The Liberal Bubble
I was surprised by Trump’s success because I’ve slipped into a bad pattern, spending large chunks of my life in the bourgeois strata — in professional circles with people with similar status and demographics to my own.
-David Brooks
What we do know is that people like me, and probably like most readers of The New York Times, truly didn’t understand the country we live in.
-Paul Krugman, Nov 8, 2016 
On Friday's The 11th Hour, for about 30 seconds, Brian Williams did something that is rare for him and other journalists to do as he admitted that the national news media live in a liberal bubble, mostly interact with others who are in the same bubble, and are therefore out of touch with a mostly red country.
-Brad Wilmouth
On the morning of November 9, 2016, America’s elite—its talking and deciding classes—woke up to a country they did not know. To most privileged and well-educated Americans, especially those living in its bicoastal bastions, the election of Donald Trump had been a thing almost impossible even to imagine.
What sort of country would go and elect someone like Trump as president? Certainly not one they were familiar with, or understood anything about.
-Nicholas N. Eberstadt
The Bubble
Saturday Night Live
In The Bubble, life continues for progressive Americans as if the election never happened.
Election, Character, Crazy, Demagoguery, Academia, Trump
Professors at Columbia University want space to discuss their “distress” over Donald Trump’s election, saying they don’t know anyone who isn’t “chronically and deeply” upset by the result.
In a letter to Columbia President Lee Bollinger, professors Robert Pollack and Letty Moss-Salentijn, the co-chairs of the Columbia Faculty Affairs Committee, say Trump’s election has cast a “malaise that sits like a fog over Columbia” that not even George Orwell’s classic 1984 can adequately address.
“We know no one at Columbia who is not upset, chronically and deeply, since the election,” declare Pollack and Moss-Salentijn, who even go so far as to blame the result for recent student suicides.
We hear how he does not listen to criticism - he sometimes just walks out of the room...
-Richard Cohen
Washington is thick with stories about Obama’s insularity and distance.
We hear how he does not listen to criticism — he sometimes just walks out of the room — and how he sticks to a tight circle of friends.
Barack Obama: Stuck In New York Times Cocoon...
Back In April, we learned though a former White House advisor speaking to The New Republic, that “There’s only one paper the president reads, that’s The New York Times.” In a new book, MSNBC editor Richard Wolffe paints a portrait of a president obsessed with the opinion of the Times’ editorial page.
After each negative editorial “the president would summon his communications team to discuss the critical coverage,” Wolffe writes.
Forget the fact that the idea of a sitting president being so myopic, bubbled, and unwilling to consider alternate opinion is a little scary; what all of this might help to explain is why some are wondering if the New York Times is running the White House’s frantic and widely criticized Syria policy.
Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Character, Funny, Oops
While aboard Air Force One at the end of the 2012 campaign, Jarrett turned to Obama and told him, “Mr. President, I don’t understand how you’re not getting eighty-five percent of the vote.”
Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Brilliance, Narrative, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Regulation, Jobs
Karen Mills, President Obama's Small Business Administration chief, claimed this morning on MSNBC that she has not heard one case of Obamacare hurting small business:
"You know, I travel all around the country, every week I go to a different part of the country. I'm with small businesses. And I'm not hearing that," Mills said in response to a question about how she would explain employers cutting work hours for employees because of Obamacare regulations.
"You've never heard that?" host Joe Scarborough responded. "You need to talk to your staff and tell them to get you out of the bubble, because we are hearing that all the time." Mills continue, "We are out there every single day--" And then Scarborough, still surprised, interrupted to ask again, "Have you never heard that before?"
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Character, Press
President Obama said during Wednesday’s remarks in Illinois that he hears from members of the media all the time that his economic plans are solid... But behind-the-scenes, Mr. Obama said these reporters tell a different story — one that’s much more complimentary in tone. “I know because they’ve said so,” Mr. Obama said, in The Hill. “But they worry they’ll face swift political retaliation for cooperating with me.”
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Editorial, Liberal, Obama, Brilliance, Oops
It turns out that Obama supporters hate his policies. The nonpartisan group We are Change took to the streets to interview Obama supporters regarding his policies. However, it listed four of Obama’s actual policies as has having been proposed by Romney.
It turns out that these Obama supporters vehemently oppose his policies when they think they belong to the GOP candidate.
The first example was Obama’s expansion of the Patriot Act (including “spying”). Responses ranged from: “He’s going to far with this,” to “I don’t believe the government should be able to invade our privacy like that.” Next, the interviewer asked about the National Defense Authorization Act, signed by President Obama. He explains that this act would grant Obama the power to arrest and detain American citizens without a court of law. Responses included “Unconstitutional and immoral,” “Crazy,” and “I think [Romney] is a psychopath.”
Democrat Women More Likely To Block
Friends Due To Political Views
Covering Their Ears
As the men discussed The Journal News’ recent decision to publish the names and addresses of pistol permit holders in two New York Counties, Terrell became so frustrated by Hannity’s questioning that he literally covered his ears and refused to respond.
The More Time They Spend In School, The Less They Understand...
Unfortunately, today’s liberals are so cocooned in their own media and higher education bubbles that they have no idea what their conservative compatriots even believe.
But while a person’s level of education made no difference when Republicans estimated what Democrats believe, the more time Democrats spent in school, the worse they did at identifying what Republicans believed.
A Lack of Knowledge or Understanding...
Denizens of red America need only turn on the TV, watch Hollywood movies, listen to popular music, follow major league sports, or send their kids to public schools and most any college or university in the country to encounter progressives’ flattering self-portraits and their airbrushed depictions of the progressive spirit in action.
In contrast, residents of blue America generally only know of red America through the condescending lens of progressive reporting, opining, and imagining.
In the absence of unusual exertions, blue America operates based on a caricature of red America.
Blue America: An Alternate Reality...
I've been in USA for 6 weeks and spent time in Texas, Florida, Maine, New York, DC, Maryland, and Hawaii.
I can confirm that the level of Covid hysteria is infinitely higher in blue states/cities. They're living in an alternate 'reality'.
Doesn't Have Any GOP Friends
Seattle City Council member assures crowd she doesn't have any GOP friends. Crowd cheers. https://t.co/yPPAHwMVNz
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) June 4, 2017
"I understand why the Republicans get 1 percent of the vote - the richest 1 percent. That other 49 percent, someone will have to explain to me."
Democrat, Liberal, Oops, Stereotyping, Biden
Vice President Joe Biden said he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1972, his first term elected at age 29, because he opposed the Vietnam war, adding that his view of U.S. military commanders at the time was epitomized by actor Slim Pickens in the movie “Dr. Strangelove,” when Pickens rides an atomic bomb like a cowboy “yelling yippe ki-yay!”
"Really, I have my hands over my ears. Not listening."
-New York Times Columnist Gail Collins
ABC, CBS and NBC have so far refused to report the latest bombshell in the IRS scandal - a newly released list from the agency that showed it flagged political groups for "anti-Obama rhetoric."
-Geoffrey Dickens
Journalists In The Liberal Bubble...
In a curious process of self-delusion, they imagine a world that doesn't exist and then try to live in it.
For example, they don't know what cops face in the ghetto because they have never been in the ghetto and don't know any cops.
They dismiss anyone who tells them that things are not as they think. Their confidence is invincible, for do not all their friends say the same things?
Liberal, Funny, Oops, Press
O'Brien also answered critics who complain about what they perceive to be a left-wing bias in her reporting. "I don't think I show bias in my TV show. I think I am aggressive with people about trying to find the facts behind what they say," O'Brien said.
Liberal, Character, Funny, Brilliance, Academia, Elitism, Religion, Stereotyping, Ignorance
If you want to understand how evangelicals conceive of their political life, you need to understand how they think about God... As I listened in church and participated in prayer groups, I saw that when people prayed, they imagined themselves in conversation with God...
But the good news for secular liberals is that evangelicals are smarter and more varied than many liberals realize. I met doctors, scientists and professors at the churches where I studied.
New York Times Columnist Has Her Hands Over Her Ears...
I can’t believe fiscal conservatives think either of those options is a good idea. Really, I have my hands over my ears. Not listening.
Liberal, Narrative
In 1972, The New Yorker's movie critic, Pauline Kael, won herself a place in political lore by expressing astonishment at the Republicans' 49-state landslide victory. "How could that be?" she demanded. "I don't know a single person who voted for Nixon."
Environmentalist, Warming, Narrative, Oops
NPR failed to mention anywhere in its article that Antarctic sea ice has been growing since satellites first began measuring the ice 33 years ago and the sea ice has been above the 33-year average throughout 2012. Indeed, none of the mainstream media are covering this important story. A Google News search of the terms Antarctic, sea ice and record turns up not a single article on the Antarctic sea ice record.
A Blind Eye
If you don’t know who Kermit Gosnell is, that’s because you read the New York Times and Politico.com, and you watch network news. Gosnell is a Philadelphia abortionist who’s currently on trial for murder. Multiple counts.
Liberal, Narrative, Oops, Education
Tammy Bruce: Yes, it was; it was shocking. For me it was quite life-changing in my sense of how I viewed the world and I was also, when it comes to my view of Christians, quite surprised by how happy they were.
I mean, I remember being on the left; no one is happy, trust me. They (are the) biggest group of miserable people you would ever want to meet.
Everything is wrong, everything is going bad, everyone is after you, everyone wants to get you, people are building camps.
Liberals Refusing To See The World The Way It Is...
My journalist pal said that he’s seeing on the left a moralistic refusal even to consider ideas, people, and data that contradict these leftists’ moral code.
Understand: it’s not that this new breed of progressives disagrees (though they do); it’s that they believe, and believe strongly, that even to confront information that contradicts what they prefer to believe is intolerable.
Said my friend: “No wonder these people are always shocked by the latest developments in politics. They refuse to see the world as it is.”
Ugly, lock step, incurious and mean-spirited...
My best friend, with whom I typically hung out multiple times per week, was suddenly perpetually unavailable. Finally, on Christmas Eve, he sent me a long text, calling me a monster, asking where my heart and soul went, and saying that all our other friends are laughing at me.
I realized that, for the first time in my adult life, I was outside of the liberal bubble and looking in.
What I saw was ugly, lock step, incurious and mean-spirited.
Meet The Christians...
One group of people we didn’t know well, to be honest, was conventional Christians. I saw their narrative as limiting and judgmental.
But when I examined my feelings, they made no sense. My Jewish, Muslim and, for that matter, vegan friends could be just as dogmatic. This was a particular bias, the kind I claimed not to have.
Hermetically sealed against any non-left dissent...
The elites, increasingly sequestered within one political party and one media monoculture, educated by colleges and private schools that have become hermetically sealed against any non-left dissent, have had a “social justice reckoning” these past few years.
And they have been ideologically transformed, with countless cascading consequences.
Academia: Liberal Echo Chamber
In its insularity and single-mindedness, academe is also very similar to a fundamentalist religion (or, dare I say, cult), and thus those who abdicate often feel compelled to confess.- Rebecca Schuman
They Just Don't Understand...
"I don’t understand. You’re so smart; how can you be a Republican?"
As I got to know my new Midwest home, I realize how living in a bubble and subscribing to the Middle America stereotypes is truly damaging to this country.
Acceptable Prejudices
"And it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," Obama said.
Stepping Back and Questioning the Hate...
You see, I was one of those Democrats who considered anyone who voted for Trump a racist. I thought they were horrible (yes, even deplorable) and worked very hard to eliminate their voices from my spaces by unfriending or blocking people who spoke about their support of him, however minor their comments.
I watched a lot of MSNBC, was convinced that everything he had done was horrible, that he hated anyone who wasn’t a straight white man, and that he had no redeeming qualities.
But when I witnessed the amount of hate coming from the left in this small, niche knitting community, I started to question everything.
Yet another new survey shows that Republican supporters know more about politics and political history than Democrats.
On eight of 13 questions about politics, Republicans outscored Democrats by an average of 18 percentage points, according to a new Pew survey titled “Partisan Differences in Knowledge.”
The Pew survey adds to a wave of surveys and studies showing that GOP-sympathizers are better informed, more intellectually consistent, more open-minded, more empathetic and more receptive to criticism than their fellow Americans who support the Democratic Party.
The elite are supposed to be educated. So why are they so silly? Ah! There is a clue. That word ‘educated’.
What does ‘educated’ mean today? It doesn’t mean they know a lot about the world. It means they have been injected with the views and assumptions of their teachers. They have been taught by people who themselves have little experience of the real world. They have been indoctrinated with certain ideas.
-James Bartholomew
While the media-academia complex fixated on social justice, exit polls showed the most important issue for Trump voters was the economy.
But, as professor Liz Swan decried in Psychology Today, we made "ignorant presumptions about how others are feeling or thinking without even having a conversation with them."
-Mark Grabowski
A woman in her fifties, wearing a Love Trumps Hate button, turned to her Brooklyn-bearded husband and said loudly, “This is unbelievable!”
She found the nearest store clerk, a young woman in a green apron who was staring up at the ceiling, looking for the invisible speakers blaring this message from the other America.
“This is so inappropriate,” the woman said. “Can we turn this off?”
- David Marcus, Why People Lost Their Minds When A Brooklyn Store Played ‘Sweet Home Alabama’