Up w/ Chris Hayes for 10/29/2011

This is a really important clip from Up w/ Chris Hayes on October 29, 2011. The Occupy Wall Street rallies started out to be a response to the clear and extreme income inequality that has been allowed to develop in what used to be middle class America. But the unprovoked police brutality especially in Oakland, CA has clearly shown a lot of white, middle class demonstrators that they will be treated by the police as though they were criminal trash simply because they are identified as not wealthy.

Chris discusses this with his guests Heather McGhee (Demos.org) and Ta-Nehisi Coates (TheAtlantic.com) in the first ten minutes of the first segment of his Satarday show.

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This is the second hour of the same discussion.

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The cable news networks viewers have interesting demographics

Daily Kos Commissioned and reported the results of a nationwide poll of who watches the three major cable news networks, MSNBC, CNN and FOX. The results tell us a lot about modern America. Here is their analysis:

Cable news networks have a level of influence that far exceeds their audience, since their actual audience is actually quite small. Most people simple don't watch cable news networks, but the ones that do are generally influentials.

Republicans watch Fox News and nothing else, Democrats split between MSNBC and CNN, and Independents watch nothing. MSNBC, in particular, depends on Democrats for the vast majority of its audience. One would think they'd realize this and get rid of Joe Scarborough to boost its morning ratings.

The South, unlike the rest of the country, appears to have their TV dials stuck on "FOX NEWS". Except for the youth, that is. 82 percent of 18-29-year-old respondents never watched FNC.

We then asked, "When it comes to accuracy and trustworthiness as a source of news would you say that [Media Org] is extremely reliable, reliable, unreliable, or extremely unreliable?"

Combining "extremely reliable" and "reliable", and "unreliable" and "extremely unreliable", Fox News clocked in at 35-41. Republicans (and the South) obviously think they're the word of god, while Democrats think it's shit.

CNN came in at 44-34. For Republicans, it was 20-61. They actually believe all that crap about the "Communist News Network". CNN garnered good numbers from Democrats (56-20) and Independents (48-30). Again, the South (28-53) was at odds with the rest of the country, which generally gave the network high marks for accuracy and trustworthiness.

As for MSNBC, Democrats gave it the highest marks (37-7), followed by Independents (24-16). Republicans, of course, think the network is crap -- 6-31. MSNBC was easily the least-recognized network of the bunch, with 60 percent of respondents unable to give an opinion. That "not sure" number was only 22 percent for CNN, and 24 percent for FNC.

The fact that the audiences are small but consist of influentials suggests that watching cable news is something done by the more well-to-do upper class groups of people. The fact that the audiences are small confirms that the mass news media on cable TV has broken down into niche markets. So this is a report on an upper class (probably upper middle) consisting of influentials and it's also a report on which media outlets cater to the different categories in that class.

The fact that the South is FOX territory tends to confirm my own belief that the conflict between what are politically labelled conservatives and liberals is actually a culture clash between rural traditionalists and urban modernists. These two cultures are socialized differently and in fact even think differently.

It's clear from the political clashes between them that the two groups consider very different issues to be of greatest priority for America, and the way each group treats government is an outgrowth of those different ways of thinking and different priorities. I find it no surprise, for example, that the rural traditionalists are also exclusionists - thus the immigration issue, and the modernists support diversity.

Traditionalists are not fact based. They think in terms of what the traditional authorities tell them is true. They will not be swayed by facts, no matter how obvious. I'd suspect that FOX News has made themselves into one of those authorities, along with Church leaders and high level political authorities like the President. This latter is probably why putting a liberal Democrat 0r worse, an African American, into the position of President is considered the equivalent to lese majeste or worse. That's why electing Clinton over George H. W. Bush, a member of an old-line upper class family, was so emotionally upsetting to so many conservatives. Clinton's enemies had to redeem the Presidency from his presence.

No, I can't prove this, but it fits. It explains a pattern of facts that I have not seen otherwise adequately explained.

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Addendum 9/30/2009
I stated above that traditionalists are not fact based, but that I cannot prove it. A group of researchers, however, describe what they call Motivated Reasoning which is exactly what I was talking about.

Traditionalists have an emotional need to be "right" and so they reject facts that show they are not. Motivated Reasoning describes how they go about rejecting those facts they find uncomfortable. But where do they get the mistaken ideas they consider "right?" FOX News and the other Murdoch propaganda outlets as well as such right-wing propaganda organizations as Regent University, Liberty University, the Discovery Institute, the Heritage Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the CATO Institute and others.

Qualified Republican Presidential nominees "Well, does Fred Thompson at least smell manly?"

TRex over at Firedoglake points to Chris Matthews' comments regarding the potential Republican Presidential candidate Fred Thompson. Poor Chris. He is reduced to asking if Fred at least "smells manly." (Crooks and Liars has the video.) Give Chris credit. When there's not much to work with, Chris will work with what he has. That's what a good public relations flack does.

So Chris Matthews is reduced to trying to push Fred Thompson's Presidential candidacy based on the manliness of his smell, we viewers might well suspect that the FOX/MSNBC Republican machine (and its associated political party) has hit a spot of trouble in politics. Ya think?

Well, let's look at the situation.

The Republicans have a bench of potential nominees that even the Republicans can't stomach. Everyone is looking at Romni, Guilliani and McCain in incredulity, with Democrats saying "Thank you, God." and Republicans saying "Oh. My. God!"

When the best person on stage is an ancient crackpot Obstetrician (from the Texas District next to that of the disgraced Tom DeLay) whose claim to fame is a strong following among anti-government Libertarians and who is famous for regularly voting against the entire House of Representatives on basic things like the military budget, the phrase “Houston, we have a problem.” takes on all new level of meaning to Republicans.

But all is not lost. There is, somewhere deep in the Tennessee woods, a lobbyist, actor, one-term do-nothing ex-Senator with no significant credentials or accomplishments beyond appearing old and gruff. He is not known for standing for anything of any kind politically, and beyond being elected to the Senate during the Republican landslide of 1994, has zero political accomplishments. OK. Positive side – think “Political blank slate”. And he does have that tiny, perky little trophy wife about half his age with the cute giggle. Compared to the current potential Republican dwarfs, that's a real positive.

Of course, he makes depressed basset hounds look positively attractive, but who else is there? How do the Republican flacks repackage this utter political do-nothing vacuum into someone who desperate Republicans can vote for??

Well, how does he smell? Is it manly enough? That's what Chris Mathews is trying out. And why shouldn't he? Matthews has no reputation to protect, and he is as desperate as the rest of the Republicans to find someone or something better than the current crop of potential nominees.

If FOX and MSNBC can't somehow use the do-nothing cradle robbing ex-Senator lobbyist into a viable candidate who makes Republicans' hearts go pitty-pat -

(NO! Keep him away from Dick Cheney until after his surgery for his new defibrillator battery next Summer! What if the build-up works? Some people's hearts just can't DEAL with pitty-pat!)

- they may be forced to pull a wooden or fiberglass puppet out of the closet from somewhere. (Wooden IS preferred. It has to appeal to conservatives, after all.) Then Chris Matthews will be lauding the beauty of this new candidates' hinges while his handlers whisper urgently into his ear mike (Chris - don't talk about the strong, pretty strings!)

The lobbyist-actor Thompson with the remarkably unmanly name "Fred" is really the best they have. Expect to see the Wurlitzer to push him as hard as they can.

[ h/t to Glenn Greewald]