Cultural Disconnect:
- The Paulene Kael line about not knowing anyone who voted for Nixon is still true.
- They think we're a bunch of cousin-marrying hicks.
- The onus is on those of us who know the truth about Texas to put out the truth.
- Reporters frequently don't understand the policy issues they're covering.
Pop Culture is VERY political:
- Look at the coverage of Fluke and the perception of Mitt Romney would ban birth control.
- Me: The under-30 set hasn't ever been exposed to conservatism, but they've been watching MTV their entire life.
- We cannot count on the new generation of reporters to have the cultural chops to cover the issues that will be prominent over the next decade.
- The vast majority of Americans engage in politics in the context of problems right in front of people's faces.
- Conservative media assumes the people reading us have far more knowledge than we think they do.
Moral arguments, moral arguments, moral arguments.
It happens when the 18-29 crowd at their oldest were born in 1983. They would have no conscious recollection of Reagan or even Bush the elder. About the time the oldest of them started paying attention, Bush 43 was elected so their only real points of reference (if they do not study and bother to learn from the past) at the earliest the Bush 43 years and in the case of the younger crowd, at best they know the tail end of those years and then the Obama years.
ReplyDeleteThose of us who grew up in the 1980's and even the 1990's have known much better times than these. And those of us who know history know that by comparison economically the 1970's not only stunk but the late 1970's overall were worse times than these. Reagan inherited a bigger mess from Carter than Obama did from Bush. He did not spend time blaming his predecessor but instead got to work fixing things. The same cannot be said for Obama and some of his biggest supporters are gonna feel the most pain in the coming years. I wish I could say I feel sorry for them but I do not: maybe through experience they will not be so stupid again the next time they vote!