Hiding in Plane Sight: How the Right Uses 'Fair and Balanced' to Normalize Their Extremist Views

And why the rest of us must stop politely listening to these views as if they have a place in a civilized society.

Courtesy of Blue Desert

We don’t need to yell or lose our tempers. Self-preservation, regulated blood pressure, and the appearance of other adverse bodily reactions dictate that we take actions that leave us neither injured nor endangered by the opposing force. Earplugs. Sticking fingers into our ears or donning noise-reducing headphones can help.

The shortlist of solutions I am offering here should be used when a MAGidiot/Trumpist/Foxified American begins their roll call of lunacy and extremism. What has happened to us that we now permit so many people around us in our daily lives to spout out utter and sheer crazy under the guise that their views are normal? Under the pretext that “he is exercising his First Amendment rights?” 

When I was growing up, and I am sure many here reading this, I recall there being a local “crazy person.” Times have since moved on, and calling someone the local “crazy” is no longer acceptable, and rightly so. Nonetheless, we all know the people to whom I refer. They hung endlessly around town, walking up and down Main Street, shouting conspiracy theories at anyone who would listen. Sometimes, we could find them in the local watering hole. 

“Oh boy, Ed’s in rare form tonight. You need to water down his drinks a bit more.” 

Today, “Ed” and the Main Street-walker are well-respected Trumpists. They are now holding court, and people of all ages are listening to them, nodding and thinking, “He might be onto something…but it sure does sound crazy.” Not sure if Ed is right, you go home and turn on Fox News, and there it is: Ed’s talking points are coming out of the mouths of the Fox News hosts and even their guests. The extremism has been normalized not in a way that sands down the rough edges, shellacking it nicely to make it more pleasing to the eye, but in the frequency that the extremist views are aired and reported as being just slight alterations of the views held by Democrats.

Democratic view: government-sponsored health care for all is good for the country.

Right-wing view: government-sponsored health care will make America communist, crush our liberty, and lead to death squads. 

The first view is defensible and potentially offers a rationale for why it can be true. There are a multitude of arguments for supporting the necessity of government-sponsored health care. The counter view manipulated by the right under the guise that it is a “balanced and fair” view says that such a government-run program will turn Americans into slaves, ruin the country, and lead to death squads. This view is what our barfly Ed used to go on about in between beers and shots. 

The narrative of death squads is the stuff that the guy on Main Street would be shouting at the mailbox near the library, having mistaken it for a passerby, but now that “balanced” view is being sold in the form of expert knowledge by “respectable” people in brilliantly-produced and presented TV news on Fox and other channels. When Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the house and author of countless books on history, says matter-of-factly what Ed is saying and tells us that this view is nothing but the other side of the coin and not the far-out, off-the-deep-end extremist crap that it is, most people don’t have enough time in the day to run a Google search to see if what he is saying is true or not let along head off to the library and do some research. 

We have all argued with spouses who reach for the ridiculous when they feel they are losing the tiff — we have all done it ourselves. If you are inexperienced in such marital spats, you react emotionally to the absurd accusation, and the fight becomes more heated. As a Sagittarian, I struggle to let unfair accusations made by desperate argument opponents just bounce off of me. It is one of those things that many Sagittarians I know complain about. We will fight to our last breath to prove we were right or the accusation was unfair. However, multiple marriages have trained me to now bail on arguments before they get to the ridiculous zone — although it still sometimes happens.

The relationship between “us,” the Americans whose views can be considered liberal (sane), and the right-wing, the other half of the country, whose extremism is now accepted as a balanced view and just the rational, opposing view, is like the relationship between a married couple trapped in that stage when every tiff immediately turns into racing hearts, dry mouths, and hysterics. In a marriage, divorce is often the only option when proving right and wrong becomes the most evening ritual. A divorce for a country holds the prospect of being a lot uglier and violent. 

Is there a way to demand that the extremist crap thrown at us daily from Republican members of Congress, the entirety of right-wing media, and Trump stop? Can we somehow get back to an honest discussion of what is happening and what needs to be done to make life better, kinder, and healthier? I know that my question is rhetorical, if not naive. 

My desperation, however, forces me to be so silly at this moment. Since Trump came into our lives, despots and authoritarian leaders have become the trend. Is this a coincidence? Climate change is no longer manageable, and we are now marching with sweat pouring down our backs toward our end — or am I, too, now slipping into the extreme to prove my point? 

Maybe I am, and maybe I am not, but we will never know because the sane and reasonable alternative to my views is something no one ever hears or discusses. After all, the right rejects it. Instead, they push Ed forward as the primary spokesperson, and then we stop listening, get dry-mouthed, and want to kick over a garbage can or something.