This weird breakdowns on Twitter or ESS of voters not pledging fealty to Biden or Clinton, or breaking down at the possibility of people making legitimate demands, concessions, and pleas for relief and help met with disgust.
It's clear that both liberals and conservatives are quite reactionary but why do the former even attempt to pretend to be good people if they're just defending their privilege and identity?
Ironically you're doing liberal idealism by thinking a tv show has more impact on people being fascist than their imperialist and colonialist material class interests.
Yeah, fair point. I can see how that comes through. My belief is that media can give us the language and ideals to further normalise behaviour. I don't disagree that the class interests of the libs have a gigantic impact on the way they function, but I believe the media they consume (in particular, the West Wing) gives them an excuse and a language to speak to one another about it without looking too fashy.
It's probably best described as a delusion to justify exploitation, much like the notion of White Man's Burden was during the 18th and 19th century colonial empires
That's a perfect analogy - Sorkin is basically Kipling for a modern era.
Media may not directly shape culture, but it can definitely crystallize and give form to the shapes that are already there, half realized. For example: South Park didn't make people transphobic out of nowhere, but it definitely gave a form to it and helped turn a shapeless, chauvinist-biased ignorance into open, fully formed hatred and contempt. Similarly, the West Wing didn't create Liberals from whole cloth, but it did crystallize their preexisting biases into one easily exploitable shape.