbers who don’t even believe there is a pandemic to begin with and a lot of that is due to what people read online. 

Of course, these beliefs can lead to deadly results as they have led to belittling the dangers associated with the virus.  In addition, one can attribute dangerous undermining of the nation’s political, institutionalized processes – e.g., elections – and what Americans decide to believe concerning important national conditions. 

Clever manipulation of messaging – with the use of humor or other meme techniques – has resulted in serious undermining of those national activities successfully taking place.  The most recent example has resulted in the 2020 presidential election results being judged, in sizable quarters, as illegitimate.[4]

The next posting will look at left of center efforts.

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[1] Robert Faris, Hal Roberts, Bruce Etling, Nikki Bourassa, Ethan Zuckerman, and Yochai Benkler, “Partisanship, Propaganda, & Disinformation: Online Media & the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election,” Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Library (n.d.), accessed August 19, 2020, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/76a9/3eb0bed8ff032c44186678c5279f20cc5ff8.pdf?_ga=2.230250332.1151241653.1597869609-1463880478.1597869609 .

[2] Taylor Wofford, “Everything You Need to Know about ‘Clinton Cash,’” Newsweek, May 1, 2015, accessed August 20, 2020, https://www.newsweek.com/everything-you-need-know-about-clinton-cash-327694 .

[3] Katherine Schaeffer, “A Look at the Americans Who Believe There Is Some Truth to the Conspiracy Theory That COVID-19 Was Planned, Fact Tank:  News in the Numbers, July 24, 2020, accessed December 23, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/24/a-look-at-the-americans-who-believe-there-is-some-truth-to-the-conspiracy-theory-that-covid-19-was-planned/ .

[4] It seems over 30% of electorate hold doubts or indicate they do not know whether Joe Biden won the election.  This is offset by the majority believing he did win.  See “Most Americans Believe the Election Results – Some Don’t,” NPR, WFSU Public Media, December 9, 2020, accessed December 23, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/12/09/944685514/most-americans-believe-the-election-results-some-dont.

GROWING DISTINCTIONS

 

[Note:  From time to time, this blog issues a set of postings that summarize what the blog has been emphasizing in its previous postings.  Of late, the blog has been looking at various obstacles civics educators face in teaching their subject.  It’s time to post a series of such summary accounts.  The advantage of such summaries is to introduce new readers to the blog and to provide a different context by which to review the blog’s various claims and arguments.  This and upcoming summary postings will be preceded by this message.]

When one looks at American political parties and their role in promoting or handling polarized politics, one sees that the Republican Party has experienced meaningful changes in the last decade or so.  Until recently, that party has engaged in rhetoric that utilized coded language to promote policies that favored Anglo identity people – the white majority – at the expense of minority groups. 

It was not necessarily motivated by racist or otherwise bigoted motives.  It instead, to win elections, had to find a way to garner votes when its basic policy positions were formulated to represent a relatively small number of voters.  Until recently, its positioning reflected the economic interests of a minority, businesspeople. 

That minority – especially in the form of larger corporate personnel who shy away from forming alliances with others – hold political aims that run counter to the interest of the larger populated block of potential voters, the working classes.  Whereas there are many more working-class voters then there are businesspeople, those business entities had to conger up issues and accompanying messaging that would cut into those working groups’ support and shift their political allegiance to the Republican Party. 

Identity politics fits that bill.  This process, in effect, was an incubating problem in that under this facade many working class issues went unaddressed by Republican led legislative efforts.  But given the recent developments, those “hidden” messages and their accompanying policies have erupted into the open.

Certain events have served to “out” them, not to lead workers to see the duplicity of Republican policy, but to unmask the racist and xenophobic character of their positioning.  Putting immigrant children in cages, the death of African Americans at the hands of police, and the growing frustrations at the loss of jobs to foreign countries – usually inhabited by people of another race – as well as other developments have brought matters to a boil.  And then there was Trump.  He used the politics of identity to form his base.  And, in turn, he, unintentionally, has also developed his counter base.

In doing so, Trump has gained effective control, at least at the national level, of the Republican Party.  The Democratic Party has evolved into that counter base.  The level of animosity between the two camps has reached dangerous levels.  Where this might end, at the time of this writing, is unknown.  One hears of outrageous possibilities, recently even the possibility of Martial Law was thrown out in the public arena as a way to undo the 2020 presidential election.  January 20^th cannot get here fast enough.

And this leads one to take a close look at how the major parties are constituted in terms of their respective constituencies.  In general, the Republican Party has a far more unified set of supporters while the Democrats can boast a far-ranging array of groups that make up its supporters.  For each, its situations, while different, does have its own set of challenges standing in the way of each party coalescing its voters so as to win elections.

Republicans do attempt to attract followers among businesspeople and the more fundamentalist religious groups.  Both these constituent groups tend to be populated by whites and support conservative policy choices.  That is there is a good deal of overlap between these two groups and, therefore, allows the party to design a fairly unified ideological message.  And, as a result, can go “deep” within its rhetoric to describe and explain what it proposes in a given campaign.

This is not the case with the Democratic Party.  Its supporters range from urban, liberal voters to fairly conservative minority people who have strong religious beliefs.  Prominent in this religious block of supporters are blacks and Latinos/as.  These latter groups cringe at Democratic positions on social issues – e.g., their pro-choice position – but can’t abide by Republican’s anti civil rights proposals.  Consequently, while Republicans tend to be ideological, Democrats tend to be practical in both their policies and rhetoric.

This leads to various differences in the respective strategies each party employs.  For example, in terms of governing, Republicans are less likely to compromise; Democrats are more open to compromise.  This just reflects how much compromising goes on within their respective ranks – Republicans a little bit, Democrats a lot – and tends to set a different mindset in the way politics is viewed within each party.  But of late, Republicans, on this score, have experienced a bit of a shift in their perspective and strategizing.

The instigator of this shift has been Trump and his presidency.  In his more blatant identity messaging, he has promoted higher government deficits – to sustain lower taxes rates – and a larger government, traditionally un-Republican policies.  His base reacts to such policies with “who cares,” and voice their tolerance of such divergence with the satisfaction Trump offers them through his identity politics and rhetoric. 

The main concern has now become preventing illegal immigration and support of current policing policies as they pertain to minority populations.  More generally, the Trump Administration supports policies that advance natural rights’ biases, for example in how that administration has conducted its coronavirus policies.