No One Wants to Talk About Their Idiots

But we all need a political force that can undercut their power

When hordes of angry protesters descended on town hall meetings two weeks ago, conservative zealots celebrated what liberal zealots have long admired: the ability of small mobs to shut down discussion on an issue.

Now the left is fighting back. Congressman Barney Frank cut down a woman who compared Obama to the Nazis (reportedly a follower of liberal idiot Lyndon Larouche, as it turns out) by asking her "what planet" she spent most of her time on. And WalMart and other advertisers are pulling their dollars from Glenn Beck's program, under pressure from the left.

But both the right and left have their idiots. They are useful -- press their buttons, and they're off, legions of true-believers that follow their pipers, yelling, screaming, and voting just as they have been programmed to, for the candidate that panders most shamelessly to them.

Idiocy does not need to be a permanent state, however. We all are part-time idiots, on a wide variety of matters. If we are lucky, our friends and spouses point out our idiocies, and gradually we learn. They don't have a stake in our being idiots -- they would like us to be better.

But when it comes to politics, we very rarely attempt to teach our idiots. They are too valuable as idiots.

For example, Glenn Beck is an idiot. That's not a secret. Pretty much everyone knows it. Except Glenn. He is either unaware or doesn't care. He has too many handlers who celebrate his idiocy. Any lingering self-awareness he may have is overwhelmed by the pandering acclaim and ill-gotten gains which are temporarily his.

I know, Beck is "embarrassed all the way to the bank." I don't buy it. No amount of money could make someone consciously choose to be that much of an idiot.

You might think I am using the term "idiot" in a pejorative sense. Nothing, however, could be further from a lie. In truth, "idiot" describes what we do when we allow our buttons to be pushed, and let our instincts get ahead of our genuine, thoughtful good sense.

In order to mobilize the legions of idiots, it is useful to have notorious idiots like Glenn, who can boldly play to their worst fears and prejudices. He gives apparent legitimacy to hare-brained conspiracy theories -- like his latest, predictable, slander-of-the-week charge that Obama is, according to his tortuous logic, a communist to advocate "green" jobs, a socialist to push health care, and now a racist.

Beck has the legitimacy of a major network behind him, and smarter commentators fighting to get onto his show to tap his ratings. People who could be learning to think are instead just getting angrier and angrier.

This is a bad thing. In case that needs explaining, here's why.

When any of us see threats to our well-being, we become afraid, and look for a cause or an enemy at which to direct our anger. It's in our genes, and we're better off because of it.

Because we evolved in tribes, for millions of years the enemy or cause was often someone or something outside the tribe. So we are quick to find "others" that everyone in the tribe can blame.

In today's world, those instincts can be easily manipulated for political gain. It's easy, for example, to slip a villain into that ready-made mental model. It's easy to paint a whole category of outsiders as the enemy. We're pre-programmed with the narrative, we just need to have the characters filled in.

Demagogues like Hannity, idiots like Beck, and paranoids like Savage either knowingly or ignorantly are happy to trigger us -- to build their own power, wealth, egos, or all of the above.

As a result, the idiots -- that's all of us, remember -- reinforce our wild fears and prejudices, and fail to learn to be smarter. It's partly our fault: We should know better. But it's also partly the fault of those in a position to manipulate us.

No one, by the way, is orchestrating all this. Beck does his thing, and gets ratings. Smarter people pander to him, to tap his power. Listeners become glued to their radios, TVs, and prejudices. And while they're listening, operating on instinct, advertisers slip in their messages, and the listeners go out and buy stuff, unaware. The advertisers then buy more ads, financing the whole thing, and insist that they have nothing to do with the messages conveyed -- those are driven, after all, by public demand.

Result: No one takes responsibility. We get a dysfunctional Congress with Democrats and Republicans who won't play together because, if they did, the idiots would take them down.

Now that WalMart and other advertisers are pulling their business from Beck, will we solve the problem? Or will it just provoke the right to pressure advertisers to pull away from left-leaning messengers?

There's a better way. It's time we stopped focusing just on the "other" side's idiots, and acknowledged our own as well. It's time we looked at ourselves.

What can we do? Issue the traditional call for "a return to civility" in political discourse? That's a waste of time. There have always been demagogues, paranoids, and idiots, and always will be.

Even more idiotic would be to try to restrict speech -- to threaten broadcasters with legal sanctions for being idiots. The only alternative to idiocy in free speech is the imposed idiocy of restricted speech.

A better approach is to outsmart the idiots, and those who use them.

Here's my strategy: Form a strategic political force that can render the idiots impotent. It's not that hard. We need a third political movement in this country -- not today's ideological right or left, who pander to idiots, but a group of radical centrists who step past their initial ignorance, fear, and prejudice, and actually think through solutions to our problems, borrowing ideas from all sides.

We don't need 51% of the population. In our democracy, all we need to do is to control the middle -- the large body of people who, despite the rhetoric, are not fooled by extremism. We need only win 5 or 10 percent. We could put the idiots and their panderers in their place - out of politics, and in school.

This third force can't be a new political party -- the system is stacked against that. We simply need to get between the two parties, and control the balance of power between them, tipping elections to one or the other, depending on which candidates support radical centrist policies.

That means -- get ready -- it has to be able to endorse, and campaign for, non-idiots from both parties.

I wish I could send you to the website of this third political force. But there is none yet. So, if you would like to join, sign on to my Twitter, and I will keep you informed as such an alliance comes into being.

Or, one of you passionate activists can form the alliance, and draw the pent-up energy of the millions waiting for you.

So let's not be idiots, and get to work.

Follow Bill Shireman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Future500

Comments

[RonInCharlotte]

Funny how this guy thinks that Conservatives who may watch Beck need to focus on learning to think instead of freaking out.

That is a crass assumption. The irony is the reason we are conservati­ve/liberta­rian is because we DO think.

[Bill Shireman - Huffpost Blogger]

Ron - that sounds pretty lame and self-aggrandizing. There are thinkers inside all political movements, as well as demagogues who manipulate others based on fear.

I'm quite libertarian, but not doctrinaire about it. I'm socially libertarian because I think people should be responsible for their own lives and choices - to be left, right, straight, gay, religious, spiritual, or non-religious.

And you suggest that conservative = libertarian. Hardly. Lately, conservatives have been as successful at enforcing social constraints as liberals were in the 1960s. Now, what's "politically correct" is defined more by the right than the left.

By the way, I am not "this guy." I am as deserving of respect as you are.

[RonInCharlotte]

Centrists never accomplish anything real. Unless they are Libertarian types which average in the middle by espousing some clear left and clear right ideas, such as fiscal conservatives but social liberals.

[Bill Shireman - Huffpost Blogger]

On the contrary, name a rigid ideologue who ever accomplished anything positive and lasting. Compare the skill of dedicated, pragmatic idealists, like Ted Kennedy - a liberal who could ally with conservatives to pass landmark legislation; or Nelson Mandela, who stood for principle but jockeyed skillfully to free his nation; or or Mahatma Gandi, who found the perfect strategy for the moment to carry out a peaceful liberation; or Abraham Lincoln, who bided his time and achieved what others had only railed for. You misunderstand centrism as watered down policy when, in fact, it can skillfully combine power with purpose to maximize one's accomplishments. Your example of fiscal conservatives who are social liberals is a great example of how to do so.

[RonInCharlotte]

Kennedy didn't cross the aisle, he just took it his way in pieces. Almost anything that was bi-partisan involving Kennedy was just another liberal Republican. Can't people see? The Republican party is just a gentler way of easing into total control of our lives? There are only a few conservative Republicans left and even fewer conservatives who can separate truth from fantasy (i.e. religion). That's a shame but it doesn't invalidate their views, it just means you gotta pick the Jesus out of it so you can see the relevant points.

[RonInCharlotte]

An d I would say more hard line stanced people lead the way for compromise, otherwise they revolt. The left must be careful. Our system is like a rubber band. If Obama and this Congress push too far left, the voters will bring it back that far to the right. If they were more moderate, Obama would have 8 years and then we would have a moderate Republican. We just saw this and what happened was 16 years of nothing but the long-time building up and destroying this economy. And it was 16 years left leaning centrists like Bush and Clinton.

I don't care what anybody tries to say...Bush was not a conservative. He may have been pro-life but that's the only real difference. And that is not really substantial in the scheme of things since it isn't going to change.

[dsjulian]

What's different about the idots on the left and the idiots on the right is that nobody takes the idiots on the left seriously. Over on the right, they think Fox News is really a news network. A few years back, when Rush announced on his radio program "I'm not a politician, I'm an entertainer, and the callers are my props" apparently none of the dittoheads heard him. Best description of what's happening now comes from Will Rogers: "I don't belong to an organized political party -- I'm a Democrat.

[professor]

You are the most wonderful genius person in the whole wide world.

[professor]

You don't think it "idiotic" to believe, on the basis of nothing, that the answer to all questions lies in the "middle"?

Radical problems demand moderate solutions! Yeah?

[Bill Shireman - Huffpost Blogger]

I don't think you actually read my paper, professor. It looks to me like you read the word "middle," saw an opportunity to bloviate, and did! That's the problem - opportunistic raging on the right and left.

Calm down - I didn't suggest being "moderate" - I suggested radical centrism, which means taking the best ideas and insights from left and right, and bringing them together. As we're seeing, we can't have universal health care without cutting out wasteful spending. If you strip away all the demagoguery and idiocy, there IS wisdom within both the left and right. They represent the two poles of reality, and you can't be progressive without using them both.

[steppenwolfsayshi]

Mr. Shireman,
I didn't have time to comment before, sorry. I think you're article is very important because I believe that getting beyond ideology is as George Orwel explained in On the Way to Wigan Pier, a type of moral imperative, and that ideology is a type of moral laziness. I suggest that everyone read this book. Orwel was and remains the greatest political critic of our time. He was a socialist but he saw the harm that socialist, like Stalin, that held too closely to their ideology were doing.

I think that the radical center will eventually become a new party. Most of the country (60%) have moderate opinions. If we joined forces and get over our labels of Democrat and Republican, then we can start to have our voices heard. Of course there will be compromises on both sides, but it will be better than the compromises we are currently making by staying in our party and be controlled by the "idiots."

[Bill Shireman - Huffpost Blogger]

I hope you're right - we're in need of a major realignment.

[RonInCharlotte]

Centrism leads to political laziness. Most of the independents vote the way they were raised to vote and unless they find their own path they don't really care. That's why they go back and forth between parties or candidates. Because they don't really care. It's all about how you present the message. The real message is watered down. As long as the majority are ignorant to the politics of this country and refuse to understand why we are where we are because American Idol is on, then the greedy elite (regardless of which party's politicians they buy) will continue to rob us of our money and freedom. People who are concerned enough to read and study are the people who will have to stand up for Freedom!

[DemocraticVoter]

Well said.

[KevinCasey filmcritic]

Reminds me of the underlying thesis in "Network" (1976): What happens when ratings dictate the kind of information that is broadcast?

Answer: People are only told what they want to hear.

[Lulu-1]

Absolutely, the Democrats do need to be more vocal, more outraged at the idiots on the right - and call them on it.

Barney will forever have a home in my heart.

[Lulu-1]

Mr. Shireman ~ open your eyes ~ what you just described is the Democratic Party.

[Bill Shireman - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm afraid not. I'm working on both health care and on climate legislation, and I know first hand that there are many Democrats, in office and in positions of power, who are quite consciously choosing to leverage fear top drive a partisan divide on those issues, knowing that they will likely sacrifice good policy but perhaps be able to demonize the GOP and win specific elections as a result. Their thinking is not illogical, or even entirely unethical - if THEY didn't do that, others on the right would do it to THEM. They need a radical centrist force, to give them a political advantage for supporting smart policy.

Like it or not, neither party is enough. We need a third force.

[Opygollopy]

You are correct. One aspect of this which is unfolding is the implosion of the Republican Party. They must stop the lies and fear mongering in this day and age because they will end up the way of the Whigs. Their statements are being factually debunked within minutes. They are beginning to lose all credibility.

Now, Conyers, Grassley, Orin Hatch, et. al. are recommending 75 to 80 votes for health care reform. It is outrageous. They are not going to vote for reform, you know it and all America knows it. This reform is going to have to be gained in bits and pieces for anything meaningful to be attained.

Beck and the rest are ensuring that the Republicans will destroy themselves and they are not even aware of the damage they are doing to their own party. Thats how far their idiocy has taken them. They are blind to their own self-destruction.

Americans (at least 70% of them) are smarter than they are given credit. Republicans' shelf life is almost expired if they continue on this road. So, in essence, America does need another centrist party to take up the large hole that the existing minority is going to leave.

[AverageJosef]

Prior third party efforts were tragic. Does anyone remember the Ross Perot derived (and abandoned) third party? Eeech. BTW, we do have many parties in the USA, its just that the money is tied up in the Democratic and Republican party and so goes the visibility.

Now what Shiremen seems to describe is, dare I say it, the elitist party. Those Platonic philosopher kings that would leverage their keen non-emotional intellect to decide the 'common' good.

You do know that some issues should not be 'centrist' and one must be willing to sacrifice everything for? Imagine if we approach slavery in a centrist manner. And, this is not only about being centrist, I know. Lets say candidate X is running and is very enlightened in his policy approaches for a group of issues Y. But, what if on issues Z this same candidate is really bonkers? How do you balance that? There have been people who were cool on some issues yet had some weird stuff they believed in and would act on, like Eugenics.

Nice idea though. Reminds me of efforts to have various unitive religions that are non-devisive and rational yet spiritual. Hmmmm. Weren't BO's grandparents Unitarian Universalists? Wow, maybe there is a 3rd party already, and their candidate won. Just kidding.

[BurtonOerney]

Slavery was approached in a centrist manner - at least in the way you're using the word. A constitutional ammendment takes two thirds of congress. You don't get that without giving something up or by demonizing other political parties.

Ross Perot, by the way, ran the most succesful independent campaign at least in the 20th century.

[Bill Shireman - Huffpost Blogger]

The term centrist is wrong for what I'm advocating, and I don't know what to replace it with. I'm not advocating we split down the middle. I'm saying there is wisdom in both the yin and yang, left and right, masuline and feminine, and the best approach is to combine them together - not cut them in half. "Radical centrism" means taking the best ideas of both.

That's not elitist - we're not relying on a privileged minority. Anyone who is inspired to move beyond simplistic ideologies can become informed on issues, and join the radical center. Most people are pretty sensible, given a chance. But right now, there is no structure that rewards good sense, and plenty of demagogues who reward nonsense.

And definitely, it cannot be a third party. Nader gave the election to Bush, and Perot probably gave it to Clinton. This political force needs to force the two parties to focus on solutions, not divisions.

[cyndeewi]

Speak for yourself. I am not a idiot, not even part-time.

[Bill Shireman - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm glad to hear SOMEONE has achieved perfection! As for me, I'm not there yet.

[MiddleRoadLiberal]

On the "third political movement" point, I was recently wondering if american politics would be better served by a third party that cropped up from the middle, or to the left. You would think a Centrist Party would be great, and it would, but the Democratic Party is really a Centrist party already -- just poorly organized. There really isn't a middle room between the Democrats and Republicans that isn't too far to the right. Instead, a (viable) party more liberal than the Democrats would force the Democrats towards a sensible, centrist position -- rather than automatically taking the left position (which would be the job of the new "idiot" party).

I would also like to hear your, Mr. Shireman, thoughts on the Third Way movement. You know, the one spearheaded by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. The Democratic Party as a whole still generally subscribes to the Third Way philosophy, and that is a major reason why conservatives are moving further to the right and that traditionally very much centrist positions are viewed as, or painted as, "far-left." People assume that if the GOP is far-right, then their opposition has to be far-left, and in the case of the Democratic Party that is definitely not true. Not having a far-left party actually hurts our political discourse.

[Bill Shireman - Huffpost Blogger]

You make a good point - though it's hard enough to stomach powerful idiots on the right, and I think I'd go mad if the left had an idiot with the power of Rush Limbaugh. But at least it might force people to knowingly enter the "center."

I supported the Third Way movement, but it was a flawed strategy, because it split one of the parties in two, weakening it. Rather than splitting an existing party, my proposed strategy is to draw people from both major parties, thus holding the balance of power. It's an elegant approach that undermines narrow, shallow, ideological thinking, and rewards solutions. The only problem is that it doesn't yet exist.

[MiddleRoadLiberal]

http://www.uscentrist.org/

I found that website a while ago. It doesn't have much support and is pretty much unknown, but it would be one heck of a party if realized. It has great resources and descriptions of the centrist position on many issues, though.

[tiredlady]

The only things found in the center are double yellow lines, and a dead skunk. The left cannot sit quiet while the right drives this country off a cliff.
"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, preserved their neutrality." Dante Alighieri

[INQUISITION11]

I thought the the left was driving now.

[tiredlady]

Not while the 'party of no' delays, derails, and denies every issue and problem that needs to be dealt with honestly.

[LeftLeanWing]

They are but the Right is stuck in the tailpipe and p!ssing in the gas tank.

[Beegood]

It sure doesn't seem that way to me.

[cobaltbluedog]

Good quote. Thanks, tiredlady.

[BurtonOerney]

Really? Nobody bats an eye that a 13th century Italian poet would say this? As far as I know, people who did neither good nor bad things lived on the other side of the Styx from Hell. They spent their time being stung by insects and chasing floating flags.

In fact, in Dante's hell, the last circle before you're getting chewed on by the big guy himself is an ice level.

[Bill Shireman - Huffpost Blogger]

What I'm advocating is not neutrality - it's a radical integration of right and left. My analogy is walking - step only with your right foot, or only with your left foot, and you'll just go in circles. Step left, then right, and you move forward. Yin and yang need each other.