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Manhattan Diary by Cahir O'Doherty

Tantrums of a Tea Party - Internet turns global village into Appalachian backwood

Posted on Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 09:32 AM

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Mitt Romney (REUTERS / Tim Shaffer)

The media get blamed for a lot of things in the United States. The charges leveled against them can range from having a blatant conservative or liberal bias, to charges of leading the news rather than reporting it.

What’s behind most of these charges is the irritation, experienced by many, at having to hear a point of view that differs pointedly from your own. Nowadays Americans, possibly more than ever before, have no time for opposing opinions.

Sadly, the Internet has helped foster this isolationism. Now, thanks to arcane mathematics, Internet search companies like Google have created elaborate algorithms that can precisely identify your biases and pander to them shamelessly with their search results.

What this means is that in seeking to help you identify the things you’ll probably be interested in, Google and others on the Internet have actually been building you a cocoon.

Instead of reflecting the true diversity and cariousness of existence, it’s now possible to be completely insulated from anyone and everyone who takes a different view.

It’s no accident that the rise of bizarre Tea Party conspiracy theories like the “controversy” over President Obama’s birth certificate, or his “true” political beliefs, or his “true” religion have coincided with increasingly insular web search results.

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If you believe, if you truly believe, that Barack Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim socialist you can now join 10 million equally deluded souls with the click of a mouse. And now, thanks to technology, you need never hear another voice raised to contradict you.

It’s time we started worrying about this Balkanization of the Internet. In particular, it’s time we started worrying about the consequences of this isolationism for our society.

US citizens now live in alternate realities where they can whip themselves into a frenzy over so-called controversies and outrages that the rest of American society doesn’t even know exist.

I’ve wondered why the mainstream media have let the most out-there conspiracy theories and charges of the Tea Party receive airtime, over and over again, without correction.

From conservative news sources like Fox News to more progressive networks like MSNBC, it’s common to see Tea Party commentators find forums for their nonsense, without fear of correction.

The networks know that broadsides and outrageous charges pull in viewers, but do they damage our society in the process?

What’s truly chilling is that lies repeated often enough could start to convince even the people who originally told them.

It’s a fact that the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney, a political escape artist who never met a principle he couldn’t later disavow, has failed to inspire Tea Party voters.

But in their far-right Internet echo chamber they have managed to turn a moderate social conservative with hard right economic views into Barbra Streisand.

“We will never support the abortionist, homosexualist, socialist, mandate loving, constitution trampling liar Mitt Romney,” wrote Jim Robinson, founder of the conservative Free Republic website, the acknowledged ground zero of middle-aged, white Tea Party supporting voters.

I don’t know what a homosexualist is, by the way. Is it someone who becomes homosexual by default by allowing them to exist? Probably.

But Robinson wasn’t finished berating Romney yet: “You’re a tool. And a coward. A surrender monkey. Willingly voting for a known abortionist socialist constitution-trampling liar. Going down on your knees for the evil bastards for political expedience.

“If I were you with your cowardly attitude I wouldn’t wait to be banned. I’d flee this pro-life conservative site as fast as my weak knees could carry me. But that too would take guts and obviously you don’t have any. So long, RINO (Republican In Name Only).”

Robinson is now calling for a Tea Party revolution against the Republican National Convention (RNC). This is the moment when Frankenstein’s monster breaks free from of the harness and attacks its creator, apparently.

The thing about living in the paranoid hothouse atmosphere of your own worst nightmares is that you can stop seeing a way out.

Robinson’s words suggest he’s inspiring his most ardent followers to assemble a circular firing squad.

In pursuit of an far right America that he hasn’t noticed most Americans don’t want to live in, Robinson and his fellow travelers on the world wide web have turned the global village into an Appalachian backwoods with a Keep Out sign hanging over the gate.

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18 comments

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BrianO | May 04, 2012, 09:54 PM EDT

Say the lie longer you may start to believe it, most of the liberal mind set berate the founders and dismiss the constitution as obsolete.

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NYCsheridan | Apr 29, 2012, 11:05 AM EDT

staker42 bleats: "I fail to see why a column like this has any place in what Irish Central is about." And pray tell, what would that be, Staker? Last I looked, IC was a sounding board for the thoughts of Irish Americans. But in your teabag-ridden echo chamber, you have no room for the opinions of others, thereby validating the point of the entire article.

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NYCsheridan | Apr 29, 2012, 11:02 AM EDT

BrianO, Equating the shallow and "faux conservative" teabag party with the brilliant Liberal minds of the Founding Fathers always makes me laugh.

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NYCsheridan | Apr 29, 2012, 11:00 AM EDT

"But in their far-right Internet echo chamber they have managed to turn a moderate social conservative with hard right economic views into Barbra Streisand." PRICELESS. LMAO!

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seanomelb | Apr 21, 2012, 08:34 PM EDT

I know a tea party person who stated "Who'd put a nig..r in the white house" The tea party breeds extremism and a poll 2yrs. ago found that 50% of tehadist would take up arms to rid the white house of the president.Four more years and looking good.

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BrianO | Apr 21, 2012, 10:12 AM EDT

The premise that the tea party movement is extremist is false. It is based on following, the rule of law as prescribed by the U.S Constitution and the bill of rights. When the U.S. gained it's independence and established a government based on "We the Peolpe" at that time this thought of peersonal freedom was extremist.

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eiriamach | Apr 21, 2012, 07:44 AM EDT

Let's assume Obama wins re-election. If this article is right about the Internet putting us into cocoons, then millions of Americans are going to wake up the day after the November election and go immediately into shock. They will not be able to understand how it could have happened. They will never have seen it coming! They thought the Tea Party could not lose congressional seats, or they thought Romney would win by a landslide. Will they ever be able to accept the election results, or will they wage McCarthy- style witch hunts or another crazy "birther" campaign?

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PatriciaMarya | Apr 21, 2012, 12:01 AM EDT

Point - so many people berate me for reading about 4 newspapers daily when "you can just go online and get your news." Frankly, no. The Internet is a bulletin board that has been edited by some one and you are being compartmentalized by your interests. With the different papers, particularly reading the letters to the editor (that require you to identify yourself, by the way, with a telephone number and an address!), you get viewpoints upon viewpoints and you just may be able to learn something! Remember: the mark of an intelligent person is the ability to hold two different opinions at the same time! (Think that came from Ben Franklin or Darwin or someone as equally as brilliant!)

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seanomelb | Apr 20, 2012, 07:42 PM EDT

The GOP bedded down with the extremist tea party backwater types now they are reaping their reward and it will cost them congress and the white house.Great article Cahir.

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eiriamach | Apr 20, 2012, 07:16 PM EDT

I agree with Ephraim. I must also say that some here post attitudes but no relevant facts or arguments! IC seems to follow the on-line newspapers in offering news articles, videos and other special features, and opinion/special interest blogs. Johnnymac's dad was right about the reason for reading opinion blogs: it helps us formulate our own arguments and test them out (it supports democracy). Attitude comments contribute NOTHING. Here's how I break down this article: 4 fact-based generalizations, verifiable or falsifiable; one psychological explanation; one analysis of cause followed by specific how-it-works causal explanation; another causal analysis (psychology--effect on persons); another causal analysis (political science--effect on diversity of views); more effects; naming the phenomenon-- "balkanization of the Internet"; then specific examples interwoven with value judgments about why balkanization is not good. That's plenty to critique, but there's a little work involved: show that the author has mis-stated a fact, misinterpreted it, or not reasoned correctly from cause to effect. Or tell us which important facts the author has ignored and thus given a biased view. Offer competing examples. Or challenge the author's value judgment: argue that dividing opinion into two camps and shuffling everyone into his/her camp rather than exposing them to a diversity of views is ultimately not harmful (is political balkanization the price of globalization?).

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staker42 | Apr 20, 2012, 06:29 PM EDT

I fail to see why a column like this has any place in what Irish Central is about. Having said that O'Doherty berates the right and left wing extremes and then proceeds to spout his own liberal leanings. I hope there is nobody out there that would take is opinions for nothing more than the thrash that is is. He must be a good buddy of Neil's

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MegK311 | Apr 20, 2012, 04:51 PM EDT

Cahir, Just another piece of your long winded liberal opinion. I read about half of it and had enough.

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Fran Connor | Apr 20, 2012, 04:09 PM EDT

Does anyone out there know an Irish site that keeps us up to date on what's going on in Ireland? I mean, without the left wing nonsense like this.

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EphraimKibbey | Apr 20, 2012, 02:25 PM EDT

Great article, Cahir! Eiriamach, thanks for the peer review! I had heard about google, facebook, etc., profiling of purchasing patterns for advertisers but this use of it was new to me. While Cahir's article uses the right as a example, we on the left will need to be conscious of the same isolation. It is good that IC has many points of view represented lest we become too comfortable in our current positions. I only wish the folks with right wing views on IC were more rigorous in their arguments. I get so tired of typing out a 28 line fact based argument, having it not take when I submit it, breaking it into smallwer and smaller chunks until it does only to have someone leave a one-liner about it being "the same old liberal drivel." The least they could do is refute a particular statement instead emotional name calling.

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Nicomax | Apr 20, 2012, 12:41 PM EDT

Is Jim Robinson, and his cohorts any different in today's political climate than Jerry Rubin and his Yippies who stormed the Chicago Hilton were in 1968? These extremes usually force people to the middle as they fear the consequences, and in 1968 that resulted in the election of Richard Nixon.

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