Triumphalism kills

Politico's Jonathan Martin examines the "Fox News-talk radio-Drudge Report axis," which contributed on an extraordinary scale to the right's dashed but ludicrous hopes:

[T]he consumer is now entirely in charge of what he or she sees each day and can largely shut out dissenting voices. It’s the great irony of the Internet era: People have more access than ever to an array of viewpoints, but also the technological ability to screen out anything that doesn’t reinforce their views.

I think it's important to loop back just once more to this earlier warning about the potential of an MSNBC bubble, too, which, indeed, is less a potential than it is a recent material fact.

Remember the Scott Walker Recall Affair? Did you watch MSNBC's amped-up, pre-recall-election coverage? Do you recollect the nightly confidence of the Nation's John Nichols or Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee or similar voices on the left? Gov. Walker was toast. Remember? Countless, reinforcing interviews by Schultz and Maddow and reels of B-roll of mountainously stacked signed petitions--yep, Walker's days were over. On MSNBC, any doubt of this looming reality ranged from little to none.

Until real reality hit on Recall Day, which is when MSNBC hosts belatedly discovered they'd been devoting too much time to left-wing journalist-activists who had spent all of their time talking to anti-Walker forces who were in turn being interviewed by overconfident MSNBC hosts, and so on. The votes were never there to oust Walker, and most of the polling had relentlessly confirmed that. Yet the left's hopes were high--unrealistically high--and that's why, post-recall, they very much resembled Dick Morris.

Beware the bubble.

Comments

[Peter G]

There is no gentle way to prick a bubble. During the Wisconsin recall election I was unwise enough to suggest that the expectation of the public service unions and their progressive supporters that the rest of the polity in Wisconsin was anxious to support them might be a little skewed. Why, I asked, would you expect those other people who, on average, have lower incomes, fewer or non-existent benefits or pension plans be anxious to leap to the defense of unionized public service employees which said others will be paying for through their taxes and from which they will derive nothing but a touch of personal satisfaction and the knowledge that Ed Shultz thinks they should?

[Turgidson]

Not to absolve Schultz and his merry band of pollyannas re: Walker, but I remember there being some evidence that the polls were tightening at the very end. I think the labor crowd seized on this to give them confidence the late surge a couple polls showed would put them over the top, since Walker's lead was always narrow. Of course, it wasn't to be.

This, however, is unlike the presidential election, where the tightening of the polls in Romney's favor ended, and then mildly reversed itself, weeks before election day, and it took a particularly strong dose of willful ignorance to believe so strongly otherwise.

So the Schultz optimism bubble was a bit more credible than the Romney/Fox bubble. Again, not to say they weren't overboard in their premature triumphalism - they should have known from the small but durable Walker lead throughout the campaign that the odds were against them at the very least.

[You Don't Say]

Does Martin mention Drudge specifically? (Please don't force me to read it.)Because Politico lives to be linked to by Drudge. If they did, that may be as much a sign as the story itself.

[AnneJ]

I'm a regular MSNBC watcher mostly of Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, and Chris Matthews. Sometimes it's a bit of an echo chamber, Chris is a bit manic, but he seems to be the one with the most republican guests on his show. I don't always like to watch, but I will tune in to hear what they have to say. Lawrence O'Donnell seems to be the one most grounded in reality, I remember when he used to sit in for Keith Olberman during the health care battles and before he had his own show. I really liked the way he explained the way congress works because he used to work there himself years ago. It got to the point where whenever Keith came back, I would find myself missing Lawrence's more soothing tone to make the reality go down easier. But sometimes Lawrence can be a bit off himself, like the time he interviewed an empty chair when George Zimmerman's lawyer canceled out a guest appearance at the last minute. (See Clint Eastwood wasn't the first). Luckily, after a long night at work I have Jon Stewart to tune into who makes fun of both sides (the right more than the left, but for good reason, I believe). I am also fortunate enough to have HBO so I can watch Bill Maher's show. He regularly does a segment called "Dispatches from the Bubble" which shows a republican or right wing talker spouting off nonsense in their echo chamber, but he also often warns of liberals living in a bubble themselves. And he's right. So, in a way, I feel that as a regular MSNBC viewer, I have the right wing town I live in, PM Carpenter, and the top court jesters to keep me from living in a bubble myself.