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Sometimes I get emails that really reinforce just how totally ignorant and uninformed a huge swath of America really is. These can be jarring, demoralizing and depressing all at the same time. But they are good reminders of exactly what we are dealing with in mass politics today.
Case in point is this one I received in response to a recent column:
David:
Of course, the insurance industry probably had some influence in (dropping the public option), but not total influence. It would not make any sense for the Dems to drop the public option only under insurance lobbying pressure when (as you say) most Americans supported the public idea. They would just be shooting themselves in the foot and they would never be this foolish. There would be a public outcry and all this would be investigated and reported on by the media. I have not heard of any reports on this, so I don't believe this happened. Additionally, did not President Obama say, in effect, that his administration would not be influenced by such lobbying? So how on earth could this happen?
It would make much more sense to say that the public option was dropped because of public opposition and insurance industry bribes (contributions). Do you agree?
W
This email is one of many that I've received insisting that I was factually wrong to assert that "polls confirm that most Americans - not just liberals - support a government-run public health-care option." These emails have included links to polls showing that the public does not support the existing health care bill. Of course, those polls refer to the existing health care bill that does not have a public option - and polls have long proved my assertion about the public option is completely accurate.
What's particularly amazing about this right-wing reader's jeremiad is the candor that exposes an almost unfathomably intense ignorance. In this case, the right-wing reader simply cannot believe - simply refuses to believe - that corporate interests have decision-making power and influence over the political system. Why? Because to acknowledge that in this case would force him to acknowledge that his right-wing, anti-public-option views are in the minority. Such an admission would fry his circuitry by contradicting everything he's been told by the airtight, right-wing mediasphere he gets all his news from - a mediasphere that portrays a world where everyone hates the public option.
Not surprisingly, this right-winger then operationalizes his aggressive ignorance to assert that popular progressive programs that conservatives ideologically despise and that are opposed by corporate interests aren't actually popular - regardless of what empirical public opinion surveys prove.
Is this willful ignorance or inadvertent stupidity? Hard to say as the lines are blurry. Most likely it's a mixture of both. The right-wing mediasphere provides a hermetically sealed environment that completely insulates rank-and-file conservatives from basic reality, and so when confronted with that reality, they simply cannot see it.
Sure, many of these rank-and-file conservatives have willfully and consciously chosen to enter that echo chamber, but many have done so inadvertently, because that echo chamber is now so ubiquitous as to be invisible. It's sorta like the Matrix - they can't see it because it's everywhere.
This is what we are up against - aggressive, militant ignorance. It is intimidating - and it is real. But sadly, it isn't surprising.
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