This week would be a good one to stop consuming a lot of media.
Like many, I was glued to the internet and TV on Tuesday night to watch the results of the U.S. presidential election. I watched as states that were expected to be easily blue took a while to call, and swing states all turned red. I knew of the effect of the “red mirage” where ballots from larger cities or from mail-ins took longer to count, leaving open the possibility that the races would get closer. But then that didn’t happen, or didn’t happen enough, and eventually the math got to the point where, one after another, those critical states were called and the result of the election could be declared.
Once the suspense was over, I stopped watching TV. On social media, particularly platforms like TikTok, I first saw a lot of videos of people being shocked, or sad, or angry, or happy. Then I started seeing people offering their analysis of why Kamala Harris lost the election.
She wasn’t aggressive enough against the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza. She didn’t do enough to court Jewish voters. She was too tied to the Biden administration. She didn’t spend enough time defending the Biden administration. She was too far to the left, alienating centrist voters. She was too centrist, alienating her base. She wasn’t a good communicator. She focused too much on abortion. Blah, blah, blah. All sorts of theories, very little evidence behind them other than gut feelings.
About the only thing everyone seemed to agree on is that she and her campaign failed. It doesn’t matter if she got 47.5% of votes when the other guy got 50.8% of votes.
In a sense, of course, they’re right. He won. She lost. But what bothers me is that we’re focused on 130,000 votes in Pennsylvania, 80,000 in Michigan and 30,000 in Wisconsin, instead of asking questions about the other 150 million or so votes. We’ve become so consumed by the horse race mentality that we ignore the big picture.
On the day after the election, one common sentiment I saw from people I don’t know is that yes, it is perfectly acceptable to paint more than 70 million Americans as racist, sexist, transphobic, horrible people for voting the way they did. It is perfectly acceptable to hate those people.
And in a free country, you are allowed to dislike people for their political views. You can dismiss them or ignore them or call them names.
But you’re not going to change anyone’s mind by hating them. And you’re not going to win elections if you can’t change minds. And you’re not going to change the world if you can’t win elections.
Moving the Overton window
Too many people, in Canada and the United States, believe that the way to enact social change is to get certain politicians or political parties elected, and then get those politicians to force such change on the population.
We’ll definitely see some of that attempted over the next four years in the U.S. And it’s obviously true that different parties will change the direction of a country.
But it’s also true that politicians will always be politicians, and will follow the population. The reason Pierre Poilievre isn’t going to touch abortion isn’t because his base doesn’t want that, it’s because he knows it would be politically unpopular with centrist voters and could prevent him from becoming prime minister. If abortion bans were more popular here, I fully expect his position would be different, or he would have been replaced by another leader who wants to ban abortion. Jagmeet Singh is being vague about the carbon tax, not because he thinks it’s a bad idea economically, but because it’s become unpopular. If Canadians embraced the tax-and-rebate system, you can bet his position would be different.
In the U.S., social change has been driven by politicians, yes, but mainly by the population. Barack Obama was (at least publicly) against gay marriage when it was unpopular, until it became popular and he was for it. Republicans were for free trade and foreign military interventions until a new right-wing populist movement took over that made the ideas of widespread tariffs and protectionism popular. Often it’s the population that drives the politicians more than the other way around.
It’s tempting to blame one person for all of the politics you despise, but one person is powerless without the millions of followers who support them and vote for them. If you want to take away their power, you’re going to have to get those followers to change.
It’s not easy, and the more the world becomes polarized and stuck in their ideological bubbles, the harder it’s going to be. If you don’t have the energy or patience or mental fortitude to do that, I understand, but there isn’t a cheat code to get around that. There are few truly independent voters left out there, and putting all your eggs in the get-out-the-vote effort didn’t work this time.
How to change the world
So what can you do?
You can start by talking to people who disagree with you politically. Make an effort to pierce your ideological bubble and start having good-faith meaningful conversations with people outside it. That means listening to them, even if you think they’ve been brainwashed by lies. It means asking questions, not in an accusatory or gotcha way but as a way of trying to understand why they think the way they do. And it means understanding when they might be right about something, even if you disagree about the cause, effect, importance or meaning of it.
It means questioning what you hear even (and especially) when it supports your world view. It means fact-checking not just the other side but yours as well.
Exit polls show educated people were more likely to vote for Harris in this election. That makes sense when the other side is convinced that higher education is an indoctrination factory. It may be a clue that education is the answer — not necessarily formal higher education, but helping people to learn things about the world in an accessible way, without condescension, without judgment.
There are people trying to do this. One politician I like on the left is Pete Buttigieg, a former Indiana mayor who ran for president and is now (but soon won’t be) the secretary of transportation. He’ll go on Fox News to talk about policy, and engage with people who disagree with him by explaining why he believes what he believes. He doesn’t call people names, or look down on them, or yell at them or dismiss their concerns. He believes in having genuine conversations in which he both talks and listens.
This isn’t an endorsement of him, but I think if more politicians acted like that, on both sides of the political divide, voters would be better informed and we’d have a better chance of better policies being enacted.
The news media’s role
As a journalist with a mainstream publication, one of the things I advocate for is helping people learn things. It can be a minor thing like adding some background or context to a story. It can mean publishing more explainer-type stories (the news media are starting to catch on to this, which is why you’re seeing more stories of that type these days). Like a dog in a squirrel park, we’re easily distracted by the latest development, but it’s worth taking time to give a bigger picture and help people understand the world around them.
Whether you’re on the left or the right, or a conspiracy theorist whose views can’t be put on that spectrum, if you truly believe that your way is the right way, then you should support people having more knowledge generally, whether it comes in a Harvard classroom or a Wikipedia page. That includes exposing yourself to uncomfortable and inconvenient truths.
There are things the news media do that are counter-productive to this educational goal. Giving platforms to partisan political hacks who manipulate information to make their side look good — whether it’s inviting them on TV as talking-head pundits, letting them write columns or opinion pieces in newspapers, producing news stories that simply regurgitate their statements, or even giving them their own shows on the radio.
People want news, they want analysis, but I don’t know of many people who say they want more one-sided opinions in their news diets. Of couse, they do actually want one-sided opinions, because they don’t think those opinions are one-sided. You don’t think someone is biased if you agree with them.
In an age of traditional news media decline, it’s harder and harder to put in the resources necessary to really educate people about the world. Regurgitating press releases from politicians, companies and police is just easier, and often will get more of a response anyway. It’s up to news consumers to demand more from their media, particularly those they pay for, and reward them when they do their jobs.
But the news media can’t fight disinformation and polarization alone. It can’t cure everything that’s wrong with our political system, and the views of tens of millions of people who hate each other. If you really want that to end, if you really want to progress as a society into a world where voting for a president means taking a hard look at the name on the ballot instead of the party affiliation next to it, then you’ll need to put in the hard work of changing people’s minds — and allowing them to change yours.
Hating people is the easy option. It’s the more comforting one. It’s the more popular one, that’ll get you some clout online. But it’s the one least likely to work, especially in the long run.
So make your choice. What would you rather spend the next four years doing?
Wow. Very well written, and thoughtful post. I wish more people thought like this. One thing I’d point out is that when one side of the supposed ideological spectrum doesn’t care about anything other than rallying behind an individual, regardless of what policies he/she puts in place, then one cannot have any good-faith meaningful conversations with those on that side because their ideologies are not based on what they believe, they are based on a cult of an individual. If their political “leader” says XYZ is bad, many of them will say XYZ is bad; if their “leader” says XYZ is fine, those same folks will say its fine. It is difficult, if not impossible, to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of an issue, say, tariffs for example, when folks’ only opinion on tariffs is based on what their political “leader” indicates.
That’s a good point. But it may be worth questioning whether that’s true for the majority, and why it’s the case.
Steve, I need to commend you on a well-reflected and articulately stated case for bridging the immense gap between 2 very polarized political tribes following the US election. I appreciate how you wove in the state of Canadian politics as well since we’re not immune to the polarization seen south of the border.
It’s a call to action we must heed or else we’ll be dealing with a dumpster fire wrapped in TNT. :-/
Well said.
These days I spend my time attending meetings such as the citizens advisory committee for our region’s new hospital and our town’s public consultations on municipal urban planning bylaw changes. I’m interested in issues like Quebec’s proposed 350-year floodplain lines being imposed on sectors where the province might have to spend money buying out folks whose properties have been flooded through no fault of theirs. I guess it’s force of habit but I honestly believe that the best way one can possibly understand what’s happening on one’s home turf is to be one’s own reporter and editor. That and reading excellent comment from pros like yourself.
Well said
If there’s only one thing wrong with America, it’s the media. That’s been true for ages but never more so than now.
So congratulations to US mainstream media for getting their guy elected via normalizing, bothsides-ing and sanewashing.
We’ll be ok, but the ride will be rough.
It may bring comfort to blame some vaguely defined institution for all the problems in the world. But that’s not going to help anyone.
An excellent and seemingly educated reflection on the political events of the recent past. And succinctly written! Well done!
Steve, you sure as hell got a lot off your chest with this piece and I tried to absorb it. It’s a shining example of good journalism. And not easy to write. I guess for now my feelings about the Republican sweep Tuesday is summed up by Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue yesterday night. Kimmel, who is no friend of Donald Trump, was overcome with emotion at least twice during his monologue. Trump has issued inflammatory threats against Kimmel who has mercilessly used Trump as his punchline. Kimmel shared with the studio audience a story about his 7 yr-old son coming down for breakfast the morning after the election. The first thing his son wanted to know was, “Who won”? Kimmel told him the bad news. “Fuck,” his son said.
There would be no time-out for this transgression. This was a time when a seven-year-old summed up Trump’s win in a four-letter-word nutshell, a sentiment shared by millions of others.
You mention the importance of journalistic integrity, to check more than one source for your news. Wednesday’s Gazette NP (National Post) quotes PM Justin Trudeau as saying “I want to congratulate Donald on a decisive victory last night” when asked about Trump’s win. I thought referring to Trump as @Donald” seemed quite flip to me given the enormous impact a change in government is going to affect Canada. So I cruised around five online stories about this and not one of them had Trudeau calling Trump by his first name. It was always “president-elect.” The National Post, it should be noted, feels the same way about PM Trudeau and the Liberal Party as does Trump about Jimmy Kimmel.
So well thought out, with common sense and humanity. Thank you.
If you look closely, you can see that the media horse has long since left the barn. Trying to close the doors now is meaningless. This isn’t something new or shocking, this is something that has gone on for 30 years or more, with little done to make the space between truth and fiction clear. Rather, the supposed “mainstream media” embraced the talking head, opinion based mentality and helped to drive that stake between sides in the name of viewership. The time dedicated to news was reduced over and over and replaced with hours and hours of opinion and lies. In the US, the Fox “news” channel, along with many on the both sides have dropped their morals for ratings. CNN is an empty shell with no real news anymore, Fox, OAN and whatever else are junk, and everyone else is running opinion programming as their entire prime time.
It is as if the entire world is a giant op-ed with nobody actually fact checking.
So you seek a role for the news media. Let me tell you the sad fact: The first think fascist dictator types do is come for the news media to shut them up. So you can expect to see the network news (the only remaining news, it seems) CNN, and MSNBC be the targets of campaigns to literally drive them off the air. Trump has 4 years (or more… that is another story) and no reason to be soft on anything. All his revenge is coming, and the media is the first domino.
The real media had the chances, had the time, and caved. Now you get to pay the ultimate price.
Worse yet, it appears that Canada is heading down the exact same road. Bobblehead Pierre isn’t going to be as directly aggressive as Trump, but I suspect you will see most of the federal money pulled out of media, and protections for “liberal” news organizations whittled away. They will find the way to drive what they consider left wing media into the ground, and if they have to destroy the CRTC, the broadcast act, and all those wonderful handouts supporting media, they will do it in the name of being like Trump.
Extremist? Nope. This is what is on the table.
This is the best piece I have read about the current situation.
Thanks
Steve, have enjoyed your blog for years.
Writing as a sickened, shaken-to-his-guts U. S. resident, I’ve witnessed for months how the mainstream U.S. television news media (NBC, CBS, ABC) — from which I dare say most older, (white), working class Americans (including my elderly parents) receive their window on the world — utterly refused to make it clear to their viewers the simple truth about one particular candidate. Refused to remind them of the obvious awfulness and appropriateness. Those networks are in the business of not offending their diminishing audiences. They can’t afford to alienate the people who actually tune in every day. So, yes. The Fourth Estate here has abdicated. It’s finished. And so maybe are many of us here.
Is this really true, though? Did his voters really not know enough about him, or is it that they didn’t care or didn’t want to believe it? The major networks covered the presidential race and candidates pretty extensively. The problem isn’t that they didn’t know about criminal convictions, past actions or statements, it’s that these things were not deal-breakers for those voters.
Maybe things would have been different if the coverage was more educational in nature about the issues. But ABC, CBS and NBC filling every newscast by screaming “Donald Trump is Hitler” wasn’t going to change anything when that half of the country already distrusts the media.
Steve, if I may provide a different perspective in response to your reply, you and your subscribers shpul read this recent article from The New Republic that contends the majority of Trump’s supporters got their “news” not from the mainstream outlets mentioned above, but rather from the right-wing misinformation trough that is Fox News, Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, etc.
I believe the only way for Democrats to reach this group of voters (snd lock in both the White House and both chambers of Congress) is to find a way to break through that misinformation bubble without alienating them and very much in the way that you outlined in your article. Sadly, the Dems may be running out of time to do so. :-/
I just read that story, and I’m skeptical that the majority of those tens of millions of people consume these media regularly, but there definitely needs to be piercing of media bubbles (not just television and radio broadcasters, but social media as well).
The New Republican is an admitted left wing website. Of course they are going to trash Republicans.
You claim Newsmax, etc are misinformation because you hate other viewpoints. The left has controlled US media for decades. Their time has passed.
You said that “Newsmax, etc are misinformation because you hate other viewpoints”.
Actually, I welcome other viewpoints, Joe, but not those that are based on factually incorrect information. When I said “the right-wing misinformation trough that is Fox News, Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, etc.” I meant it. These news sources provide more misinformation that they are unwilling to correct.
I agree that “The New Republican is an admitted left wing website” but when they get their story wrong, they will either retract or correct it. This is true for the majority of “left wing” websites.
That the so-called left-leaning media has been influencing US elections, at least up until now according to you, is ridiculous. Are you counting the presidencies of G W Bush, W Bush, and Trump in 2016? And that their “time has passed” is likewise absurd. You think liberal and free-thinking media are just gonna fade like a bad tv series? Curl up in the fetal position just weeping and whining? We’ll see about that.
The networks you mentioned did everything they could to prop up far left, clueless Kamala Harris. She was an awful candidate. Couldn’t answer a single question, when she finally decided to actually do interviews. Zero press conferences.
They hated Trump with a passion, yet he still won because people saw his actual polices, instead of what the left wing media (and you, apparently) tried to portray him as.
I stayed up until 3am watching the election. Not that I was tuned into the MSM. I wrote them off almost 15 years ago. I peeked into FOX, NBC, CBS, CBC to see if they had changed. Sadly not. So, I spent the night bouncing back and forth between, Steven Crouder, Tim Pool IRL, and the Decision Desk website all night. And I was entertained. I enjoyed the laughter as the results came in, and enjoyed that fake JOY get wiped off the faces of people who swallowed the false narratives put out by the MSM. What the people who were disappointed don’t understand is that they are consuming news that is not news. They sit there like household pets eating up whatever is brought up to them. After everything that has happened, why do you continue to go back and get more of this?
The signs were very clear, Trump was going to win it. Inflation, open borders, financing wars all over the planet, homelessness, political lawfare. It’s in people faces. And yet the next day the MSM is trying to rationalize the loss of Harris. By blaming voting blocks. Blaming Trump voters are uneducated (College degrees vs High School diplomas). Nice way of calling the other guys voters stupid without calling them stupid. Great, continue with this type of thinking, 2028 will insure you will once again have the smiles disappear off your faces. The real problem why the Democrats lost, was the Democratic party insiders, and the media they funnel their BS stories. There is no divide between between Red and Blue. No Civil war in the making. This is all the doings of the Democratic Party. To scare you, to alienate you. To put you in a state of fear. Once in that state, rational thought is suppressed. Everything becomes emotion. Raw emotional fear.
If you don’t believe me, here are a few points as to why the Democrats themselves screwed themselves. They had a chance to have RFK on their ticket. They pushed him out. They said Biden was their guy, and then pushed him out, for Harris. Trump and MAGA supporters didn’t do that to them. They did it to themselves. And, to show how psycho the Democrat leaders are. they then went after RFK who was running as a 3rd party, and forced him to join up with Trump. These wounds are all self inflicted. And on Nov 6, they continued to blame others through their insane rationalizing of why they lost. The Democratic Party needs to be gutted. So, please stop buying into their false narratives. Time to call them out, by the supporters of that party. Or else you will get more of the same for 2028.
And, if you are still sitting there consuming the BS news pushed out by CBC, CTV, Global, Fox, CBC, NBC, CNN, ABC, MSNBC, NY Times, etc. my advice is stop it.
Look around, and find other sources. Even if you disagree with them. I usually tune into the Gray Zone. I don’t agree with most of what they say. But, I want to see what they have to say. I don’t get angry with what I see. But, it’s important to me to see what they are focused on. It might be important.
Help yourselves, stay away from the MSM. It’s poison. You will see that you will experience real JOY once you stop swallowing their shit. Your life is too important for their nonsense.
The Grayzone is considered a fringe website that has been repeatedly accused of peddling Chinese and Russian propaganda. Perhaps that’s not true, but one metric I like to use to establish the reliability of a news site is this: How often do they publish corrections when they get things wrong?
While I respect your perspective here, it comes from a place of great privilege.
The idea of understanding “the other side” sounds lovely until you’re in the position where you have fought, or are still fighting, for your rights only to see them potentially taken away in the blink of an eye. Generally, as far as I know, you haven’t had that experience, so the visceral notion of hitting the streets to defend your right to exist, your right to fair treatment, or simply hoping you don’t have to wake up each morning to be reminded you’re considered a lesser member of society, is foreign to you. It’s emotionally exhausting.
Put simply, a lot of minority groups are tired of being told to sit down and understand why the “other half” feel pressed. When you’re staring down the possibly of your marriage suddenly being considered illegitimate while your cousin complains about the price of bacon, it’s no longer a common ground you’re living on. And so, the battle will begin…
Let’s just hope there’s another fair and honest election after this one because right now that’s no guarantee. Trump has hinted as much. That isn’t the fault of “the left” for not understanding their neighbour.
It’s absolutely exhausting. And I totally understand people who will throw up their hands and say “I can’t do this. I give up.” But giving up isn’t going to win elections. It’s not fair, but saying it’s not fair also isn’t going to win elections.
I think that a fundamental problem over the last 20-30 years is that minority groups have come to dominate the political and social scene, to a level where the majority feel crowded out. Minority groups forgot they were in fact the minority, and aggressive calls to do it there way or else have finally made the pendulum swing back the other way – hard. Minority groups are just going to get a very firm reminder that the tail does not wag the dog.
In the US, I think what you are going to see is aggressive moves to clear out voter rolls and to move to a federal level attempt at voter suppression. I suspect you will see voter ID laws piling up quickly, and legal fights against them will fail with the stacked #SCOTUS that is in place. The goal is to thin out the liberal / left voters and make it so that they just don’t or can’t vote. So even with another fair and honest election, the Republicans will win in a walk away with fewer people able to vote.
This is a process that will take a generation to undo.