Bread and circuses were what Romans leaders used to subdue citizens for hundreds of years before their civilization’s fall. We have celebrity gossip.
It is greedily consumed and takes on the dimensions of real news – banner headlines, magazine covers and lead stories, with dependably high click-through rates. It is all artificial urgency, fiction parading as fact. And it’s making us stupid. Read More…
We are living in a time of decentralized populist political movements, fueled by economic anxiety and magnified by social media.
As Occupy Wall Street spread into satellite protests this past week, there was an understandable impulse to impose an established narrative, asking whether this was the mirror image of the Tea Party protests. Read More…
The cycle of incitement continued this week as Democrats frustrated with the debt-ceiling deal equated the tea party with terrorists, just weeks before the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
It is an ugly and unacceptable comparison, especially coming — as it did — on the heels of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords triumphant return to Congress after being shot in Tucson in January.
The instinct to raise funds off fear-mongering was also deployed in record time, as GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann — no stranger herself to the politics of incitement — fired off an e-mail which read: “The Democrats have stooped to a new low. This afternoon, Vice President Joe Biden reportedly led a congressional meeting where tea party members were labeled as ‘terrorists.’ ” Read More…
There’s new evidence to suggest a demand for something different than hyper-partisanship in the world of talk radio and political media.
It’s not just the sunset of the Glenn Beck Show on Fox or the dispatch of Keith Olbermann from MSNBC to CurrentTV. It’s the shuttering of a pioneering conservative radio station and data showing the demographic decline of Rush Limbaugh.
In contrast, growing numbers of listeners are tuning in to independent voices who can be honest brokers in debates and don’t just angrily parrot talking points.
CNN contributor John Avlon says Colbert is right to lampoon politicians who spread falsehoods.