Very telling that when I checked yesterday, the YouTube video of the memorial had fewer than 30,000 views. They’re trying to will this into being and it doesn’t look like it’s working.
I think there's something to your polling skepticism and Henry Farrell's observation about distorted publics at work here. The administration is trying to override some American civics common knowledge around free speech, dissent etc egged on by an online mob. If polling is a desaturated, lossy JPEG of public opinion, then the online rabble is a blocky JPEG with the contrast blown-out. Both parties have done a bit of leaning too hard on these partial, imperfect representations of public sentiment, and have offered only partially responsive political programs perhaps as a result. Mistaking the digitally-juiced "common knowledge" of these snapshots for common knowledge on the ground seems to come at the expense of political power.
"if the incentives are in disobeying rather than obeying, we may yet be saved."
I'll take it.
Will the Kimmel affair one day be seen as the turning point? Seems so trivial, just another media screwup... but media are at the center of it all.
A brilliant use of the Leviathan image.
Very telling that when I checked yesterday, the YouTube video of the memorial had fewer than 30,000 views. They’re trying to will this into being and it doesn’t look like it’s working.
I think there's something to your polling skepticism and Henry Farrell's observation about distorted publics at work here. The administration is trying to override some American civics common knowledge around free speech, dissent etc egged on by an online mob. If polling is a desaturated, lossy JPEG of public opinion, then the online rabble is a blocky JPEG with the contrast blown-out. Both parties have done a bit of leaning too hard on these partial, imperfect representations of public sentiment, and have offered only partially responsive political programs perhaps as a result. Mistaking the digitally-juiced "common knowledge" of these snapshots for common knowledge on the ground seems to come at the expense of political power.
Shana tovah, John! Great piece.
It may be that the online right-wing mob is a kind of chimera, but their real-world followers are armed and can be extremely dangerous.