More on subjective reality

Great post from The Anonymous Liberal on what he calls the GOP's Pied Piper problem. I would suggest that this problem extends beyond the GOP, and is something that the Religious Right has also employed. Whenever expertise or knowledge or evidence is counter to belief, "pay no attention" and just listen to OUR expert.

"For last decade and half, the Republican party has pursued an intentional strategy of insulating its base from reality. The goal has been to create a permanent block of loyal Republican voters who will dutifully internalize whatever the party's leaders tell them.

To accomplish this, the Republican political machine has engaged in a relentless and systematic assault on all of the institutions in our society that have traditionally served as arbiters of truth. They have attacked the press, the judiciary, academia, and even science itself. And they've been remarkably successful; we've now reached a point where much of the Republican base simply refuses to believe anything that doesn't come from a trusted partisan outlet.

Any unpleasant news reports can be dismissed as the product of liberal media bias. Any inconvenient studies can be explained away as the work of godless academic elitists. And any adverse court rulings can be chalked up to liberal judicial activism. In short, if it didn't come from the mouth of Rush Limbaugh or the President himself, it's automatically suspect.

I'm sure the architects of this strategy thought it was ingenious. It would create a loyal and reliable base of voters who were, for all intents and purposes, impervious to reality and who would simply accept whatever the party's leaders told them."