Paul Krugman notes
Finally, it’s hard not to have the sense that when political types in this administration talk about appealing to “voters”, what they really mean is appealing to self-proclaimed centrist pundits who claim to have their fingers on the pulse of independent voters. Aside from the fact that they don’t — that the complicated psychodramas concocted by pundits exist only in their heads, not the heads of voters — experience shows that nothing Obama can do will satisfy these guys; they need, professionally, to maintain the pretense that both sides of the political divide are equally extreme.
Here is my question, though: to what extent are people even making this claim?
I grant this is a part of the verbage used by pundits, but if you said, “can you produce in the flesh even one person who has ever had the thought process you ascribe to independent voters” would they insist the answer is yes? Would they bet on it?
Or, is this just a giant rhetorical edifice that has been constructed over the years.
My sense is that people tell these stories because its fun to tell these stories and people read these stories because its fun to read the stories but no one in the entire loop is actually very concerned about whether or not the stories are true.
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Monday ~ March 19th, 2012 at 7:41 pm
nazgulnarsil
(Robin Hanson hat: on) That’s…sort of most things. When people are given the chance at better tracking the predictive success of various narratives they consistently refuse. Narratives are mostly to signal to others and ourselves about what sort of alliances/group rules we would like to make and enforce.
Monday ~ March 19th, 2012 at 9:25 pm
dumdedumdum
” people tell these stories because its fun to tell these stories and people read these stories because its fun to read the stories but no one in the entire loop is actually very concerned about whether or not the stories are true.”
Great, another episode of This American Life!
Monday ~ March 19th, 2012 at 9:34 pm
dwb
My sense is that people tell these stories because its fun to tell these stories and people read these stories because its fun to read the stories but no one in the entire loop is actually very concerned about whether or not the stories are true.
All pundits are self proclaimed. The non-self proclaimed pundits are, you know, actual elected representatives.
Of course they are going to claim that they have followers (ahh, i mean viewers).
I’ve lived in MD/DC/VA for a long time and thats pretty much how the debate goes. And not only that, 299,000,000 Americans dont give a crap what pundits say. The worst thing for the Limbaughs (and Sterns) of the world is apathy. There might be a few people actually persuaded, but by and large those are the tin-foil-hat people on Doomsday Preppers already.
Tuesday ~ March 20th, 2012 at 1:42 am
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