Policy discussion and clickbait

In the April 2019 issue of The Washington Spectator Patricia Roberts-Miller looks at the seemingly constant criticism of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) as an entry to talking about the current state of our national media.

My objection to propaganda machines is that all of them (“left” and “right”) presume a binary of political options—you are either us or them. By design, the strategy is to make us argue about the identity of the people making the arguments, instead of arguing about the policies those people are advocating.

American media is demoralizing because it is profit-driven. There are three foolproof ways to get people to click on and share a link about politics (and thereby make a profit), and all of them involve avoiding policy argumentation:

* outrage porn, in which the participant takes pleasure in being outraged at the idiocy of “them” (some out-group);
* a cat fight (a fight between two women); and
* personalizing politics, so it’s never about policy, but about the identities of the people on the two sides (nonconservative sites generally accept the fallacy of presenting “both sides”).

Any one of these devices is more likely to get a click than something that offers a reasoned discussion of the various (nonbinary) options we, as a community, have available to us.
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So, as Orwell pointed out in his underappreciated *Homage to Catalonia*, a for-profit media and democratic deliberation are inherently at odds.
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I think we’re seeing the same pattern in regard to AOC. Supposedly liberal sites post articles featuring something negative about her, with photos that make her look fanatical. It’s the stinkiest clickbait there is because:

* the controversy, even if entirely manufactured, will get clicks;
* any mention of AOC warms this outrage/attraction dynamic in people who drink deep in toxic masculinity and get excited about the possibility of dominating her;
* it’s politically useful for GOP rhetoric to create any kind of rift among people who might vote Democratic, a strategy that typically comes into play when some Democrat is being critical of another;
* potentially Democratic voters are prone to the narrative that the Democratic party is hostile to progressives. (It is, but I don’t think we should relish dwelling on it.)

Anything about AOC, of course, is good for generating outrage on the part of misogynists, but anything about any Democrat criticizing AOC is the perfect outrage porn. It’s money shots all the way.