So the Republican-dominated state legislature of Indiana is shocked....shocked I say....to learn that even some of their Republican fellow-travelers, especially the corporate, country club elite, don't share their bigotry--or at least don't see their bigotry as profitable. How could Indiana Gov. Pence (R-I want to be president) not anticipate a backlash? How could the members of the legislature not recognize the direction of the wind?
Here, the Fox News Bubble--with its even more conservative talk radio amplifiers--leaves those who don't venture out of that bubble dangerously unaware of shifting cultural and political currents. Narratives that they hear reinforced from their tvs and radios and in their largely segregated churches, workplaces, neighborhoods, and schools leave them befuddled as their bubble shrinks. People who don't look like them, act like them, and think like them seem, somehow, to have gained power. Bubbles are very dangerous to live in, especially when you don't realize that the bubble is there. Join me beneath the squiggly for a few more thoughts.
Even more problematic for the paleo-republicans is that many of the key tenets of their bubble are sacred myths which may not be questioned. The myths, at all cost, must be preserved. It is a scary world for them when realty undermines the myths--and realty must be sacrificed to the myths. I don't mean to be factious on this point. I grew up in a deeply conservative environment, and it was deeply unsettling when I began to see the myths for myths.
As a reality-based community, we have an important advantage here. We want to see the realities that may challenge our own myths. But let us never uphold our myths above the realty and create our own bubbles.