Doc Hoff’s BlogBlog Project | “Bipartisanship in 2019: Why Getting Along Should Make Headlines, But Doesn’t” by Leighton Trimarco
The #BlogBlogProject continues this fall as my National Agenda students read about issues facing Americans today. This blog, by University of Delaware Senior Leighton Trimarco, was voted as best of three weeks of blogs by her peers. Leighton is majoring in Public Policy with minors in Journalism, Legal Studies, and Political Communication. Her blog was written for an assignment for the course associated with annual speaker series National Agenda 2019: Direction Democracy.
I try to be as optimistic as possible when envisioning the future of our country, but it’s quite difficult to maintain that attitude when the day’s top political news stories are repeatedly riddled with conflict.
One of the long-standing traditions in my family is to start the day with a cup of coffee coupled with the newspaper. When I was younger, I remember the thrill of rushing downstairs in the morning to rummage through the comics that my parents would gloss over. I do my best to keep that tradition alive amid our modern news climate — though my phone or laptop has replaced the printed paper, sadly. And usually, the thrill comes mostly from the coffee now.
When consuming news, I like to examine coverage and analysis from a variety of sources to help keep my own bias in check; as a result, a plethora of newsletters hit my inbox each morning, ranging from CNN to Fox News. Recently, I even subscribed to The Flip Side daily newsletter, which provides a summation of informed perspectives on major issues from both the Right and Left (translation: The Flip Side pretty much does the work for you).
One morning, I was scanning the headlines as I typically do over a nice cup o’ joe, and that optimistic light continued to dim.
In just 24 hours, the types of headlines I was seeing were:
“O’Rourke, Buttigieg clash over gun policy… ” — NBC News
“Elizabeth Warren torches Trump’s sister …” — Vanity Fair
“Kamala Harris was ready to brawl from the beginning… ” — The New York Times
“Jesse Waters blasts Beto O’Rourke …” — Fox News
“Senate floor for showdown over Trump border wall …” — The Hill
“Ilhan Omar rips Trump’s tweet …” — Fox News
I mentioned these are all from a 24-hour period, right? Yeah, that’s pretty alarming to me. I need to know: Is anyone else tired of political news being eerily reminiscent a WWE fight? I think words like “clash,” “torches,” “brawl,” “blasts,” “showdown,” and “rips” are better equipped for WrestleMania coverage on Twitter, not The New York Times.
And even more importantly: Why does bipartisanship hardly make headlines?
This is, of course, a complex and multifaceted issue that I’m not sure has a definitive answer. However, based on readings and discussions so far in my National Agenda class, I have devised my own ideas as to why getting along is overshadowed in today’s political climate.
The first part of my theory has to do with the overwhelming success of polarized political commentary in media right now. Earlier this semester, we spoke with Dan Pfieffer, the well-known host of “Pod Save America.” He, along with his colleagues on the show, make it no secret that they are liberal in their political ideologies. In fact, their liberal commentary pulls in approximately 1.5 to 2 million listeners per episode. Then there’s Ben Shapiro’s wildly popular conservative podcast — “The Ben Shapiro Show” — that has hundreds of episodes and is consistently highly-rated.
Why are such divisive shows so popular? I think Jonathan Haidt hints at the psychological reasoning behind this in our required reading for this semester, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. In it, he uses an analogy of a rider and an elephant to describe humans’ reasoning (the rider) and intuitions (the elephant). Our elephants are the default systems that control the majority of our consciousness and decisions. Essentially, humans inherently favor things that “feel right” and appeal to our inner values. Therefore, when we hear commentary that aligns directly with our political ideologies, we naturally want to hear more of it.
In one Washington Post article, UD’s own professor, Dr. Danna Young, states how the success of two shows like these represents an “astounding level of political polarization in the United States right now.” As unfortunate as this may be, I do not think a political commentary show that was centered around bipartisanship, or sought to help mitigate the divide between the Right and Left, would pull in the same attention.
The other part of my theory is the increasingly prevalent “us-versus-them” mentality. In Trump’s America, people feel inclined to pick sides more than ever. I think this phenomenon is similar to how many plots unravel in movies and novels; when people perceive a “bad guy,” they must choose to be on the side of “good” rather than “evil.”
For Republicans, the Progressive Left (AOC perhaps?) is the bad guy, and party members can either band together with their party’s leader (President Trump) or run the risk of being cast out entirely. And the same goes for Democrats — Trump is the bad guy, and if you do not vehemently oppose his every move, then you might as well be on the side of evil.
I respect what guys like Ben Shapiro and the team at Crooked Media are doing on their respective platforms. Of course, it’s admirable to take a stand on the issues you are invested in. However, I really think our country could use some more of that middle-ground dialogue, especially in the news.
Even though it may not be the most shocking, or doesn’t attract the same amount of viewers, or isn’t as entertaining as WWE-type terminology…we need more content that can connect us rather than divide us. I strongly believe more common ground could help illuminate that optimistic light in all of us.
This blog was written by University of Delaware Senior, Leighton Trimarco.
