Noonan: People Are Stupid Sheep Who Must Be Controlled; Brooks: People Are Stupid Sheep Who Want To Be Controlled

Keeping America Safe From the Ranters

As the Elders of the media die, who'll replace them?

The headline would imply that La Noonan was opposed to tribalism. Heh.

They're the tribal chieftains. This role has probably existed since caveman days, because people need guidance and encouragement, they need to be heartened by examples of endurance. They need to be inspired.

False equivalences can be helpful in leading the flock.

Two examples from just the past week. A few days ago, I was sent a link to a screed by MSNBC's left-wing anchorman Ed Schultz, in which he explained opposition to the president's health-care reform. "The Republicans lie. They want to see you dead. They'd rather make money off your dead corpse. They kind of like it when that woman has cancer and they don't have anything for us." Next, a link to the syndicated show of right-wing radio talker Alex Jones, on the subject of the U.S. military, whose security efforts at the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh show them to be agents and lackeys of the New World Order. "They are complete enemies of America. . . . Our military's been taken over. . . . This is the end of our country." Later, "They'd love to kill 10,000 Americans," and, "The republic is falling right now."

Republicans don't really give a crap about you: "Get some charity or go to the emergency room." And they've been lying through their veneers since "death panels." Expressed w/ no more show-biz hoopla than anything Rush Limbaugh says. Equivalent: "Right-wing" radio talker Alex Jones, who's convinced that the coup has already taken place.

And, collectivism!!

The new Elders will have to rescue America from the precipice. They'll have to be mature, think of the collective, of the country as a whole.

Health care for all, then? No, generalities from Noonan.

If they don't do it, who will? If they don't lead through this polarized time, who can? People who are 25 and 30 can't. They haven't been around long enough and don't have the sway. They're the guests on the broadcasts, not the executive producers. The new Elders are.

Is that so? Peggy exits w/ the irony of projection rather than reflection:

Someone's going to sum you up one day. You want to live your professional life in a way that they can write good things.

On the other extremity, David Brooks makes some sense about the tribal elders/shamans of the right,

media mavens who claim to represent a hidden majority but who in fact represent a mere niche — even in the Republican Party. It is a story as old as “The Wizard of Oz,” of grand illusions and small men behind the curtain.¹

Brooks goes on to burst the bubble of fun had by mooks like us at the expense of the patent medicine sellers. Will apologies be made?

But this is not merely a story of weakness. It is a story of resilience. For no matter how often their hollowness is exposed, the jocks still reweave the myth of their own power. They still ride the airwaves claiming to speak for millions. They still confuse listeners with voters. And they are aided in this endeavor by their enablers. They are enabled by cynical Democrats, who love to claim that Rush Limbaugh controls the G.O.P. They are enabled by lazy pundits who find it easier to argue with showmen than with people whose opinions are based on knowledge. They are enabled by the slightly educated snobs who believe that Glenn Beck really is the voice of Middle America.

So the myth returns. Just months after the election and the humiliation, everyone is again convinced that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest possess real power. And the saddest thing is that even Republican politicians come to believe it. They mistake media for reality. They pre-emptively surrender to armies that don’t exist.

They pay more attention to Rush’s imaginary millions than to the real voters down the street. The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party is leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity. The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s coalition-building strategy.

The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time.

Suckers.

¹ Used as a pull-quote mostly because we are amused that Brooks thinks "The Wiz" (book published in 1900, movie released in 1939) is one of the "old" stories, possibly as told around the ceremonial fire by Noonan's Elders.