There’s been a bit of back-and-forth recently about whether Fox News is a threat or a menace, between Kevin Drum and Dan Drezner. Both of them agree that Fox News has been a baleful influence on modern American political culture, but Kevin thinks they’re the absolute worst, primarily responsible for all manner of modern ills, while Dan thinks they’re one of many bad factors. (If you want a better demonstration of the difference between a pundit and an academic, well, I don’t know what to tell you.)
I don’t have a strong rooting interest in that particular fight. Personally, I group Fox News together with a broader problem afflicting all of media (which they may have caused, or may just enthusiastically participate in) which is the way the dial instantly gets cranked to 11 on everything that comes up for discussion.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot after reading Charlie Warzel’s post about Simone Biles, which I think is an excellent example of this. On the one side, you have a bunch of mostly right-wing knuckleheads declaring that Biles dropping out of the Olympic team competition is the greatest individual betrayal since “Et tu, Brute?” or at least the greatest sports choke since Scott Norwood. On the opposite side, you get sweeping declarations that Biles’s decision isn’t a Bad Thing, it’s a Great Thing, and should be celebrated as the bravest stand any athlete has ever taken, transforming our relationship to sports and calling for a re-evaluation of everything.
The other big current examples go around the CDC’s guidance on masking. On one side, you’ve got people declaring that re-imposing the suggestion for vaccinated people to wear masks in public is an appalling affront to freedom and human dignity, while on the other you’ve got people saying that, no, the mistake was ever allowing anyone to take a mask off ever, which is entirely responsible for the current surge in cases. On a smaller level, you have the same dynamic around masks themselves: either they’re completely useless for anything other than signaling, or you’re literally killing people by running into the store for a bag of chips without first strapping on an N95.
The reality is, none of these things are actually The Most Important… anything. Biles dropping out of the team and all-around performance and settling for one individual bronze because she had “the twisties” is basically the same as if she’d sprained an ankle or pulled a hamstring. It wasn’t safe for her to compete, and that sucks for her personally, and is a bummer for fans of Olympic gymnastics, but shit happens. The CDC was probably right to loosen the masking recommendations in May, and probably right to tighten them now; circumstances have changed, as circumstances are wont to do. The kinds of masks people were wearing everywhere a few months ago probably don’t actually do all that much, but they’re not a huge imposition, and are better than nothing (especially if they make people think twice about going to hang out with large numbers of other people in indoor spaces, which actually does make a difference).
I don’t know if this is ultimately attributable to the baleful influence of Fox News or not. I tend to think not, because you see elements of this even within intra-partisan squabbles: back before Biden wrapped up the primary, there was a loud contingent of people on social media declaring that anyone who only wanted to add a “public option” to Obamacare rather than going full Medicare for All was essentially a serial killer out to exterminate the uninsured. I think the temperature has been cranked up for everything, everywhere, in a way that’s not specifically dependent on partisan polarization (though that doesn’t help).
I don’t know the root cause here, though I can point to some aggravating factors. I just want it to stop.
Let current events just be… events. If you must power-rank everything, remember that whatever just happened doesn’t need to be at the top. Better yet, take a deep breath, go for a walk, play with your pets. In the immortal words of Jimmy Serrano, “Eat a sandwich, drink a glass of milk, do some fuckin’ thing.”
Not every local maximum is a global maximum. Sometimes things that suck are just, you know, things that suck, not The Worst Thing Ever. The mere fact that some idiot opposes a thing doesn’t mean you have to gin up a reason to celebrate it.
The dial may go to 11, but we don’t need to turn it there every time out.
And here’s a cute dog picture to offset having to listen to me yelling at clouds:
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