We Hate Ourselves

[babylonsister]

https://digbysblog.net/2024/04/21/the-right-wing-media-has-destroyed-our-confidence/

We Hate Ourselves
Published by digby on April 21, 2024


Kevin Drum noted something very interesting in a recent Economist article about Americans’ lack of trust in institutions. As he says, we are all aware of this but draws our attention to this:


Kevin draws the correct inference in my opinion:

Collapse of trust in government is a purely American phenomenon. Why? Because we have Fox News and the others don’t. Oh, they have tabloids and conservative newspapers and so forth, but nothing like Fox News, which makes its living by spreading outrage over the way the country is run.

The power of Fox News is truly spectacular. Outrage sells, and the fact that one of the two major parties amplifies Fox uncritically means it has a surprisingly large influence in setting the agenda for the mainstream media too.


snip//

Has there ever been an institution like Fox News that works so relentlessly from within to destroy faith in a country by its citizens? It’s a real-life version of what conservatives thought the Communist Party was in the ’50s. And we all just let it happen.

That timeline says it all. Yes, the left has had mistrust in certain government institutions since the 1960s but it didn’t completely decimate the public faith in all of them across the board. Some of us, including Kevin, tried to warn the country that something toxic was happening in our culture thanks to the right wing media ecosystem for a quarter century. But the political leaders it benefits and the mainstream media didn’t want to admit so Americans didn’t adequately see the threat.

[Irish_Dem]

1. Putin's GOP puppets here in the US are working to

Destabilize the US.

It has been very successful.

[Passages]

2. Reagan was more instrumental for harm than some nostalgic for

his "type" of Republican to have a comeback may realize.

He was a deceitful and purposely divisive man. One of the worst presidents in American history but always with a smile of course.

“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

https://www.c-span.org/video/?525425-9/government-problem

[AllaN01Bear]

9. should have seen what he and people like him did to ca., took a long time to rever.

my sis who was in the movies , stuntwoman for lindsy wagner. said rr tried to make sag into a exclusive club and took ed asner 40 years to repair the damage .

[Passages]

12. I believe it!

[Turbineguy]

3. The Right-Wing-Hate Machine

can congratulate themselves.

[Xoan]

4. Gallup hates us.

[SunSeeker]

5. K & R

[Hekate]

6. Sick

[Probatim]

7. It's all part of a broader plan to create mistrust against long-standing institutions.

Once you break the trust in the system, it's easier to overthrow it.

The right has been working at this for years - education, post office, social security and on and on. We're seeing the fruits of their labor as the public seems to be excited for outsourcing of government functions to private business. School vouchers are a good example of this.

I feel like we're past the tipping point on this subject.

[Warpy]

8. Neoliberalism

has been the main paradigm taught at schools of economics for decades. The result is that the commons has been destroyed, some through neglect and much through either privatization or dismantling to please corporations.

By the commons, I mean everything from amenities in public parks to things owned by and/or regulated by the public sphere, like our drinking water, power grid and health insurance. Now they're going after education.

The public sphere has been systematically looted over the last 50 years and given to the rich and corporate. Regulation that once kept prices reasonable while providing service has been abolished because owners don't like being told what to do.

And they wonder why people mistrust their hallowed institutions. This is why. They sold us out.

[relayerbob]

17. Interesting that somehow Reaganism and conventional Republican conservatism

has had a "liberal" (the ridiculous neoliberal) label attached to it.

The right wing has succeeded in their turning the world upside down.

[Warpy]

18. Please consider that in the rest of the world

the name "liberal" is associated with what we see as pro business, anti union, anti taxes faction here. Liberal aint "liberal" elsewhere.

When you take that into consideration, the term makes more sense.

[relayerbob]

19. Perhaps. But we live here, not there

The use of this term has been part and parcel of the argument that both parties are the same, largely pushed here by the far left. (The GOP doesn't see both parties as the same, they see theirs as "Correct" and the Dems as Communists, although now the MAGAs are starting to call the Dems and non-MAGA GOPpers the "uniparty&quot .

Nonetheless, nowhere in the USA, should the phrase "liberal" be attached to the policies of the conservatives.

[Warpy]

20. Von Mises and Hayek were also there and they got naming rights

so while it causes confusion in Ameicans, the rest of the world understands it perfectly.

[ancianita]

10. It's not about hating ourselves. It's about decades of propagandized DISTRUST messaging designed to create

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt in all things institutional. And what Warpy says.

It's more about not trusting our collective self than hating ourselves.

Remember that in 2020, only 23% of Americans voted GOP -- internalizing the hate messaging.

Now? That percent has literally declined. Collectively, Americans see that institutions are holding.

Thanks for your post.

[hay rick]

11. Traitorvision.

They are enemies of American democracy, not just "another point of view."

[MiHale]

13. KnR...nt

[PatrickforB]

14. The culprits? Billionaires and corporations - Wall Street.

The whole phenomenon of Fox 'news' came to be as a result of the 1971 essay Lewis Powell (a Nixon Supreme Court pick) wrote for the US Chamber of Commerce. It became known as the Powell Manifesto (search on Google, you can read the whole thing), which lays out the plan for a corporate takeover of the republic, which has nearly happened.

Then, when the snake Ronald Reagan, who begin the erosion of our faith in government with the slogan, "Government is not the solution, it is the problem!"

This began the slide down the slippery slope (interesting how the right often uses this argument, projecting what they themselves have wrought).

Finally, when Reagan killed the old Fairness Doctrine in 1987, it allowed these malignant right-wing propaganda organs to mestatize throughout AM radio and Cable. Of course, deregulation did NOT help.

The solutions:

First
One minor little change in our policy around corporate governance would start the pendulum swinging back. Biden has very much helped with his stress on 'good union jobs,' but this one thing would reverse a whole bunch of corporate malfeasance.

Right now, the legal doctrine (and YES, it is a legal doctrine) that rules corporate governance here in the US is known as 'shareholder primacy' and was generated in 1919 through a MI Supreme Court ruling against Henry Ford in favor of the Dodge brothers. When Ford gave his factory workers substantial raises so they could afford the cars they built on the assembly line, the Dodge brothers, who were shareholders in Ford Motor Company sued Ford on the basis that overpaying his factory workers deprived them of PROFITS to which they were ENTITLED as shareholders. And they won.

On the ground, though CEOs have some leeway in making decisions around salaries, product development, improvement and better corporate citizenship, their primary fiduciary responsibility is ALWAYS to generate profits for shareholders, and the big Wall Street fund managers really hold their feet to the fire in this - we have all heard of companies being 'punished' in the stock market if they come short of their earnings expectations. That's why. Shareholder primacy.

Instead of this, Congress could pass one little tiny law concerning corporate governance, perhaps sneaking it into a bill as an amendment, that would expand the fiduciary responsibility of corporate officers in publicly traded companies to include not only shareholders, but worker and consumer interests as well as the environment. Since MSNBC and ABC are owned by Comcast and Disney respectively, this would require executives in these companies to hold truth in cable and network news reporting EQUAL to shareholder profits, which is not the case now. Now, they create a horserace election storyline because it is good for ratings, which increases shareholder profits.

Think for a moment about what it would be like if all news stations had to report the truth, and were required to present both sides of an issue with equal fervor.

Second
Raise taxes on corporations so they pay their fair share, cap CEO salaries because there is no excuse for a system that allows a CEO to 'earn' over 300 times more than their average workers, and implement a wealth tax that will make billionaires into millionaires. Because the truth is that billionaires represent a major failure in tax policy. We don't need them, and they have far too much power over policy through these think tanks like ALEC, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute and Federalist Society. Their teeth need to be pulled and we need to shed light on all this 'dark' money. It would also be good if the payroll cap for Social Security payroll deductions were removed and all workers had to pay their fair share instead of the really high earners paying much less. We also need to reform the inheritance tax (the Republicans call it the 'death tax' because it polls better), and the rate for capital gains.

Government costs money, and people do not realize how important that sector actually is, but when the chips are down, guess what? Even the most rabid small gummint people have their hands out for tax dollars.

[relayerbob]

15. Republicans hate us

[ClaudetteCC]

16. it must be more than 'fox news'

a recent source said they have an 'audience' (but didn't really define how it is measured) of 2.1million. Assuming 250m voting aged adults in the USA that isn't even 1%. I understand there is 'second hand' knowledge from these sources but still i find the claim surprising in an age where there is so much competition for our attention. I don't think i've seen more than 10 hours of any cable news in the past 10 years - mostly in airports and banks. Perhaps I'm a recluse. (SOTU or other important speeches i usually watch on c-span online.)

[senseandsensibility]

21. Great post

K and R. Really important information!

[drmeow]

22. "And we all just let it happen."

I hope by "we" Kevin means the mainstream media because I'm not quite sure what people like you and me could do about it!

[elocs]

23. Tens of millions of Americans voted for Trump in 2 elections and will again this year.

The big question is, in the all important battleground states, will the Left be motivated to turn out and vote even if they don't love Biden? Because if not, the only other person who would become president is Trump. It could not be more simple than that.