Perspective, Filtering, And Consensus Reality

This RCP video of Janeane Garofalo perfectly illustrates a bothersome point about our national political conversation:

“Or ‘I’m not armed this time,’ they had signs that would say that,” Garofalo said while recalling news reports she saw on the Tea Party. “So, how is linking arms on a college campus an act of aggression, but saying you have a gun and you’re willing to use it and it’s time to secede and to revolution [sic] and you don’t recognize this government is legitimate. How is that not seen as some type of aggressive thing? But it just defies — it’s one of those things, again, that is just so silly and it makes you feel like you’re the crazy one when you see these things. The double standard that exists for the Tea Party…

Remember all those rapes, murders, assaults, robberies, acts of vandalism and arson, and promises to firebomb Macy’s at Tea Party rallies?  Yeah, me neither.  Garofalo then goes on to explain why Herman Cain’s popularity is predicated on the racism of his supporters. 

Unfortunately, there is a sort of Madman’s Advantage to promulgating insane positions on such things, because it pushes a view into the national conversation that bends the whole debate just by virtue of it being entertained. Even if the large majority quickly recognizes the argument as ridiculous, requiring the argument to be debunked is itself a win of sorts because of how it shifts the rhetorical battlefield.

It’s important to realize this can only happen with the aid of media who give them a megaphone.  Just try to imagine a world in which all this violence was occurring at Tea Party rallies and anyone from the right was still allowed to go on TV and claim the movement was less violent than demonstrations primarily featuring leftists peacefully holding signs after getting the proper permits and cleaning parks up after themselves.  The MSM would recoil in horror, and not just shun but also condemn and ridicule anyone saying such things, making even associatiing with them radioactive.

The pernicious leftist bias of media coverage isn’t going away anytime soon, and neither is the left’s hypocritical treatment of politically motivated violence.  All we can do is grit our teeth and continue to build better mdia institutions like Reason, PJ Media (subscribe now!), Fox News, GBTV, etc., and hope that eventually outlets like those that help give a voice to vile madness are themselves thereby marginalized by the justice of the market.