The Atlantic -- How the Left Lost Its Mind

[Kilgore]

As a life long consumer of hard news, the current landscape leaves me scratching my head. This piece from The Atlantic, attempts to make sense out of whats happening today. I came away thinking that we may be setting a trap for ourselves by giving a bit too much credit to the alternative news sources. For fans of The Palmer Report, this may be a tough read.

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https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/liberal-fever-swamps/530736/


Polemicists, conspiracists, and outright fabulists are feeding an alternative media landscape—where the implausibility of a claim is no bar to its acceptance.

Over the past two decades, an immense amount of journalistic energy was spent exploring the right-wing media ecosystem—from talk radio, to Fox News, to Breitbart and beyond—and documenting its growing influence on mainstream GOP politics. This turned out to be a worthy and prescient pursuit, and if any doubt remains about that, I’d present “President Donald Trump” as Exhibit A. While serious Republicans in the political class spent years scoffing at the “entertainers” and “provocateurs” on the supposedly powerless fringe, the denizens of the fever swamp were busy taking over the party.

But 2017 poses the question: Could the same thing happen on the left?

It’s a prospect that deserves more serious attention and debate than it’s gotten this year. The Trump era has given rise to a vast alternative left-wing media infrastructure that operates largely out of the view of casual news consumers, but commands a massive audience and growing influence in liberal America. There are polemical podcasters and partisan click farms; wild-eyed conspiracists and cynical fabulists. Some traffic heavily in rumor and wage campaigns of misinformation; others are merely aggregators and commentators who have carved out a corner of the web for themselves. But taken together, they form a media universe where partisan hysteria is too easily stoked, and fake news can travel at the speed of light.

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. ...

I put this up there with the President of the American Enterprise Institute's "impassioned" plea against "contempt" in politics: cynical bullshit at best.

You want to unilaterally disarm against Nazi murderers, be my guest. Nobody else should.

[sweetapogee]

6. I guess it depends

on your definition of disarm. Actually a case could be made, although a bit contorted, that by reacting to every thing, small and big that the opposition does, foul as it is, is by definition self-disarming. If the experts think that we can win in the future based on the present course of action then I say ok roll the dice and continue. But if that isn't the overall plan then we will by necessity opening up a second front in this war and that is going to make victory unnecessarly difficult. A simple plan is always better than a complex plan.

I think that if we really want to win this war we are at some point going to have to flank the enemy. The pukes didn't get to where they are by non-stop frontal attacks. Sorry if that offends but we need a long range goal. If anyone thinks that there is going to be drastic change in November of next year if we continue on the present heading they are most likely setting themselves up for a big let down. Now call me a defeatist all you want because I actually don't care but in reality I'm not the enemy.

Imagine for just a few minutes what the effect would be if we ignored the pukes and their dumb tweets. Just ignore them instead of being insulted and reacting. Then what would happen? trump got Morning Joe to postpone his vacation by one little tweet, that if it had been ignored we wouldn't still be talking about it 2 days later. Thank about that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Who is "we" in your post?

"We" could be "DU members", "strong progressives", "liberals in general", "liberals and moderates", or "everyone apart from the crazy Republican core". It's a lot easier to get the smaller groups to act together, but our influence is small. Is it "people like us" who should ignore the dumb tweets, or is it "the sane section of the media"?

If most of the media do ignore presidential tweets, but Fox News doesn't - it just reports them approvingly - then they'll just become the "new normal" for people who see a bit of Fox News. But if other media criticise them, then the people who watch Fox News but also see or read something else will also see the arguments that he's unfit to be president. And that will influence some of them.

It was amazing that Trump succeeded. When Trump was first mentioned as a possible candidate, I literally called him a joke candidate. I didn't think a significant amount of Republicans would support a narcissistic birther who is clearly out only to enrich himself. And a lot of people thought like that, and ignored him. And then he won. And that last sentence may be the answer to your "then what would happen?".

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Confirmation bias isn't limited to right-wingers.

Everybody wants to believe information that reinforces or supports their existing beliefs. With as much right-wing shit hitting the fan these days it's really tempting to believe things that are encouraging and give us hope, even if they don't pass careful scrutiny. It's so important to try to verify everything, even if the truth is sometimes disappointing.

[Kilgore]

4. You nailed it!!

[cwydro]

14. Perfectly put.

I've been disappointed to see some pretty wild ass conjecture right here on good old DU.

[flamingdem]

3. There are idiots of every stripe but the proportion is 100 right winger to

1 left leaner.

Most left leaning sources keep within reasonable bounds and don't push conspiracy theories.

[dweller]

5. and is why I'm at DU since 2002

I can pick and choose the news I want to read, follow links I want more info about and not have phone or feed force fed with every blip on the radar... I usually have more info than any of my peers on lbn and even tho I rec to many to join DU, I sadly find that they don't ... either don't care or don't want to know.. but will listen and appear outraged by info I pass on to them..
but what else can I do?

[Warpy]

7. Given the vast number of fake outlets on the right

combined with study after study that shows a conservative bias toward believing fakery, this article looks like desperate projection to me.

Most of us on the left don't read The Palmer Report. The track record is too poor. Nor do we put much faith in BREAKING NEWS!! that hasn't broken yet.

Years of watching the far right carefully construct its alternative reality bubble has us taking a lot of things with a pound of salt, no matter which direction they issue from.

I'm afraid the author is sadly mistaken about whose mind has been lost.

The Atlantic needs to choose its articles a little more carefully.

[JI7]

8. FALSE EQUIVALENCY

there have always been nut cases on the left but they have always been the fringe and referred to tin foil.

ed markey getting something wrong isn't comparable. did he continue to push and insist it's true as right wingers do ?

[Samantha]

9. There have always been misfits on both sides of the aisle

It is just that the liberals get attacked more often.

Sam

[Initech]

10. Sigh... more needless liberal bashing.

And the comments aren't helping either.

[underpants]

11. Marking for later read

[Spider Jerusalem]

13. "How the left lost its mind: taking anything Louise Mensch says seriously", basically

while there are a few "left" purveyors of kooky conspiracy and outright nonsense, they right has far more kooks, conspiracists, nuts and peddlers of dangerous falsehood, many of whom are far more "mainstream" than anyone on the left (cf Hannity et al).