The idea that "public opinion" is something that exists independently of elite opinion, a mysterious collective force with deep economic and social precursors, knowable only through polls, but guiding all political outcomes.
The relationship between "public opinion" and political and social elites is perceived as the relationship between a pond and bugs skimming over the surface of the pond. The pond affects the bugs but is unaffected by them.
But that's totally wrong.
Society isn't made up of some mystical volk around which we all maneuver. It's a bunch of social links and hierarchies, and our political and social elites are perched at the top of them. They're not irrelevant to the public or at its mercy; they're the most powerful part of it.
Some people (like partisans) are tightly connected to elites through social hierarchies; elite opinion guides their views very closely and quickly. Other people (non-political, non-voter types) are only loosely connected. Their views are impacted slowly and indirectly.
But ultimately it's our elites, especially in politics and media, who guide the thing we think of "public opinion." In fact, I'd argue that "public opinion" doesn't even really exist as a single object: it's just all these different hierarchies and networks averaged together.
What's happened - especially since the shock of the 2016 election - is that a lot of our elites have lost sight of their role in this system. They see themselves as powerless against the public masses, with which they can plead, but over which they have little real influence.
The predictable result has been a numbed paralysis - people with incredible power to both make decisions and influence the views of others, instead constantly looking over their shoulder at opinion polls, and ultimately deciding to keep quiet or take no stand.
The exception to this, of course, has been the GOP, which has been convinced of the opposite: that the mystical spirit of the American volk is ON ITS SIDE, investing it with the authority to do pretty much whatever it wants.
Combine that with the unwillingness of other elites to challenge the GOP directly and proportionately - because, after all, they believe they're powerless anyway - and you've set the stage for a cult-like spiral of permanent radicalization.
I have never even heard of this book, but the cover appears to have brilliantly crystallized the entire thread above into a single illustration.
Biden has been the most progressive policy president in 50 years or more. He's enacted massive stimulus and climate bills, he's governed with a full-employment mindset that has created a booming economy for workers, he's appointed progressives across the federal government.
He's made great court appointments, stood up for labor unions like no president in history, and stood by an anti-monopoly FTC chair that has big business howling in anger. He's cancelled tons of student and tried to cancel more. He's done SO MUCH.
It is ALSO true that his opponent is undisguised fascist and rapist who previously tried to overthrow the government, campaigning on a platform of, quite literally, dictatorship, bloody revenge, and concentration camps for immigrants and other perceived undesirables.
Again, this is not complicated: the fringe of people who are going to sit out this election to punish Biden from the left is quite small. But those people are noisy and contribute to a larger sense of apathy, that both parties are the same. And there are a LOT of apathetic voters
"Both parties are the same, this election doesn't matter, I won't vote or will just vote third party" is a very stupid idea that nonetheless seems to have some intrinsic appeal to a lot of people, and has repeatedly caused catastrophic election results (Bush 2000, Trump 2016)
We were able to beat Trump in 2020 in large part because there was widespread recognition of the stakes of the election (that's why turnout was the highest in history). But right now the public discourse is full of very loud voices playing DOWN the stakes
It’s forgotten now but Dems spent the first 2.5 years of the Biden presidency intentionally slow-walking or closing down investigations of Trump while sternly declaring that they were “looking forward, not back”
The problem here was incredibly obvious at the time: if no one actually did the work of targeting Trump for his many outrageous acts, none of them would stick to him.
Remember that Mueller handed Garland an open-and-shut case against Trump, and instead of taking action, he simply let it expire. Dems didn’t investigate Trump and Russia. Only Jack Smith finally moved forward on an ACTUAL COUP ATTEMPT.
In a 18 months, Musk has made Twitter into a place where literal pro-slavery accounts are getting millions of views. It’s functionally the largest, longest, most sustained hate rally in human history. How long until the news media gets the nerve to talk about it?
Twitter may not be real life but if hundreds of thousands of diehard white nationalists are using it to communicate, plot, win converts, and radicalize themselves into insanity, it’s going to have real-world consequences
And this isn’t an accident of “free speech” or whatever. The ultra-racist, ultra-antisemitic accounts are the ones using the tools provided by the site to take over the discourse, and much worse, are closely networked with the owner himself, who personally promotes them!
If a reporter has information that Biden is losing it, they’re welcome to report that information. They don’t actually have it - indeed, accounts from people who interact with Biden are generally that he’s quite sharp - so reporters instead repeat political attacks as “questions”
The best way to understand political “journalism” is a demand-and-supply model, where outlets understand that certain stories serve purposes that they want served, like achieving artificial balance or providing red meat to partisans. They then strive to engineer those stories
That’s why you’ll get the sense that some topics are like rubber bands pulled back and waiting to snap, when the right news hook comes along. The Comey letter in 2016 - the media was DYING for anti-Clinton story with a veneer of newsiness, one that validated GOP corruption claims