Believing One's Own Over-simplifications

The media just doesn’t get it. Take CNN, for example. Seeing that channel you’d think that half the US refuses to accept Trump’s win and that everyone is on the streets! Or this editorial in Deccan Herald:
“That 42% of women voted for Trump indicates how deeply women have internalised patriarchal values and how widespread this problem is.”
That line is a representative of how the media has to simplify, even over-simplify things. But it is increasingly evident that the media has now started believing its own over-simplifications! They actually believe that one attribute decides who you vote for (or against): so if Trump is misogynist, no woman would vote for him. He’s anti-Muslim, so no Muslim would vote for him. He’s anti-immigration, so no immigrant would vote for him. He talks crazy, so no sane person would vote for him.

This line of “reasoning” then leads to a “logical belief”: surely, there can’t be enough “primitive, stupid, racist, xenophobic, and irrational” people in the country for a Brexit or a Trump to happen.

All of which is exactly why this article by an immigrant Muslim woman explaining why she voted for Trump (yes, really) is so worth reading. Having stated the areas where she agrees with Clinton’s party, she then points out that Clinton had been promising “more of the same” as what Obama had been doing. And for this lady, it turns out, Obama’s policies just hadn’t worked: not his loan modification program in the aftermath of the 2008 recession, not Obamacare. Further, she didn’t agree with Obama’s “tap dance around the “Islam” in Islamic State”: why couldn’t Obama name and criticize “extremist Islam of the kind that has spilled blood from the hallways of the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai to the dance floor of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando”, she asked. She found Clinton’s double-speak jarring: she claimed to be putting pressure on Qatar and Saudi governments; on the other hand, the Clinton Foundation was receiving multi-million dollar donations from those very same countries.

I guess many in the US realized and acted upon what Seth Godin said:
“The thing is, there has never been a perfect leader. There has never been a flawless president. There are always weaknesses, foibles and scandals…. Most great leaders throughout history had defects that would cause them to wither under today's profit-minded, scandal-focused media.”

Nothing is ever black or white. Things are never that simple. Maybe it’s time the media stopped believing the lies and over-simplifications they vend out in the search for profits and then they may not be surprised by the next Modi, the next Brexit, or the next Trump.

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarNovember 11, 2016 at 6:30 PM

    Nothing is ever black or white. Things are never that simple. True, in general.

    But what your blog says about media appears to say something contrary! The summing up through "today's profit-minded, scandal-focused media" puts what many of us feel in "black and white" terms for one thing; at once the conclusion is so "simple" that no worthwhile person who sees/hears the media will miss it! :-)

    Incidentally, it is my conviction that politicians are of low consciousness (a word used sometimes in some Spiritual groups to suggest a "measure" for one's "goodness". High is good and low is bad). There is one bunch of guys who can beat the politicians hollow: the media people!

    Moral: Be skeptical about the media (preferably ignore them as much as possible) in order to be aligned with truth! :-)

    ReplyDelete

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