The "quasi-hypnotic influence" of television in America has fostered a complacent nation that is a danger to democracy, former Vice President Al Gore said Tuesday.
"Our democracy is suffering in an age when the dominant medium is not accessible to the average person and does not lend itself most readily to the conveyance of complex ideas about self-governance," Gore said. "Instead it pushes toward a lowest common denominator."
Academic liberals continue to bemoan low voter turnouts and disengaged citizens, especially when they are trying to reconstruct a world with those very people in mind. You can almost hear them say, “But we’re doing it all for you, why aren’t you helping us.” I think this is a case where prosperity coupled with the welfare state has made it easy for liberal middle class people to be disengaged in the political arena without much harm. The unstated part of Gore’s plea is, “Wake up, downtrodden, because middle class conservatives are listening to talk radio and their ideas are winning. If you want us to continue to take care of you, you’ll have to sober up and vote for us.”
The government has provided enough of everything now that the average impoverished person owns a car and a color TV. If they can afford beer or weed or whatever, they would just as soon hang out at the house and watch Survivor. They have no time to rally at your campaign. Ted Kennedy tried to remedy this with proposals like motor voter that make it almost impossible not be registered and yet Democrats still lose elections, because people need to be driven to the polls and told who to vote for.
If Gore wants people to be engaged he must start by making them responsible for themselves.
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