Maybe it’s always been like this in the upper echelons: broadly cut ideals backed by lobbyists, private citizens and the occasional conspiracy theory. Folks talk“at” each other rather than “to,” and there is a dearth of meaningful compromise at the legislative level.
We, the people, have let this happen.
Party line has always been a major player in politics of all kinds, but it’s an even greater divide in a two-party system like America’s. Ideals trump ideas as the citizens wade from one Republican Revolution to a Democrat comeback powered by promises of bipartisan behavior that has yet to materialize – from either side.
And yes, the cable news affiliates slant their individual ways, but, frankly, there’s nothing new to say about that.
The magic of the Internet and, more critically, social networking gives every Tom, Dick and Sally a chance to deliver a Glenn Beck-esque or Rachel Maddow-esque “This is how it is because I said so” monologue to anyone who will listen.
We’ve encouraged it, too.
It’s not just isolated citizens with a blog, too much time and party-of-their-choice literature. Visit the fan page of WTOC on Facebook. Watch the response from supposedly sane, local people in the comment section of their national stories.
Instigators–or in geek-speak, “trolls”–are as old as message boards reached by 24k modems. You’ll find plenty of them on both sides of the playing field debating everything but the topic at hand.
Check out a story on the impending health care reform legislation from the Senate Finance Committee. The very first user comment simply says, “lets see who cracks first.”
Sure enough, within an hour of the posting there were references to socialism from the right, demands for the basic rights of civilization from the left, and maybe two actual references to the legislation in the story itself.
And the lead off commentator? At one point he challenged those with opposing views to “pull their heads out…” in an effort to further rattle the cage. That post – and most of the direct replies to it – was later deleted, possibly by the user or by WTOC.
Have we bought this heavily into the sound bite society? It’s not even like the old days of Internet “anonymity.” Sure, you likely never have to meet the moron who deserves everything you’re giving them, but now 90 percent of the time they have a name and a photo.
Most folks have a profile page set to “public,” and you can easily see which movies they like, discern the basics of their family tree and also decide if their place of education means they are even worth your consideration to “flame,” much less to actually listen to.
It’s not like they’re a real person.
The increase of information availability and the newfound ease of online social interaction have lead to more “group think” than “I think,” and, more importantly, “What do you think?”
What we’ve done is enable the leaders on both to keep treading on intelligent debate in the name of party-line politics.
Who do our elected officials have to listen to? Their electorate.
Who can – at the polls and with letters and with donations – reward them for proper behavior and force them to elevate the level of debate?
We can make them listen.
And we can set the example.
We can come to town hall meetings armed with honest questions.
We can catch a little MSNBC and a little Fox News each week, maybe do some fact checking on Politico and a few other sites and find out where each wing’s spin meets in the middle.
We can write a letter to our representatives at each level asking not for the specific legislation of our dreams, but instead imploring upon them to actually work together for meaningful change.
We can engage in “discussion” rather than diatribes with other politicos.
It’s a little rosy of an image, perhaps, but there has to be a way to invoke change without invoking the internal division that has accompanied so many of our nation’s major shifts, from the Civil War to Civil Rights.
We’re not the youthful nation we once were. America is past its “teen” years; it’s a leader in the international community and has been for some time now. It’s time for our politics to stop resembling a “The Real World” round table discussion.
This means our politics, whether face-to-face or Internet-box-to-Internet-box, need to grow up, too.
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