# Is conservative media the source of all issues that keep liberals up at night? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 29, 2019, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782 "2019-07-29T01:31:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782/21 "2019-07-29T15:40:45Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > the attitude that conservative thought is nothing but conspiracy theories and racism and stupid is what made, and makes, conservative media appealing. It should also be pointed out that, yes, while not _all_ conservative thought is conspiracy theories, racism and stupid, it’s also clear that almost everything _new_ in conservative thought over the last 10-20 years or so, those things that distinguish them from the GOP of the 80s and 90s, is conspiracy theories, racism and stupid. John McCain made of point of shutting down Birtherism crap; Trump and the modern GOP embrace Birtherism, and more. There were always racists in the party, but they tried to keep it on the down-low. Now, we have the President telling immigrant citizens to “go back where they came from”. And Stupid? [Well, fuck, where to even start?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=511831) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782/22 "2019-07-29T19:14:51Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > It should also be pointed out that, yes, while not _all_ conservative thought is conspiracy theories, racism and stupid, it’s also clear that almost everything _new_ in conservative thought over the last 10-20 years or so, those things that distinguish them from the GOP of the 80s and 90s, is conspiracy theories, racism and stupid. As I mentioned, there is a reason why conservative media has found an audience. ‘Everything in conservative thought for the last twenty years is conspiracy theories, racist, and stupid’ does not really lead to informed debate, and does not IMO inform the public. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782/23 "2019-07-29T21:39:37Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > As I mentioned, there is a reason why conservative media has found an audience. > > ‘Everything in conservative thought for the last twenty years is conspiracy theories, racist, and stupid’ does not really lead to informed debate, and does not IMO inform the public. > > Regards, > Shodan As the debates on climate change and birtherism showed, that conservative audience has been manipulated to fall for the dumbest conspiracies. > **[Conservative Conspiracy Propaganda Cannot Help But Instigate Violence |...](https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/10/28/conservative-conspiracy-propaganda-cannot-help-but-instigate-violence/)** > > It will likely get worse before it gets better > [@](#): > > The mystery begins to unravel, though, if we look a sample of the beliefs required of the modern conservative. > > To be a modern conservative, you must believe that there is a grand conspiracy of scientists all around the world promote a hoax about global warming and climate change in exchange for….well, it’s not entirely clear what. Grant funding? Payoff by global Marxists? Who knows? It’s pretty bizarre, but tens of millions of American conservatives believe it. > > To be a modern conservative is to believe that thousands of desperate Central American migrants are being paid by George Soros–himself a symbol and often a substitute code word for Jews, also coded as “globalists” in mainstream Republican rhetoric–to come to the United States to vote illegally and disrupt the midterm elections. > > To be a modern conservative is to believe in a ludicrous, grandiose conspiracy of tens of thousands of organizers, undocumented people and elections officials to implement voter impersonation fraud at scale. > > To be a modern conservative is to believe that there is a byzantine “Deep State” conspiracy involving the highest levels of law enforcement, including well-respected members of both parties, to entrap and frame the president–rather than the much more obvious conclusion that the president and his associates are guilty of wide-ranging wrongdoing on multiple fronts. > > To be a modern conservative is to believe that white men face the most discrimination of any group in the country, that older white conservatives in the South are the least racist people in America, and that liberal whites are keeping people of color down on what they call the “Democrat plantation” by providing social services not to make up for institutional prejudice, but in a unbreakable and corrupt bargain for votes. > > To be a modern conservative is to believe that all of the collected mainstream media are corrupted Democratic campaign operatives, while Fox News is singledhandedly engaged in real journalism. > [@](#): > > To be a modern conservative, [per majority opinion](https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/291059-poll-majority-of-republicans-still-doubt-obamas), is to believe that the last Democratic president was born outside of the United States and ineligible to be president. > > And that doesn’t even touch the more outre conspiracies believed by significant minorities of conservatives, from Sandy Hook false flags to various versions of QAnon, pizzagate and much more. > > The collective weight of these belief systems is massive and psychologically destabilizing. It blares every day from the collective conservative media bubble in a 24/7 stream of Fox News broadcasts, Breitbart articles and Rush Limbaugh radio hours. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2019, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782/24 "2019-07-30T00:26:39Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I think you are confusing cause and effect. Fox News and media like Rush Limbaugh came into existence because there was a large underserved market. Most MSM slants to the left. Rush and Fox News and AM talk radio recognized that and created a product that addressed that market. They would not have succeeded if the market did not already exist. > > All this stuff about lies and racism is self-serving cherry-picking by the left, and sour grapes at losing elections. > > Regards, > Shodan This is true in a sense, but also reveals the problem with people who make up the market for conservative media. You state that the mainstream media slants to the left. The reason for that is that reality slants to the left. Global warming and evolution are two of the big issues where reality and what conservatives believe are contradictory. If people want to hear that they can keep their coal mining jobs and keep burning hydrocarbons to prosperity while not damaging the environment, they’re burying their heads in the sand, not looking for real news. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2019, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782/25 "2019-07-30T00:47:48Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I think you are confusing cause and effect. Fox News and media like Rush Limbaugh came into existence because there was a large underserved market. Most MSM slants to the left. Rush and Fox News and AM talk radio recognized that and created a product that addressed that market. They would not have succeeded if the market did not already exist. > > All this stuff about lies and racism is self-serving cherry-picking by the left, and sour grapes at losing elections. > > Regards, > Shodan Fox News and Limbaugh came into existence because Reagan guillotined the Fairness Doctrine. > [@Shodan](#): > > As I mentioned, there is a reason why conservative media has found an audience. > > ‘Everything in conservative thought for the last twenty years is conspiracy theories, racist, and stupid’ does not really lead to informed debate, and does not IMO inform the public. > > Regards, > Shodan Talking with Flat Earthers doesn’t really lead to informed debate and doesn’t inform the public, either. If the vast majority of what conservatives blather on about is racist, stupid and just as wrong as the notion that the Earth is not a sphere… not my bummer. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2019, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782/26 "2019-07-30T01:20:53Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > As the debates on climate change and birtherism showed, that conservative audience has been manipulated to fall for the dumbest conspiracies. > > [Conservative Conspiracy Propaganda Cannot Help But Instigate Violence | Washington Monthly](https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/10/28/conservative-conspiracy-propaganda-cannot-help-but-instigate-violence/) With unbiased and non-partisan articles like this in the media, one can scarcely imagine from where conservatives get the idea of media bias. I mean, who wouldn’t trust a source like David Atkins to fairly and honestly outline conservative beliefs, right? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2019, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782/27 "2019-07-30T01:35:31Z")
I bet he hardly wrote about Secretary Clinton’s pizza-based sex racket at all! ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2019, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782/28 "2019-07-30T02:21:15Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > As I mentioned, there is a reason why conservative media has found an audience. > > ‘Everything in conservative thought for the last twenty years is conspiracy theories, racist, and stupid’ does not really lead to informed debate, and does not IMO inform the public. > > Regards, > Shodan And this is another good example of what I’m on about. You completely blow past the part where I was a conservative voter for most of my life, until the stupidity took over the entire movement. But you just ignore that, and try to score some “more reasonable than thou points”. How about you actually take a minute to consider the possibility that you really are embracing the Party of Stupid, rather than just dismissing this as some kind of leftist bias? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2019, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782/29 "2019-07-30T02:21:51Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > With unbiased and non-partisan articles like this in the media, one can scarcely imagine from where conservatives get the idea of media bias. I mean, who wouldn’t trust a source like David Atkins to fairly and honestly outline conservative beliefs, right? Well, shooting the messenger again does not turn your sorry argument into a logical one. Avoidance of the points made noticed, so they still stand. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2019, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782/30 "2019-07-30T04:39:12Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > And you’re ignoring the feedback effects that the media has. Yes, the conservative market was underserved at that time. I was part of that market, then. > > But it’s also clear that the new conservative media has been instrumental in pushing most conservative voters farther and farther right over time. The conservative movement as it exists now is virtually unrecognizable to me now. It supports virtually none of the values I actually have, values that I had back then. The statistics I’ve seen about the US point to the Left becoming more radical and the Right, comparatively, only moving a little further to the right. [Cite 1](https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/pew-research-center-study-shows-that-democrats-have-shifted-to-the-extreme-left/) and [Cite 2](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunday/republican-platform-far-right.html). The first graph in the second citation is interesting because it shows that the gap between Left and Right in 2008 is much smaller than the gap between Left and Left between 2008 and 2016. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2019, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782/31 "2019-07-30T05:02:52Z")
Yes, there’s a reason that conservative news found an audience. Conservatives couldn’t handle unbiased news, so they had to create their own biased news. If conservatives created less biased news, then you’d have a point that maybe the regular news was biased. But they didn’t. They created conservative news. They simply wanted reported to tell them what they wanted to hear. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2019, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782/32 "2019-07-30T05:27:44Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > The statistics I’ve seen about the US point to the Left becoming more radical and the Right, comparatively, only moving a little further to the right. > [Cite 1](https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/pew-research-center-study-shows-that-democrats-have-shifted-to-the-extreme-left/) and [Cite 2](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunday/republican-platform-far-right.html). > > The first graph in the second citation is interesting because it shows that the gap between Left and Right in 2008 is much smaller than the gap between Left and Left between 2008 and 2016. One will always wonder how a report that shows that the Democrats are still much closer to the center (First graph in the second cite) compared to the radicalization of the Republicans of today, and then the sources you rely on conclude that it is the opposite. And the other research the first cite points at shows the Democrats becoming more active regarding the needy, race relations and immigration. And that is supposed to be worse than seeing the Republicans become the party that tolerates helping the needy less, to ignore issues with race or become racist, [and to become the darkness to immigrants and asylum seekers.](https://www.aclu.org/issues/human-rights/human-rights-and-immigration) ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2019, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782/33 "2019-07-30T13:29:20Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > The statistics I’ve seen about the US point to the Left becoming more radical and the Right, comparatively, only moving a little further to the right. > [Cite 1](https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/pew-research-center-study-shows-that-democrats-have-shifted-to-the-extreme-left/) and [Cite 2](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunday/republican-platform-far-right.html). > > The first graph in the second citation is interesting because it shows that the gap between Left and Right in 2008 is much smaller than the gap between Left and Left between 2008 and 2016. Can’t read the second cite, but that first one is telling: > [@](#): > > Pew asks, for example, whether poor people have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return. In 1994, 63% of Republicans agreed with this sentiment, as did 44% of Democrats. > > This year, 65% of Republicans agreed — a 2-point increase — while just 18% of Democrats did — a 26-point drop. > > Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Democrats used to believe that most people who want to get ahead can do so if they work hard. Today, just 45% of Democrats believe this. Among Republicans, the change was negligible — it went from 73% in 1994 to 77% today. > > How about the question of whether racial discrimination is the “main reason many black people can’t get ahead these days”? > > In 1994, just 39% of Democrats and 26% of Republicans felt this way. That was 14 years before the U.S. elected a black president. > > Now, after eight years of Obama in the White House, 64% of Democrats say racism is the main reason blacks can’t get ahead, while 14% of Republicans do. > > National defense? > > Back in 1994, 44% of Republicans said the best way to secure peace was through military strength. Today, that figure is 53% — an increase of 9 points. > > But on the Democratic side, the share who agreed with “peace through strength” dropped from 28% to 13% — a 15-point drop. > > Pew also asked whether “corporations make too much profit.” In 1994, the gap between Democrats and Republicans on this issue was 18 percentage points. Today, it’s 30 points. > > In this case, the entire increase in the gap came from Democrats. While 61% of them said in 1994 that corporations make too much money, 73% now feel that way. There’s been no change on the Republicans side — it’s remained at 43%. Recognizing the reality of economic inequality and racial inequality is considered “far left extremism” by the right wing. And if you think that’s not just their bias showing, consider this gem: > [@](#): > > But on one big social issue, Republicans have become far more moderate over the years. > > The Pew survey asks whether homosexuality should be discouraged by society. In 1994, 58% of Republicans and 42% of Democrats said it should. By 2017, the share of Republicans who felt that way dropped 21 points, in tandem with the decline among Democrats. Yep, when the GOP starts agreeing that prejudice and inequality is bad, they’re lauded as becoming “more moderate”. And this doesn’t even touch the issues I talked about: What the party’s various actual policies are. A poll about people’s opinions on various social issues tells you very little about what kind of policies they’d accept to try to alleviate the problems they see. If you don’t “believe that most people who want to get ahead can do so if they work hard”, how do you solve that problem? Well, you could take all the bourgeoisie out back and shoot them, or you could establish training programs in disadvantaged areas, and enact tax policies that encourage businesses to hire the people who graduate from these training programs. If you think “corporations make too much profit”, you could nationalize them all, and drive that profit into government coffers. Or, you could increase the corporate tax rate, eliminate obsolete tax deductions, re-direct government contracts to less-profitable businesses, or adjust corporate laws to encourage the growth of mom-and-pop type businesses. What you identify as problems aren’t what make you an “extremist”, it’s the solutions you propose for those problems that make you an extremist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-conservative-media-the-source-of-all-issues-that-keep-liberals-up-at-night/837782.md?page=1)