Because I am a contrarian, I instinctively distrust everything that "everyone" is doing. I distrust popular opinion and popular culture, so you're unlikely to see me in line for the most-hyped movie, and you won't see me wearing or buying anything that "everyone has". And whenever the MSM comes to a general agreement about something, I know in my heart that it must be wrong.
If there is a disadvantage to this contrarianism, it is that, on the rare occasion when the media is right, I find myself reluctant to accept it. Sometimes, I end up behind the curve. And when the media starts tilting in my direction, as I always wished they would, I reflexively distrust everything they say. If the MSM says it, I know it must be wrong. So, was I wrong about Barack Obama?
The problem with contrarianism is that every once in a while, lighting strikes and the media decides to concur with me. And then I find myself in the position of revising my own opinions in order to continue disagreeing with the media. On some level, I resent it when the media agrees with me, because it challenges my self-image as a contrarian. I'd almost prefer to abandon an opinion that I held yesterday instead of sharing it with the media today. By definition, I will never be in the cultural majority, and will always be on the outside looking in.
I think this sort of contrarian attitude is now effecting not just me but the whole blogosphere's attitude toward one present icon of popular opinion - US Senator Barack Obama. At one time, Mr. Obama was an unknown highly intelligent state representative from Illinois who seemed unlikely, based on America's history, to ever become a US Senator. At that time, it was a chic to support him precisely because America rarely supports people like him. We in the blogosphere were "in the know" early on.
Now that US Senator Barack Obama has become a media darling, and people are discussing our guy as a potential presidential candidate, many of us are reconsidering. We must have been wrong all along if the media has taken a liking to him as well, right? After all, we hate the MSM and anyone who is a friend of the media must be an enemy of ours.
The problem with this thinking is that it requires, by definition, that our candidates win office and govern as outsiders, "crashing the gates". But no candidate can win a majority or pass meaningful national legislation unless s/he is able to capture the public imagination and win the imprimatur of the media. In American, when you lose the media battle, you typically lose the war as well.
Right now, the media is presently on fire with speculation about two of our potential candidates for president, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. They both have very liberal voting records overall. While no Republican has really caught the media's attention, the MSM are fawning over the speaking ability, connecting ability and "popular touch" of Barack Obama. They like that he seems "reasonable". They are enamored of his second-generation immigrant biography, his obviously superior intellect, and his graduation from the best Americans schools in spite of being from a group that has historically been disadvantaged in America.
African-American US Senator Barack Obama is an American success story and the MSM is drinking in his narrative like a potent elixir. They seem to have forgotten, just for a moment, that feuling white resentment against blacks has been one of their most reliable methods of dividing the workding class against itself and frustrating progressive's political goals. They are seriously asking whether this Black man should not run for president in 2008, considering that he seems to be the most magnetic and electric speaker of our times. So isn't it time we contrarians abandoned him Barack Obama? Don't we have to criticize him if we are to retain our identity as progressive contrarians?
But it really is much worse this year, and progressive contrarians are being attacked from another front. After years of pushing national health care in our union meetings but being mostly ignored by the MSM, the media is now taking seriously for President the same woman who tried to pass national healthcare a decade ago, which is unprecedented, considering that the national healthcare issue is perhaps the principal DOMESTIC issue of importance to liberals and progressives. The positive media attention to the candidate most know for this issue must mean that the American media is finally coming our way on an issue that is very important to us. Plus, the media and the general public seem to have adopted that radical liberal idea of the 60's and 70's: women's equality.
What are we contrarians to do now? Part of the leftist identity is being on the outside. Yet, the MSM has taken two of our best contrarian issues - equality of opportunity and equality of health care - and run with them. Now that the media is implicitly embracing a racial and sexual inclusiveness for which we have long fought mostly in vain, what are we to do? Now that the media is touting a WOMAN (whose name is synonymous with the leftist issue of national health care) as our most potent candidate for president, what are we contrarians to do with ourselves?
Yes, the result of the media embrace of Hillary Clinton guarantees that national healthcare, a central goal of progressives, will be debated in 2007 and 2008, effectively raising the profile of one of our principal domestic issues. And yes, the fact of Obama and Hillary being seriously considered does more for racial inclusiveness than all of our annual dinners and Black History Month celebrations. Getting Hillary elected president might do more for women's standing in American and American politics than passing the Equal Rights Amendment would have back in the 70's.
But the media's decision to tout these candidates really ties our hands, doesn't it? Now that the media likes Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, it's time either to abandon them or to abandon, at least for a moment, our instinctive and reflexive distrust of the mainstream media and popular culture?
We desperately want to dream the impossible dreams of progressives, but once the media adopts Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as their own, then our contrarian dreams are no longer possible. They've been stolen and co-opted. In our eyes, when the media shines its favor on our hopes, they render them mundane, suspect and ultimately corrupt and worthless.
So, what are we to do with our contrarian selves? To believe that media favor necessarily impugns a candidate's or an issue's bona fides is an exercise in negativity and futility. We will never accomplish anything unless we win public opinion, and we will never win public opinion without media attention.
I suggest that we prepare ourselves emotionally and cognitively for that rare moment when lightening strikes, when the media's need for a new darling to drive their ratings corresponds perfectly with our need for positive publicity for candidates whom we have always supported in the past. If one of the progressive goals of the left is an inclusive country, we should rejoice that the media is eyeing our most potent black and women candidates with rapt attention. Rather than abandon these candidates when the media takes a liking to them, we must seize this opportunity to ride their popular coattails, trusting that in spite of all of the media favor, the men and women who earned our enthusiasm and trust yesterday are just as worthy and needy of support today.