Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Sunday, November 21, 2021

The Reality Gap

 Nancy LeTourneau points out that so much of the Doom and Gloom narrative surrounding the Biden Administration is a product of a largely media created gap between reality and those narratives.

Afghanistan is a perfect example of this, as people wanted out of Afghanistan, Biden did it, some of it wasn't media-genic, the War Pigs raised a holler and here we are. Biden did the right thing, the media hit him for it and a "narrative" is created.

Inflation is "real" but it's not terrible for coming out of a pandemic induced recession. You should see growth after a slowdown. That's a good thing! Gas prices are largely cyclical and a huge part of consumer perceptions about the economy. Gas around us is about $3.50 a gallon. I would prefer it wasn't but I can remember $4.00 a gallon in 2008, and we survived that just fine.

Josh Marshall has observed that the Washington Media is "hardwired for the GOP." It's not because they are Republicans or even sympathetic to the Republican party. But they must have drama, they must have a horserace, and they can't very well point out that one of the horses is a rabid jackal. "Opinions differ" is a lazy, narrative vs analysis driven way to cover the news. Plus, they have to be seen as "fair" for criticizing Trump for trying to overthrow American democracy, so they are going to hit Biden for a marginal increase in the price of gas.

The Very Online will aver that this is a product of "poor Democratic messaging," but it's really not. There is no "messaging" that will overturn the biases of the Fox addled or the Terminal Beltway Brains. 

Hopefully, Covid fades away, as we reach critical densities of immunity and therapeutics improve. With that people might just notice that things have actually improved.

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