As Air America Radio and the proud return of the word “Liberal” sweeps the nation (or not – hard to tell so far), there are a few things that occur to me as I listen and watch.
For one, after the last two decades of the Right having developed their own insular Conservative Echo Chamber, they have become desparetely out of touch with what is actually going on in the Country. Instead, they simply repeat over and over to each other exactly they wish to hear and believe, and come election time, if things don’t go their way, they are shocked and left wondering what could possibly have gone wrong.
And now, the Left is finally catching up and putting together their own Echo Chamber. A good thing on it’s face, because there is finally developing a reliable outlet for Liberal opinion and information to be shared and dissemanated to counter the endless (and almost entirely misleading) propoganda from the other side. (It should be noted that I’m impressed, so far, with the information in general coming from the Left, which is far more — truly — Fair and Balanced, detailed, sourced and accurate than the Right’s one-sided, taken-out-of-context, often-wholly-unfactual, hot-button propoganda. So far anyway.)
But is the increasing network of Progressive Blogs, Radio Networks and Best-Selling Books — the number of Left-Leaning Best Sellers now finally far outnumber those from the Right — creating an insular and self-delusional Echo Chamber for the Left the way Rush and Sean and Fox and Drudge have created theirs for the Right?
As things continue — seemingly — to unravel for the Bush Administration on every front, it appears at least like the evaporation of support for the Right is real. The latest Pew Polls show Bush’s Approvals disintegrating at an alarming level on nearly all points.
Yet if you listen to Rush, all is well and it’s the Dems that are falling apart.
What’s the real story? Perhaps it’s somewhere in the middle, where neither DittoHeads nor AirHeads care to venture. Or perhaps things really are unravelling for one side or another.
I suppose the point of this article is mostly to say: Yo, AirHeads – Be careful to avoid the self-delusional trap the Right has created for itself after all these years. Preaching to the choir is all well and good, but words must translate into hearts and minds won. Then, those hearts and minds must be translated into motivating folks away from their radio or website or best-seller list to actually show up at the polls and throw the bums out.
It remains to be seen if that most difficult hurdle has yet been leapt by the Lefties. I suppose we’ll find out this November.
I’ve had many other thoughts on Air America over their first blessed broadcast week — both good and bad — but I’ll hold those for another day.
> but words must translate into hearts and minds won
Rush has been doing that for years and in a positive way. I think the election will not be as close as people think. Kerry will come undone.