Popular media, including straight news, slanted news, and social media, are very good at humiliating people. In fact, if you look at the last forty years or so, that may be its primary skill. When Rush Limbaugh came in in 1989 the difference was that he was able to gain a floor and humiliate liberals, which they didn't expect and infuriated them. He was Doonesbury on the radio.
I don't see that as different now, and was reminded of that by the First Things article that the humiliation, not the refutation of Kim Davis was the point. It's a only a bit over-the-top. I think it is basically accurate.
For those who choose Trump because of all that stands-up-to-PC, doesn't-back-down, says-what-he-thinks appeal it's basically that. The media loves to humiliate, primarily conservatives but ultimately whoever they can bring to earth, and Trump is impervious to this. There are times that I think he should be humiliated when he is caught out, but he isn't. I call that a negative, but can see why those who feel they have been quietly and slowly humiliated themselves are inspired by someone who simply pays no attention.
I'm reminded of Theodore Dalrymple's famous statement:
ReplyDelete"The purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better."
They make punitive examples of a few pour encourager les autres. I judge that they can't keep it up forever(*), but I've no good feel for how the current fashion will break down. Maybe Trump ties into it; maybe the reaction will do something useful about our elite's culture, but my crystal ball is in my other pants.
ReplyDelete(*)Paging Darwin to line 1, Darwin to line 1.
Looking back, that was Reagan's skill though he had learned to do it with a smile (There you go again, I won't use my opponents youth and inexperience against him).
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"That should be a negative"--yes, it's a battle I wish both sides could lose.
ReplyDeleteClearly, the 107th argument is no better than the 106 preceding it. Trump comes, I hear, from Queens or somewhere that is looked down upon. It would then appear that he is The Dragon from Dragonland, breathing fire and laying waste to all that the Good Lefties admire or love. Just burns their butts, he does.
ReplyDelete