This has been true for decades. Having lived in twelve states, I've spent lots of times at restaurants, nearly all of them with bars. I'm not much of a drinker, but rather than sitting in a hotel room all night, staring at the tube (horror of horrors), I'd go out and find places that were crowded, sit at the bar and eat, maybe have a beer, and strike up conversations with complete strangers. You might say it was a study of sorts that went on for 20 years. The conversations would invariably wander into current affairs and the state of things. I'd had these conversations (still do even here in WV) with many thousands of people and the vast majority of them (I'd estimate 99%, give or take half a percent) were very much on the "conservative" side. This was even the case in places like Portland, Vancouver (WA), and Seattle, believe it or not. The lefties are very much a minority and the far left are rather few, but are abetted by Themme to make it appear as if they constituted some juggernaut of social justice swordsmen. That reminds me of the chicanery pulled by videographers and photographers when Biden was speaking to a crowd of maybe fifty people: they'd use a very shallow depth of field to make it look as if Brandon were standing before huge crowds. I remember seeing the wider angle of the same photos, revealing the truth. The man had no traction, and yet "won".
Anyhow... America is far more liberty oriented than the networks would have us believe. The propaganda machine should be stopped, but nobody seems willing to do it, yet the mechanisms are there. FCC rules for obtaining and keeping a broadcast license require that the broadcast content provide a "redeeming social value". Propaganda or any sort, even that with which I agree, fails. CNN could be silenced in short order. We don't have the guts or will, and so it goes.
But the bright spot is the internet, the rise of which I suspect Theye underestimated. My first internet experience was in 1977 at USC where I was introduced to internet relay chat. There was but a tiny handful of relays in N. America, a pair or three in Canada, and we used to speak with people at U. of Guelph. It is of some interest to note that the very same problems we see today in terms of poor manners and all that were evident even then. Someone would make a statement that "offended" someone, and it was off to the races, until a channel mod would /kick those needing a timeout. So it was a problem from the very first days. I mention this because these sorts of phenomena may have contributed to Theire mis-measuring the potential significance of the network. I can hear it now... "Jesus Fred, this internet thing will never amount to anything. I mean, just look at this chat log... some dick calling himself "osan" got into it with another dweeb calling himself "gumby"... they both got kicked off the channel for language and other uncivil behavior. This'll never catch on..."
But it did. Genie's out of the bottle and it's way too late to stuff it back in. This is our best instrument for organization and dissemination of information. It seems we are slowly learning to use it. Will it be enough?
