Alas, the reason I've avoided addressing your argument (as you put it) is that it would require me to be ruder than I'd like. You're being polite (to me), so let's see if we can work around that.
Your whole vision of the way "the right-wing media" "controls the message" could uncharitably be described as a "conspiracy theory," a term I'd like to avoid (not least because real conspiracies do exist in real history). It's perhaps more neutral to say that it has nothing to do with reality.
The reason that American conservatives believe the things they believe is that those things seem obvious to them, and no one has yet succeeded in convincing them otherwise. In the long term (by your "decades" definition) we see a gradual retreat, as you can see from evidence like this:
(Yes, in 1963 it seemed obvious to an overwhelming majority of Californians that segregated housing was a good idea. Fortunately, the new enlightened Californians have proved them wrong with the enlightened rainbow society we've created. If only 1963 could see how great California is today! Ha, ha, ha.)
Fox News is an entirely demotic, grass-roots organization. Its goal is to make money, and it makes money by showing its viewers a reality they find credible. You could say it reinforces their existing beliefs, but even this would be ascribing some conspiratorial intent beyond making money. Murdoch sure does make a lot of that.
It's only the American left that has genuine leadership institutions which work to frame the debate. There is no right-wing Harvard. There is no right-wing New York Times. There are various small scattered circles of intellectuals, generally poorly funded. The only professional conservatives are neoconservatives, ie, post-Trotskyists. Nothing at all survives of either McCarthyism or isolationism, the two even remotely effective oppositions to the New Deal heritage - both comical by pre-20th century standards, American or European. In short, American conservatism is a pathetic joke, and any liberal who worries about it is a paranoid.
Why do so many liberals have this vision of Dr. Evil cleverly twisting the minds of innocent Ohioans? In a word, projection. It is simply impossible for the liberal to fathom how pathetic and inept his so-called opponents are. In part this is because he wants to think of himself as the oppressed underdog, rather than the ruling establishment.
Here's a wonderful example of the "framing" mentality I recently found, in the wild, by a respected and intelligent commenter on the extremely erudite Crooked Timber:
But I’d say, just because affirmative action is a lonely and isolated victory doesn’t mean we should abandon it. I also think that fighting for other lonely and isolated victories is… the best we can do. This is basically what I took away from MLK’s letter from a Birmingham prison. We are never really going to get the apathetic white moderates on board with a radical change, but we can hope to somehow create a new more radical status quo and then over time get apathetic white moderates on board with what’s now the status quo. So each policy we manage to get enacted is shaky and not well-supported for, like, 50 years. Then it will have become normal enough that we can repaint the landscape: the policy will probably still be contentious, but if we gradually repaint things right, it will be the people trying to undo the policy that will look like radicals.
I find this an extremely representative picture of the complexity and deviousness of the 20th-century American "liberal" mind. You're playing 3-D chess. Your opponents are playing tic-tac-toe, and not very good tic-tac-toe at that. Is it possible that if you can first overcome your fear, you can later learn to overcome your hatred?
Your whole vision of the way "the right-wing media" "controls the message" could uncharitably be described as a "conspiracy theory," a term I'd like to avoid (not least because real conspiracies do exist in real history). It's perhaps more neutral to say that it has nothing to do with reality.
The reason that American conservatives believe the things they believe is that those things seem obvious to them, and no one has yet succeeded in convincing them otherwise. In the long term (by your "decades" definition) we see a gradual retreat, as you can see from evidence like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_14_(1963...
(Yes, in 1963 it seemed obvious to an overwhelming majority of Californians that segregated housing was a good idea. Fortunately, the new enlightened Californians have proved them wrong with the enlightened rainbow society we've created. If only 1963 could see how great California is today! Ha, ha, ha.)
Fox News is an entirely demotic, grass-roots organization. Its goal is to make money, and it makes money by showing its viewers a reality they find credible. You could say it reinforces their existing beliefs, but even this would be ascribing some conspiratorial intent beyond making money. Murdoch sure does make a lot of that.
It's only the American left that has genuine leadership institutions which work to frame the debate. There is no right-wing Harvard. There is no right-wing New York Times. There are various small scattered circles of intellectuals, generally poorly funded. The only professional conservatives are neoconservatives, ie, post-Trotskyists. Nothing at all survives of either McCarthyism or isolationism, the two even remotely effective oppositions to the New Deal heritage - both comical by pre-20th century standards, American or European. In short, American conservatism is a pathetic joke, and any liberal who worries about it is a paranoid.
Why do so many liberals have this vision of Dr. Evil cleverly twisting the minds of innocent Ohioans? In a word, projection. It is simply impossible for the liberal to fathom how pathetic and inept his so-called opponents are. In part this is because he wants to think of himself as the oppressed underdog, rather than the ruling establishment.
Here's a wonderful example of the "framing" mentality I recently found, in the wild, by a respected and intelligent commenter on the extremely erudite Crooked Timber:
But I’d say, just because affirmative action is a lonely and isolated victory doesn’t mean we should abandon it. I also think that fighting for other lonely and isolated victories is… the best we can do. This is basically what I took away from MLK’s letter from a Birmingham prison. We are never really going to get the apathetic white moderates on board with a radical change, but we can hope to somehow create a new more radical status quo and then over time get apathetic white moderates on board with what’s now the status quo. So each policy we manage to get enacted is shaky and not well-supported for, like, 50 years. Then it will have become normal enough that we can repaint the landscape: the policy will probably still be contentious, but if we gradually repaint things right, it will be the people trying to undo the policy that will look like radicals.
http://crookedtimber.org/2012/04/14/needless-to-say-part-ii/...
I find this an extremely representative picture of the complexity and deviousness of the 20th-century American "liberal" mind. You're playing 3-D chess. Your opponents are playing tic-tac-toe, and not very good tic-tac-toe at that. Is it possible that if you can first overcome your fear, you can later learn to overcome your hatred?