Wednesday, March 20, 2019

HOW BULLSHIT WORKS, PART 5,200,843.

When Rod Dreher ostentatiously shows concern for his fellow man, you know there's a catch:
Readers, I have to go out for a few hours on a sudden errand. When I get back, I would like to hear from you who are in the flood zones of Nebraska and Iowa. It’s amazing how little coverage your tragedy is receiving. If I didn’t follow the Twitter accounts of Sen. Ben Sasse and Jake Meador, I would barely know a thing about it. I know the same thing happened in 2016 when we had the devastating Louisiana floods.
Let's see what The New York Times, which is Liberal Media Central and must be suppressing this story out of irrational hatred for the Common People, has been doing about it in the past three days:

March 20, "U.S. Farmers Face Devastation Following Midwest Floods [Reuters]"; "An Iowa Town Fought and Failed to Save a Levee. Then Came the Flood"; "The Latest: Minnesota to Help Nebraska Flood Fight [AP]"; "Missouri River Towns Face Deluge as Floods Move Downstream [Reuters]"; "Flooded Iowa Communities Surviving With Trucked-In Water [AP]."

March 19, "Rising Waters: See How Quickly the Midwest Flooded"; "Like ‘House Arrest’: Flooded Roads and Swamped Bridges Strand Nebraskans"; "Pets, Livestock Among Victims of Midwest Flooding [Reuters]"; "Missouri River Flooding Catches Small Nebraska Town Off Guard [Reuters]"; "Midwest Floodwaters Tear Through or Spill Over Many Levees [AP]"; "‘It’s Like an Island’: Scenes From the Midwest Floods [multimedia]"; "The Latest: Pence Views Raging River, Visits Shelter"; "Floodwaters Threaten Millions in Crop and Livestock Losses."

March 18, "Why Is There Flooding in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin?" "‘It’s Probably Over for Us’: Record Flooding Pummels Midwest When Farmers Can Least Afford It"; "Flooded U.S. Air Force Base Underscores Climate Risk to Security: Experts [Reuters]"; "'Angels of the Sky' Offer Flights Into Flooded Nebraska City [AP]"; "Scenes from Record Flooding in Nebraska [multimedia]"; "Homes Flood as Missouri River Overtops, Breaches Levees"; "Nebraska Nuclear Plant Still at Full Power as Floodwaters Recede [Reuters]"; "Three Dead, One Missing in Devastating Floods Across U.S. Midwest."

I may have missed a few. Dreher seems to have missed considerably more than a few. In comments (not in his main post), he breezily notes,
To be fair to the media, some readers say they’ve seen a lot of coverage. I think that this is an example of how silo’d we tend to be, even if we don’t mean to be. Sometimes a reader or two will accuse me of ignoring a particular news event because I haven’t posted on it — and I haven’t even heard of it!
Tee hee! Meanwhile a number of Dreher's commuters snarl things like "Why isn’t this covered more, Rod? This affects only the benighted people in flyover country..." and "The headlines are the latest nothingburger from the Mueller probe and Beto eating dirt." Elsewhere on Twitter, a bunch of people who seem unable to use Google News act like there's a media blackout on the floods. "Is it me or would this be getting a lot more attention if this were closer to New York or LA?" uueries pollster Patrick Ruffini. Others chime in: "This is catastrophic and mainstream media is pretty much ignoring this." "If a disaster happens on the coast, it’s full scale media coverage. But a disaster in the Midwest .....crickets. It’s ok, we don’t need u elites anyway." "Where is all the media’s coverage about the devastating floods in Nebraska?!?!" Ad infinitum.

I keep telling and telling and telling you guys: There is no flakier snowflake than a wingnut, and their propagandists feed them on grievance stories like the Great Media Blackout of Your Tragedy and how the big bad city slickers don't care because a steady diet of bullshit is what keeps them voting Republican.

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