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During and immediately after the speech, I was simultaneously monitoring comments at Free Republic (crazy right), National Review Online, (sane right) and Firedoglake (crazy left.)
There was no difference between the Freepers and the Firedoggers. Honestly, if I had just seen the comments without the mastheads, I wouldn’t have known which site I was reading. I haven’t been to Firedoglake for months, and the tone has really become kind of appalling. They all apparently refer to the president as “Obummer” and like the Freepers, they despised every word he was saying.
NRO was more generous than FDL, but only marginally. That is, virtually all the rightie pundits and commentators were impressed (and surprisingly generous with their praise) but the rank-and-file are very, very sour.
If I had just gone with the partisan online experience, I would have assumed everybody in the country on both sides of the political spectrum hates the president. However, this poll indicates otherwise, with approval for the speech running 8 t0 1 over a very large national sampling.
I’m not even sure what all that means. I just find it interesting.
@filistro
I think it means that partisan echo-chambers tend to emphasize the negative, because group gripe-fests are too much fun. (When ladies get together for a girls-only lunch, they all talk endlessly about how wonderful their husbands are, right?) The more insular, the more negative, because they’ll find more extreme things to complain about, which just reinforces the bitterness and discontent.
If my only source of information was a partisan echo-chamber, then I’d be really worried about how distorted and negative my worldview might become. Even if I agree with most liberals, I can’t stand sites like Kos or FDL because of all of the unnecessary negativity.
fili
I was watching Faux News as well, just after the speech. Krauthammer, Wallace and Hume all giving, if not effusive at least free, praise to the President.
unnecessary negativity.
Given the current state of the United States of America, that’s very debatable!
Hey, that’s what they do at kos ie debate ~ did I mention liberals often disagree …
take care
Oh, shiloh.
It’s not the debate I dislike. (Obviously, I’m here.)
It’s the oneupmanship of outrage and the tendency to reinforce the negative over the positive. The voices who get heard the most are those who are upset, rather than those who express reason.
mclever… your post causes me to think hard (your posts almost always have that effect on me…
)
I’m thinking chicken-and-egg. Does spending lot of time in a partisan echo chamber make you lose touch with balanced, nuanced reality, just by virtue of the self-reinforcing quality?
Or is it because people who are already extreme and alienated are the sort who seek out partisan echo chambers?
Either way, its’ easy to see how the situation is aggravated by the Web where it’s so much easier for anybody to find like-minded groups to be part of. I wonder if it’s even going to be possible to achieve a moderate political tempo in the internet age. (Sometime down the road, the effect of the internet on political culture is going to spawn a thousand interesting doctoral theses.)
Filistro,
I’m pretty sure it’s the former, rather than the latter.
It’s the oneupmanship of outrage and the tendency to reinforce the negative over the positive. The voices who get heard the most are those who are upset, rather than those who express reason.
Well then we’ll just have to agree to disagree
as again, give the current state of our country and it’s myriad of seemingly unsolvable problems I would posit tough/realistic er negative discussion may be what’s called for to try to solve these problems.
Of course, I could be wrong.
btw, you broke a 538 cardinal rule by replying to my post ~ Hope you don’t get put on probation …
I kind of did the same fili but concentrated my efforts on Fox. Fox has an issue. They have brought together and provided a forum for some very worriesom people and they are feeing off each other. Having worked in security world I have to suspect that the Secret Service is monitoring every thing on there. For all the good it did the president might just have well gone in there and dropped his draws and mooned the audience. Moderation on there as it exists appears to be blanking out middle or left comments and letting the rabid right run amok. It does seem though that there are now more willing to go on and challenge the crazies (better than freeper) but one might as well debate a turnip or Barthole.
So Bernie Sanders is horrible for having a fundraiser at this time and the left is picking a fight because they point out the Speaker of the House wasn’t there because he had a fund raiser…………screw all of them. I’m not all that nice on my good days so I will keep on with my efforts to design and build really fine, modular gallows because I think I will get to use them. Any one willing to bet I’m not? What is the worst that could happen? I’ll have a shit ton of neat free standing BBQ grill covers. Ok the trap door might be a little suspect but one could put a trash can or recyclable container down there. Kind of sorta in line with the orriginl design use.
I think Sarah Falin may have done it with some folks this time. Not the Bartholes of course but I have had 3 discussions today with folks that have been at least kind of in her corner that called to have me explain this whole blood libel thing. Now I have to admit where I grew up with a number of Jewish kids and dated one for several years when I first heard that I had a “where have I heard that moment” so I looked it up and was grounded again rather quickly. I have to suspect that right now much of the right, white and up tight world would just wish her to go off on an Alaskan safari and stay there.
But back on topic as I digress yet again. Was last night what it needed to be? I have no idea. Was itdifferent than what many expected? Yeah I think so and therein may lie the rub for some that do still have an open mind (screw the ones with out an open mind for they are lost already) they may not have understood a vast part of that audience was made up of young people and we only have to really worry in this country when young people are not exuberant and looking for the good out of this.
The really odd thing is I think the mom and dad of the wonderful little girl got it. That their loss was seen as inspirational with young people seemed to hit a chord with them. So who didn’t get it?????? The same people that will never get it.
Let me put this in perspective. Mule, Grog you are conservative as all get out, hell you piss me off routinely……I would still miss you not being on here and I think you add greatly to the discourse………..Bart you wouldn’t make decent skidder road fill material and rumor has it more than one pettifogger up here hs discovered that……well that or slate quarry eel feed. The point is I’m willing to bet even Mule and Grog don’t understand Palin on this one as I don’t have a problem with them liking her but I think they have to understand her. Oh for the next round of polls.
Meh, I expect an exceptional speech from BHO in this environment and he accomplished this, yet again. I found some of the hooting and cheering to be somewhat odd. I am however, still o-bummed that BHO is torturing Bradley Manning and Gulet Mohamad and probably others. I am o-bummed about at the $2136 my payroll tax credit adds to the deficit and other tax cuts. I find it o-unacceptable that the EPA has not yet flexed their regulatory muscle. And I’m getting pretty fricken o-sick of hearing about the lengths this administration is going to preserve secrecy (when wholly unnecessary) and prosecute whistle blower type behavior.
I think the contrast with Palin’s youtube whinefest was particularly remarkable. 20 people get shot, 5 of them dead, an elected representative with a grave head wound — and Palin tries to paint herself as a victim. By reminding us of a slur that was used against Jews. And the representative in the hospital is Jewish. Really classy, Palin. Not.
It may have ended her career as a political figure.
Meanwhile, Obama looked positively presidential, healing, pulling the country together, standing with us in a moment of grief and helping to raise us up and make sense of it. And to learn from it, and to invoke our better selves.
I thank the gods, once more, that the 2008 Presidential election turned out the way it did. Just imagine. shudder
I am o-bummed about at the $2136 my payroll tax credit adds to the deficit and other tax cuts.
Actually, the temporary FICA tax reduction is paid for, by cuts elsewhere. It neither increases the deficit, nor reduces the amount of money paid in to Social Security. So you can rest easy on that score.
I find it o-unacceptable that the EPA has not yet flexed their regulatory muscle.
The EPA is setting rules for carbon dioxide emissions. The Republicans are going batshit over it.
And I’m getting pretty fricken o-sick of hearing about the lengths this administration is going to preserve secrecy (when wholly unnecessary) and prosecute whistle blower type behavior.
For the first (secrecy), this Administration is easily the most open ever. Yes, there still are some secrets. But the strides forward have been immense. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the damn good.
For the latter (whistle blower prosecutions) you’ll have to furnish evidence, and show where it is anywhere near as bad as under previous administrations.
DC,
I’d like to see evidence to back up that claim. I don’t buy it. It’s easily the most open of this millenium, but there’re many more administrations in the previous one.
It’s easily the most open of this millenium,
I had to kind of giggle at that. Thanks for the grin.
@dcpetterson
You neglected to discuss the BHO ongoing torture regime.
On the topic of government secrecy, please review this document by the state department. An unhappy employee/contractor is an untrustworthy employee/contractor! Does your agency implement psychologists to measure the trustworthiness of your employees???
<a href="http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/OMB_Wiki_memo.pdf" MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
You neglected to discuss the BHO ongoing torture regime.
Yup. I don’t know that much about it, so I declined to comment.
I note that you neglected to respond to many of my points.
filistro: Perhaps that 8 to 1 positive reaction was a from a poll taken before the conservative meme that “Obama’s Tuscon speech was little more than a political rally” got a chance to make the rounds and fester in the minds of the usual suspects.