Invasion of the GOP Talking Points: How the Right Wing Media Controls the Debate

The Right Wing of the United States political spectrum has long held sway over news media in America and has injected its belief system into every major debate in our politics and helped shape the outcome to the detriment of all of us. And you and I as consumers of this media are completely to blame.

Now of course this isn’t about Right Wing Radio or any of the other media specifically tailored to people whose opinions make them already agreeable to GOP talking points. The idea of using “The Fairness Doctrine” to somehow force on-the-road-salesmen and shut in seniors to listen to liberal view points is beyond silly. More to the point, these media outlets aren’t in the business of shaping opinion so much as they are a communication between policy makers and their base.

It’s at the top down level that the right-wing bias is shaping the argument. It’s true that those who actually report the news are usually more liberal (or at least poll as having voted for Democrats). However, opinion makers are overwhelmingly far more conservative than the rest of the country. This is an important leg up in the framing of any debate.

Read any Editorial Page in any major newspaper in America and for every article by Thomas Friedman or Nicholas Kristof you will find five by David Brooks, or Cal Thomas, or George Will, or Charles Krauthammer, or Kathleen Parker. This puts liberals behind the 8-ball on every issue because the “elite” media has already shaped the conversation before it even reaches the level where it can be can discussed it in terms of how it effects everyday America.

Time and time again we end up with the fuzzy end of the lolly pop when debating the great issues of the day and end up having to support truncated versions of policy solutions because the game has been fixed from the top down. Thus, we end up debating a Public Option in the ACA instead of a Single Payer Health System. We end up debating Campaign Finance Reform instead of Public Financing of Campaigns.

The demonization of Unions by the far right is a great example of how top down opinion makers were able to make and frame the debate. When PBS had Wall Street Week and The Nightly Business Report was there ever a weekly or daily show about the on going struggle for workers rights? Now these shows, which are basically the financial market’s equivalent of Union Newsletters for investors and brokers, proliferate on cable and any and all news about Unions is relegated to how much their influence can be limited. Those of us at the lower end of the income scale have to fight for a smaller and smaller piece of the American Dream. Where was our “Rukeyser Effect” (the name given to the rise in the value of stocks mentioned by the former host of Wall Street Week).

Violent crime is the greatest way in which conservatives have framed the debate in this country. Each time there is a shooting or a car chase, the media cuts straight to a play-by-play with talking heads debating back and forth issues like gun control or the death penalty or anything they can throw in to elongate the coverage because (of course) it’s good ratings. Yet, the murder rate in the United States last year was (using the largest numbers out there) less than 5 people per 100,000.

In point of fact, 19 people out of every 100,000 people took their own life last year. Where are the swarms of reporters around these cases? Where are the talking heads debating mental health issues on how to prevent suicides?

They are missing because it doesn’t fit into the Right Wing’s narrative of America as an unsafe place. Meanwhile, Limousine Liberals buy into this narrative because they feel it’s the best way to get across their message of sensible gun safety laws. All the while, the major problems we need to be debating are never given a proper airing and we are left with a choice between a conservative solution and a slightly less conservative solution to almost everything.

So, yet again, as Shakespeare noted, the fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves. We as consumers of media flock to stories of violent crime designed only to scare us. We revel in stock reports under the hope that one day it will actually have some effect on our daily lives. We allow The Right to set the agenda because it has been packaged as entertainment and then wonder why any progress we make gets truncated time and time again. To paraphrase The Dark Knight, we have the media we deserve, but not the media we need.

By: Eric Trommater

A liberal living in Northern Virginia. Father of Two great kids. Former sports writer and movie critic.