I wrote this for someone having a really tough post-election time of it. I doubt it will help, but I think it might be relevent here too in how we analyze what happened and our reaction to it.
We've talked about news bias and I know that you believe that the majority of news is tilted and propagandistic, but it seems to me based on what you were saying right before the election that your news sources are wrong.
I'm not talking about the bias or the filter through which they report, but that they were factually incorrect. You were told that all the national polls were mistaken. You were told that Romney had huge momnetum. You expected a landslide victory for the Republicans. Unless that was your heart speaking, the information you were given or that you were reading, hearing, and seeing was false. That created this build-up of expectations and helped lead you to this dispair.
But it was false. The information the conservative media put out that said everyone else was lying was completely wrong. All the polls they decried had the true data, the accurate data. When the polls said that nationally the popular vote would be close, but that Obama had a lead in all the battleground states and would win electorally by a substantial amount... that was accurate.
If that was accurate and the conservative media lied there... maybe there are lies elsewhere. Maybe more of the info you are receiving is in error and things are not nearly as horrific as you fear. Maybe.
This is far from the first major error these sources have been caught in. They have been caught over and over again manipulating, twisting, and changing the facts to suit their narrative.
Take these thoughts for what they're worth.
It is entirely possible that Obama is not nearly as bad as some portray him to be or at least that Romney's plan was little or no better.
How did that go over? What I've found is that there has been extremely little in terms of self reflection, but instead many publically followed the O'Reilly "they want Santa" mantra. I have yet to see a single person on the Right sit back and ask the hard questions about Faux News.
Not much response to it. I think that means they couldn't find much to argue with. Maybe a see has been planted, but over the last years self reflection and analysis has really been replaced by a tightening of circling the wagons. Right now, they're in a funk. I get that. I've been there when I thought we made a huge mistake and worse repeated it.
Here's that thread... that Redskins board is quite conservative, but also seems to have a number of ex-ES castaways some of whom are great guys and posters.
http://www.bgobsession.com/showthrea...t=56989&page=3
Another board I've seen, had a similar post. Something along the lines of "If you're surprised by the results of the election, then you're the reason your side lost"
---------- Post added November-11th-2012 at 09:20 AM ----------
I came to the conclusion decades ago, when I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh regularly, that a large portion of his show was dedicated to training his listeners in how to ignore reality.
Seemed like 3/4 of his show consisted of "Now, you are going to hear something you don't want to hear, for the next few days, and here's why you should ignore it".
And the excuses for ignoring reality were so lame. You should ignore it because the guy who is revealing this information used to work in the Bush White House, and therefore he's an ex-employee, and therefore you should ignore him. You should ignore this other information because the person who revealed it is rumored to be writing a book. You should ignore this data from the IRS, because the first newspaper who quoted it was the New York Times. The reporter who uncovered this fact said something else that makes Republicans look bad, six months ago, therefore he's biased, and everything he says should be ignored.
The result is a culture in which the conditioned response to anything inconvenient, is to immediately search for a reason to ignore it. And it doesn't have to be a good reason. Typically, the first response is to look at the person who said it, and if that person has ever said anything else that was inconvenient, then that's all the reason needed to simply dismiss it.
That's where you get what I understand Colbert refers to as "truthiness". (I really don;t watch his show, I've just heard the term, so I may be completely mischaracterizing it): The notion that the "truthiness" of a statement is however much you like to hear it.
Last edited by Larry; November-11th-2012 at 08:26 AM.
Turns out the polls were in fact, despite all of the D+9, +7 etc rhetoric, biased toward Romney.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes...idential-race/
Good posts by Burgold and Larry. To the posters who pushed the notion of Democratic pollster bias - does the results of the election make you question your information sources?
Last edited by RedskinsFan44; November-11th-2012 at 08:39 AM.
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“These are the ideas that people come to America to get away from.”Rubio
How should society view a cure for a ailment of limited duration that takes another's life to 'cure'?
It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion. ...Dean Inge
Two co-workers are saying it! There's 4 of us... I vote Green, 2 vote Republican, and one doesn't vote at all.
The Republicans are talking and they're saying what some R's on television are saying... they think Rush and Faux have ruined the party. They think that someone needs to speak up to these people about the narrative being churned out.
My coworkers also think the R's need to stop being defined by social issues and get back to being defined by fiscal issues (which I whole-heartedly would LOVE to see). My boss wants to go back to regulating the mercantile class rather than being ran by it. He thinks that R's can define themselves fiscally by regulating the mercantile class without seeming like a big gov't.
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“These are the ideas that people come to America to get away from.”Rubio
How should society view a cure for a ailment of limited duration that takes another's life to 'cure'?
It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion. ...Dean Inge
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