Letter: A country divided by conspiracy theories | INFORUM
“Wish we could find a media source we like. Definitely not CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, BBC, or lately Fox. Some recommend NewsMax … any good?” This post from one of my right-wing friends on Facebook represents the new dilemma for those on the right, finding a “news” source that will prop up their distorted beliefs now that Trump has turned against Fox. But it also highlights a much more dangerous problem for American democracy: the deep division between Republicans and Democrats that prevents people from agreeing on anything or even talking civilly to each other.
How did this happen? In the 1990s Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., became Speaker of the House and declared that politics was war and Democrats were the enemy. As Paul Teske, dean of the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado, Denver, writes, “The Gingrich approach of extreme right ideas, combined with a scorched-earth personal level of politics in attacking opponents has had a major impact on American politics. It helped bring a much more ‘win at all costs’ mentality, and a divisiveness that persists today.” But for this negative approach to spread to the general public another major development was required – the rise of the right-wing media empire.
Rush Limbaugh began his right-wing talk show on radio stations in 1988 and soon the AM dial was filled with similar programs. As Jennifer Rubin writes, “He (Rush) was the embodiment of divisive, hateful right-wing media rhetoric that casts Democrats as evil and the media as enemies of the people.” In 1996 right wing media got another big boost when billionaire Rupert Murdoch started the Fox News Channel which soon became the No. 1 cable news channel and the voice of the right wing. As Eric Alterman wrote in The Nation, “Fox is, and always has been, a right-wing propaganda outlet disguised as a cable news network.” In addition hundreds of websites and our social media soon became sources of right wing disinformation.
RELATED
As Republicans have moved further to the right conspiracy theories have gotten more bizarre such as the theory that the COVID virus was a hoax designed to make Trump lose the election. Another is the QAnon conspiracy theory that there is a cabal of Satan worshipping pedophiles who secretly rule the world. At least a dozen Republican candidates in the recent election expressed belief in QAnon and one of them got elected to Congress in Georgia. Belief in the COVID hoax is so strong that some people dying of COVID in a South Dakota hospital are telling their nurses “It can’t be COVID because COVID is a hoax.”
So the huge problem now is how can any president govern when the country is so divided. Trump did it by being president only of his supporters and even threatened to withhold aid from Democratic states. Biden has said he will “work to unite and heal our political and cultural wounds, reform and restore faith in our democracy, and work across party lines to build consensus for all.” But Biden has already been painted as a far-left socialist by Trump and the right wing media, and Republican politicians fear losing their seats if they anger Trump’s base by cooperating with Democrats. Republican cowardice was demonstrated this week when not one Republican senator would agree to be interviewed on 60 Minutes. Former president Obama recently warned, “If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false, then by definition the marketplace of ideas doesn’t work. And by definition our democracy doesn’t work. We are entering into an epistemological crisis.”
Haglund lives in Moorhead.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Forum’s editorial board nor Forum ownership.
*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from INFORUM can be found here ***
