On the difference between the Left and the Right and their relationship to their partisan media

Politics & Elections
1

Starting a new topic because I thought the emerging sidebar in Trump won't be the Republican party nominee in 2024 warranted its own discussion:

It feels to me, personally, like people on the Left and people on the Right have different relationships between the partisan media that cheerlead for their respective political viewpoints. Just consider the relative levels of success between Fox, very right-wing, and MSNBC, which has a number of progressive personalities on air. It seems like if you’re on the right, you like the cheerleading, and you consume media which does not compromise in telling you your beliefs are correct and good. However, on the left, there seems to be more skepticism. Yes, there are liberal keyboard warriors that cheerfully repost every “Occupy” group’s vacuously anti-Republican meme, but there are also a lot of people who might broadly agree with the political spirit behind those memes but who roll their eyes at such activity and don’t engage with it.

Hence, this thread. The actual question here is a little squishy, because it’s necessarily subjective, a matter of perception. I expect it will vacillate a bit among a few nexuses, to wit, (a) “I believe this perception is accurate and reflects a real difference / I believe the perception is overstated and the apparent difference is explainable in a different way,” (b) “to whatever extent there is a difference, here’s why, i.e. people with different politics think differently,” and (c) “I don’t know about broadly, but speaking only for myself, my relationship with political media is XYZ.” That’s fine, and I don’t want to limit the discussion. Some drift between those three general topics is, I think, natural and shouldn’t be regarded as hijacky.

I’ll just address point (c) from my own perspective. I don’t read Daily Kos or similarly hyperpartisan left-wing “news” sites because I don’t like that feeling of cheerleading. I have very, very strong political opinions and beliefs, and superficially, I should (and often do) agree with the stuff they generate. But at the same time, I like to believe I’m an objective thinker, open to having my mind changed (the extent to which this is self-deception is of course debatable), so I don’t like reading partisan arguments that transparently cherry-pick and/or inflate (and/or outright fabricate) supporting evidence while distorting, suppressing, or ignoring counter-arguments. I don’t want to read an opinion without also having the ammunition to poke holes in that opinion as appropriate. I don’t believe this weakens opinions in favor of my beliefs, I believe this makes them stronger in the long run. Hence, reading Daily Kos and their ilk is, to me, at worst, damaging to my objectivity, and at best simply a waste of time.

Am I typical, or atypical? Where do you fall? And more generally, is this a real thing for the average members of the various political camps, and if so, why?

2

This isn’t exactly what you’re asking for, but IMO it’s barking up a neighboring-enough tree …

For years decades now people on both sides of the partisan divide have whined about media slowly but steadily becoming ever more prone to offering opinion and analysis rather than facts for the consumer to analyze on their own.

Somewhere along the way folks like Limbaugh and later Fox broke the code that if instead of spinning the analysis, they simply invent convenient “facts”, and present them as truth, they win the battle with the skeptics who claim they want facts, not analysis.

Then of course, since fake “facts” can be anything, it’s easy for Fox to drag these folks into whichever fantasyland Fox wants to take them to.

The left media hasn’t gotten that bad. And probably won’t ever. But the temptation is there.

So far I’ve talked about supply. Now it’s time to talk about demand. …


Different take:
One of the things that distinguishes Right-thinking is the belief there is One True Way. Conformism is one of the greatest Goods, and a conformist society is a happy successful society. That predilection strongly favors consistency in the story presented by their media sources. So a collection of facts, semi-facts and totally fake “facts” that are carefully curated for consistency implicitly describes a world that’s comfortable to Right-thinkers.

Now Left-Thinkers are pretty much opposite in all that. Conformism is another word for stomping on the interests of nearly everyone other than some ruling elite. Every issue imaginable is not simple, and instead has tradeoffs, and complexities all the way down. “On the one hand […], on the other hand […], and on the gripping hand […].” pretty well describes how a Left-thinker approaches everything.

Given that (admittedly exaggerated caricature) of differences in mental style, it’s pretty obvious why the Right passionately loves their cheerleading and the Left finds cheerleading suspiciously monoglot.

3

I don’t read Daily Kos often, but I will read the occasional link. But I don’t read much news often.

I do watch Beau of the Fifth Column a lot. He agrees with me politically in a lot of ways. But I don’t feel like he cheerleads. He doesn’t do the sensationalist crap. His whole thing is trying to be more nuanced and less partisan, despite being very strongly progressive.

I do remember that he has a bias, and I don’t assume that any other source that disagrees is just the “Lame Stream Media.” In fact, sometimes we do disagree.

But I hate stuff like Occupy Democrats or the occasional videos I see that say “Biden SLAMS Trump” or whatever.

I guess my point is that I do like my news sources to have a progressive slant, but I am turned off by the emotionalism and one-upmanship.

4

I can only speak to myself from north of the border. We do have right-wing media up here, though I tend to dismiss The Sun out of hand, simnply because putting editorial headlines on the front page is a dead giveaway that they’re not to be taken seriously. There’s always the usual RW bitching and moaning about how the mainstream media here in Canada is totally in the Liberals’ pockets; which is an interesting perspective since apparently during the last federal election, 13 of the top 15 major market newspapers endorsed the PCs or anyone other than Trudeau, so, once again, I don’t take that complaint seriously.

Still, I typically watch MSNBC, on which they virtually never mention Canada unless another plane skids off the runway at Pearson. And then we get into my own biases and bubble-perceptions. To me, atheist and progressive as I see myself, even the stuff that gets mercilessly mocked on MSNBC seems to hold water. The late night hosts will jab at Rachel Maddow for her long-windedness, but when I’ve watched her do her incredibly lenghty setups, it just strikes me as calm, reasonable and methodical. Whereas every clip I see of Fox is full of screeching maniacs hyperbolically lying about everything under the sun. Then again, I’ll never in my life trust Fox News to tell me anything more than the weather, since the time they showed a clip of Barack and Michelle Obama lovingly giving each other a little dap, and the Fox anchor called it a “terrist fist-bump” so I admittedly haven’t even sat down and watched a bunch of it lately.

Podcast-wise, I listen to The Bulwark every day, which is hosted by Republicans who’ve lapsed dramatically, and Hacks on Tap, which features the apostate Mike Murphy, who will I’m sure happily go back to backing hacks who live for cutting taxes on billionaires once the Orange Menace finally pops his clogs. So I do listen to and mostly respect some conservative commentators, though with the caveat that they’ve broken with the current GOP’s fanaticism.

Still, I’m aware that the way I envision Fox (they’re a buncha frothing lying nutbars) is basically equivalent to how Trumpsylvania views MSNBC (nothin’ but Jesus-hating baby-eaters trying to turn your kids trans). I know I’m right, and they know they’re right, because we’re living on different worlds. And I doubt that’ll change in my lifetime.

5

One thing I have wondered is if religion plays a role. As an evangelical christian you are taught that truth comes through faith rather than evidence. From the sermons I heard as a kid (Methodist rather than evangelical but I suspect it holds even more so in those churches) the sermons were filled with various glurgy anecdotes that are utterly unverifiable and likely untrue. For example: a child takes his piggy bank to a drug store to try to by medicine for his terminally ill grandma, but there is nothing they can give her. On the way home he gives the money to a beggar who follows him home and prays over the grandma and her cancer is cured. A complete fabrication, but as with the good Samaritan parable it doesn’t matter whether it actually happened the point is that it could have happened and so it can be used as evidence of god working miracles.

I think this mindset also translates into the political sphere. It doesn’t matter if Clinton actually buys kids blood at a pizza parlor, she could have done so and that therefor proves how evil she is.

6

I think the difference is in “justice” vs. “non-justice” issues. On non-justice matters, like economics, leftists do take a more diverse/complex assessment of things that rightists.

But when it comes to things like LGBT, feminism, Black Lives Matter, etc., there are definitely a considerable number of leftists who hold the “There Is Only One True Way” attitude that you mentioned of conservatives, where they demand strict conformity - the sort of leftist that Obama described as “circular firing squads.”

7

I agree with the OP; it doesn’t matter how much I want something to be true, I’m not interested in it unless there’s good reason to believe it is true. My main source of world news is The Guardian, which is unapologetically progressive but also has high journalistic standards. I believe their articles are both factually accurate and not “spun” by omitting inconvenient facts. I also read the New Yorker and the New York Times.

I personally find the more overtly “cheerleading” sources like kos and MSNBC to be tiresome. I wouldn’t repeat as fact anything I read on kos without checking it first.

The difference in ratings between MSNBC and Fox seems like strong evidence that the cheerleading approach is more popular with conservatives than with liberals. I wonder if this is due to some innate psychological difference, or if we just happen to be in a time and place where one party is actively trying to attract all the most gullible and ignorant voters?

I think there are still a lot of intelligent and well-informed Republican voters who simply choose to support the guy they know is a criminal moron because it’s to their partisan advantage to do so. I would like to think liberals and leftists would abandon the Democratic Party if it was taken over by crazy people.

8

Most of you in this thread may be familiar with the Uri Berliner criticism of NPR, after which he was docked 5 days pay on a tortured technicality, after which he flounced.

The volume of response from the left and right is telling. For my part, as someone who’s agreed with the general editorial gist of NPR for fifty years (while never driving the stereotypical Volvo of its listenership, much less sat in my driveway in one to finish a story), I’ve long accepted the possibility that people, better bred and educated and connected may well be guided by egotism as much as egalitarianism in their efforts to inform us normies. But that’s still better than those who wield those same gifts to pick our pockets.

9

It’s difficult to be openly and plainly against “social justice” unless you call it something else (e.g. “woke”). I still think most liberals are more open to nuance than otherwise, but it can be difficult to discuss those nuances with some people who think any discussion constitutes betrayal of the One True Way. I don’t encounter a lot of people like that, the ones I hear about are mostly politicians who are trying to stand out and make their name in the media.

Like others have posted, I don’t like being spoon-fed stuff that is designed to make me feel good about my opinions, so I steer clear of partisan liberal media. On the other hand, uncomfortable facts are called uncomfortable for a reason, they are hard to listen to when they make me dread so many possible futures. I try really hard to take a much longer view for that reason. My main news sources are NPR and Reuters, and I don’t find them partisan most of the time. I think NPR has gotten slightly more partisan over the past decade, but they have not lost my trust.

10

I remember when they came out with some supposedly liberal radio station, as a counterbalance to Fox or something. I had no interest in listening to so blatantly one-sided. Hell, I’ll admit that WSJ leans right, but they still put out a damned good paper.

Is there a left-leaning media as extreme as Fox?

11

This bit from your OP is what stood out to me. It demonstrates that in addition to being intelligent, you also possess at least a modicum of wisdom and maturity, and the ability to think critically.

I like to think that the above describes most of us here on the Dope as well, and that everyone in this discussion can recognize these one-sided, cheerleading media outlets for what they are.

I might also posit that the average denizen of the SDMB is likely to rank in a somewhat higher percentile with regard to these qualities than does the average American overall.

To put it another way, a hell of a lot of people actually don’t want to think too hard about these things, and the media outlets you describe are tailor-made for exactly those people.

Perhaps the difference in popularity of one-sided, cheeleading media outlets between different ends of the political spectrum in some way represents the demographics of the people on those ends with regard to their levels of intelligence, wisdom, maturity, and critical thinking skills.

12

I basically agree with the OP. The two political sides in the US take a very different approach to processing information.

We Liberals want to live in a fact-based world, and we want what’s best for people in general, including those on the other side. We therefore want our information to be truthful and empathetic in its approach, although hating Trump himself and deploring the deplorables is fair game.*

In contrast, Conservatives… oh wait, Conservatism is dead. There is only MAGA. Now, if Conservatism were alive, we could get into the somewhat subtle differences between the ways Liberals and Conservatives, since, back in the day (wayyy back), Conservatives were not necessarily worse.

MAGA isn’t just worse, it’s the worst. It’s the same style of processing information as engaged in by the Nazis and their fellow travelers. The thing about anti-Semitism in the 1920s/1930s and QAnon and other MAGA lies today is that the truth value of the information is completely irrelevant. The point is simply to have a threat to fear and an Other to hate and a narrative around which to rally. These people do not give a fuck about what’s true.

My mom watched Fox News all day long (RIP… in her younger days, she was pretty sane). It is an endless pounding of negative minutiae about Biden and the Democrats while ignoring anything and everything about Trump–who is a goddamn fucking criminal. That’s the game: be enraged about tan suits when it comes to Democrats, while MAGAs can do no wrong.

It’s hard to say where and how Democrats go off the rails, since we’ve been fighting the moronic (Dubya) and the crazy (Tea Party, then MAGA) for nearly a quarter-century now. If the leaders of the other side were actually decent, there would be more opportunity for us to be unfair.

But it’s easy to see where the far left goes wrong because that’s happening right now. Whereas the sins of the right are hating and othering, the sins of the left are micromanaging people’s political correctness and policing thoughtcrime. Whereas, in their extreme form, both sides require obedience to a to a totalitarian government, the ultimate effect is different. The Nazis didn’t micromanage one’s thinking or even have much doctrine; they just wanted everyone to get on board attacking other countries. The commies did the war thing too, but look at the endless purges, reeducation camps, gulags, indoctrinating, and so on. There seems to be an insatiable hunger for it. In the end, the Khmer Rouge were just pulling random dudes off the street, imprisoning them, interrogating them, and inevitably killing them. And the commie media were of course completely unfree and micromanaged by the Party.

My kid is Gen Z and Liberal but complains about the micro-micro-political correctness of people in that generation. We can see how unfair cancellations occur and online political wars are waged, and the Left can often be dicks.

So I hate the slander that we Liberals are communists. I fucking hate communism and being told what to think. Good Liberal media is about challenging bullshit of all types, including by would-be thoughtcrime policers and fellow Liberals who take that shit too far. Good Conservative media could also fulfill that role, but again… requiescat in pace.

*As much as I despise Trump and his deplorables, there are so many of them that we have to live with them. And I don’t hate them and want bad things to happen to them. It’s probably true of all people in all eras that a significant percentage will be epistemologically challenged and want the wrong things.

13

The difference between left-wing bias and right-wing bias is that left-wing bias is often true, but cherry-picked or skewed, while right-wing bias is often false to begin with.

Left-wing bias: I recall MSNBC or CNN promoting stories during the Trump administration like “Trump policy causes 2-year old with rare disease to be unable to get treatment” (or something like that.) A story that was true, but obviously selected and promoted with the intention of making Trump look bad.

Right-wing bias: Things that aren’t even true at all.

14

The fight that permanently severed ties between me and my Republican sister was along these lines. She was performative-outraging about something that some left-wing media figure was saying, and that was indicative of how the entire left felt, because everyone on the left listened to and followed this figure. I told her that I’d never even heard of this person. She insisted that I had to have, because all left-wingers followed her, and who was I to think I knew more about what left-wingers believe than she did.

15

I get most of my news from network broadcast and local (gasp!) newspapers. I.e. old-school mainstream media. The editorials in my local paper are a bit to the right of my personal feelings, but overall the paper is a good source of information on what is happening in my area and in the world.

I have long opined that the “mainstream media” is neither liberal-biased nor conservative-biased: it’s sensational-biased. Broadcast news wants to keep eyes on the screen, so they’re going to show what’s “interesting” to the public. Republican goes to church? That’s what they’re supposed to do. Republican accused of homosexuality? Shocking! See! They’re biased! Democratic president accused of extra-marital affairs? Shocking! The public doesn’t care about secured vs. not secured email servers, so the media didn’t BLAST daily updates on Hillary, nor did they BLAST Don Jr. doing the same damned thing. Doesn’t prove bias, it proves public understanding. They did the initial on Hillary; the response was a huge yawn, so they didn’t blast DJTJ .(or was it Ivanka doing gov’t business on unsecured servers? You get the point.)