They're Just Not That Into You

Stemming the the Tide

Walt Disney’s Jiminy Cricket

CBS chief Bari Weiss wants MAGA and she thinks Joe Rogan is just the ticket. I'm old enough to remember the TV show The Wonderful World of Disney. You reluctantly knew the show was winding down when Jiminy Cricket came on and sang:

"Curiosity, people say

Killed the kitty cat

One fine day"

It's 1979 and a cartoon grasshopper is warning a whole generation Sibyl-like that wanting to know things is dangerous. The same people screaming the Communists (and later, the Muslims) are coming to get us were telling us to shut off our brains and shut up. Never mind certain people only a few years prior couldn’t ride on certain busses, or drink from certain fountains, and still couldn't go to certain schools, or marry, or even legally exist; meanwhile, there was a whole region carved up, lines delineating which country was which without consent and they were all kinda mad about it. Jiminy, how could you?

There is an aversion to curiosity inherent in conservative thought that cuts straight to the heart of a thing like white nationalism, homophobia, racism,  xenophobia, Project 25. A dislike of malleability and of facts not conducive to upholding an established perception of the way things are, stasis is foundational to conservatism. It is a worldview that cannot sustain newness, flexibility, unpredictability, difference. Anything that challenges the Self however that Self was formulated (whether by inheritance or experience or observation) becomes anathema and threatening to that Self. Expertise is likewise dangerous, as it is predicated on knowledge beyond that which is readily known. It’s arguably a cultural thing, an American thing, maybe (though I suspect Shakespeare had his bullies too). 

In this way, Conservatism is inherently biased, subordinating and sublimating all that is not itself or reflective of itself to itself. You only know what you know, but that’s enough. It’s how the leader of the free world can get on national TV and say to his FOX State TV surrogate with straight face that he’ll just “know in his bones” when the war is over. If a woman said that she'd be 25'd. But this draft dodging blowhard says he'll stick a finger in the air and just “know” and his followers are like sure and if we gotta put boots on the ground well then it's just the price you gotta pay for freedom. Experts be damned, and while you’re at it, have some bleach. 

Which is not to say that conservatism is not Constructive in the sense of world building. Strict originalists lie about this all the time. There is no interpretation, they say. It simply is what it is on its face. Never mind the biases that inform the reader and the reading. New information which is contrary to one's biases threatens to destabilize the whole system and is therefore refuted. I knew a guy who did his own reading about COVID—he was the kind of crazy where you actually start to hate them a little bit—and decided it was a hoax. He caught it three times. Expertise is rejected in favor of personal exploration. And the most valued exploration tends to yield results that most closely align with one already believes, and so the cycle feeds on itself in a loop. We liberals do the same thing. It’s just that while conservative thought is increasingly narrowed, our thought tends to expand. And yes, I prefer the latter. We’re the snowflakes and sheeple for giving room to experts but it’s conservatives who cannot by definition allow facts to lead where they will whether we like the result or not. Accountability? Forget about it. Their own experts report that the US is not adequately prepared to defend the Strait of Hormuz, and the day after the chest-beater and his idiot-in-chief told G7 leaders that Iran was knuckling under, the new Supreme Leader made his first proclamation and basically told us to go fuck ourselves.

So when Bari Weiss says she wants to win over MAGA by replacing Anderson Cooper with the KING of intellectual DIY on 60 Minutes as is rumored, it's not just a tectonic shift. It's existential. Conservatives, and MAGA Conservatives in particular are fundamentally allergic to facts. Whereas a show like 60 minutes is founded on the express principle of facts, of journalistic expertise, on curiosity. This isn't just liberal gloating. The distrust of expertise inherent in conservatism is what’s kept them away. Ask JD Vance. Bari Weiss is trying to swap out (she would say capture) a demographic that the show just isn't built for. Girl, they just ain’t into you.