We live in a world where we don't really hear ideas. We just hear propaganda. That's not just boring. It's also very dangerous.
If I'm a conservative, I'll generally watch Fox. If someone's liberal, they'll generally watch MSNBC. They'll basically learn a set of facts that are completely distinct from one another. They'll get their views validated.
I have spent a good part of my life showing what an intellectual bubble the Left lives in.
Primarily affecting low-information voters and members of the mainstream media, Obama Worship Syndrome attributes impossible capabilities to Obama's political opponents, finds excuses for every Obama failure in everyone around him and praises the president as the finest politician - nay, human being - of our time.
What my research has shown me is that experts tend on the whole to form very rigid camps; that within these camps, a dominant perspective emerges that often silences opposition; that experts move with the prevailing winds, often hero-worshipping their own gurus.
Committed partisans are generally the most knowledgeable voters, independents the least. And the more political knowledge people have, the more apt they are to discuss politics with people who agree with, and reinforce, them.
Most people who are activists and are concerned about issues get their information from sources which reinforce their opinions and give them the facts that they want to hear.
It can be easy and tempting, especially during a presidential campaign, to listen only to opinions that mirror and fortify one's own. That's not ideal, because it eliminates learning and makes it impossible for people to understand what they dismiss as 'the other side.'
Liberals watch MSNBC; conservatives watch Fox. They don't want to hear ten seconds of a liberal on Fox, and they don't want to hear ten seconds of a conservative on MSNBC.
When you get out of Washington, you realize how much of a Beltway bubble exists.
Fox is Trump's safe space. It's where he's not going to be humiliated, where he's not going to hear uncomfortable truths.
You can convince yourself of just about anything when you want to believe a conspiracy theory.
Life inside the Beltway bubble dulls your thinking.
Some voters live in a so-called populist bubble, where they hear nationalist and xenophobic messages, learn to distrust fact-based media and evidence-based science, and become receptive to conspiracy theories and suspicious of democratic institutions.
The bottom layer of the right-wing noise machine.
