Rodney King's question posed back in 1994 after the California riots seems even more pertinent today. Duffy has seen a steady increase in the amount of intolerance and incivility in the public discourse year after year. Talk radio, talking pundits on the cable channels, blistering opinion columnists in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, all engaging in screaming, hollering, yelling, insulting, denigrating "the other guy", whoever it is that doesn't share their opinion, on whatever topic (and they are always right, by the way!). It's enough to make someone of Duffy's age wish for the peaceful days of, say, 1962 when people said, "please" and "thank you" and listened politely to other's opinions even if they didn't agree with them.
Duffy can date the descent into the current morass back to 1987 when Teddy Kennedy and other Democrats led a vicious campaign against Robert Bork to join the Supreme Court. In Duffy's view this televised hearing set the tone for future attacks of one political party against the other. Duffy is convinced that the Bork hearings and the later Clarence Thomas hearings gave the Republicans the license to ramp up a continual vilification of Bill Clinton for his entire presidency. The rise of Talk Radio and the Fox TV channel gave Republicans and conservative outlets a way to "push back" against a perceived (and in Duffy's view) correct Democratic/liberal bias of the major networks. It didn't take long for MSNBC to become the Anti-Fox network. Folks like Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, Keith Olbermann and lately Glenn Beck all discovered that their more outlandish claims against the opposition got them higher ratings and bigger paychecks.
The election of America's first bi-racial President just seemed to increase the hostility. The Democrats swept into office believing they have a mandate to sweep away all the sins of the Republican administrations going back to Reagan and finally completing all the unfinished business of FDR , LBJ and the New Deal and Great Society. In this they have misjudged the electorate of a country that is more centrist and conservative than liberal. Nancy Pelosi and President Obama will find this out in November 2010.
Meanwhile, Duffy suggests that in one's day to day life one should act with consideration and kindness to as many folks as one can. Broaden your views. If you watch Fox all the time, watch CNN and MSNBC to find out what the "other side" is saying. Even if you don't agree with it, you will have a better understanding. Don't believe ridiculous assertions like Obama isn't an American or Bush caused 9/11. If it sounds ridiculous, it probably is. A well rounded person shouldn't have just a large waistline but also be able to listen to and decide between both sides of an argument. Duffy has no patience with pundits who yell at their guests or belittle them or interrupt them. Duffy has no respect for comedians who insult or belittle public figures.
Duffy thinks the next three years are going to be the most contentious between the two halves of America that he has seen in his lifetime. There is a widening gulf between the Democrats/Liberals and the Republicans/Conservatives. Moderates and Independents are disgusted and turned off by this. Duffy thinks it will get worse before it gets better. Unfortunately for the country....
2 comments:
I won't watch MSNBC or CNN, because I get enough of the "other side" by just simply watching The Today Show in the morning. Good post though. I wish I could've been around in 1962 :)
Good post - it seems like people are forgetting that for the US to be a great country and world leader, we need both the right and left to balance us out; reach a happy medium.
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