Features > October 19, 2004
Running a Media Deficit
The joint rise of the conservative media and creeping authoritarianism is no coincidence.
By Robert Parry
"Bush’s argument is easier to grasp: Kill the bad guys."
"...Liberals lack any comparable media apparatus, having failed to match the investment and dedication of the right. Those committed liberal outlets that do exist are almost always under funded and often part-time. The Republicans’ right-wing media has given them a powerful advantage—and one that does not seem likely to go away. This media deficit puts the Bush critics at a particular disadvantage because their arguments require explanation of historical context and acceptance of the frustrating work of diplomacy. On the other hand, Bush’s argument is easier to grasp: Kill the bad guys.
In the 2000 election, Bush’s simple, easygoing style, which conceals a fierce competitiveness, made Bush a sellable commodity to the American people (especially to white men), a darling of the conservative news media and a favorite of many mainstream journalists. Add the fear and the sense of victimization from the 9/11 attacks and a new political model suddenly lay open as a possibility for the United States. It would be a post-modern authoritarian system that would rely less on traditional repression of political opponents than on a sophisticated media operation to intimidate and marginalize dissidents.
The new system would be the sum of the parts gradually arising out of the ruins of Watergate. At its core would be the intelligence concept of “perception management” not so much Orwellian as post-Orwellian. While Orwell’s 1984 envisioned sophisticated torture to extract confessions and mass speeches to stir up ethnic hatreds, this new system would rely on ridicule to make those who get in the way objects of derision, outcasts whose very names draw eye-rolling chuckles and knee-slapping guffaws. Think of Dukakis wearing a helmet, Bill Clinton and a semen-stained dress and Al Gore inventing the Internet, not to mention any number of lesser-known public figures who were so foolish as to object to the rush to war in Iraq.
George W. Bush was the perfect candidate for exploiting this transformation. Lacking a deep appreciation for the American constitutional system of checks and balances, Bush wasn’t personally repulsed by the notion of shifting to a more authoritarian structure of governance and silencing meaningful dissent. Indeed, he was attracted to the idea.
After claiming the presidency in December 2000, Bush once joked, “If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier—so long as I’m the dictator.” It is hard to imagine that any other American president would have said such a thing.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1357/
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