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We “rethink the week” with Valerie Endress, Professor of Political Communication at Rhode Island College; David Anderson, Professor of Political Science at Iowa State University; and Stephen Pimpare, Professor at UNH Manchester and Fellow at the Carsey Institute of Public Policy.
We ask whether current polls (topped by Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders) reflect anything more than name recognition, i.e., support for a Democrat for president but undecided as to which Democrat. We expect the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire to “kick the tires” and examine all the other candidates as well, trying to determine which one reflects each voter’s policy views while demonstrating the kind of integrity and character which many voters are seeking.
We also discuss the general failure of the media to do a good job covering the candidates and the issues that the American people care about (giving especially short shrift to the crisis that is climate change). We are bombarded with a lot of blatant propaganda (or, at best, profit-motivated filtering of issues) from cable news and the media. We note, for example, that a Fox News regular asserted the racist screed that Rep. Ilhan Omar’s religious decision to wear a hijab meant that she was bound by “Sharia Law” and therefore was unwilling to abide by the U.S. Constitution.
As for the growing portion of our population who get their news mainly from social media, we realize that mega-corporations are using advanced technology to learn details about our personal preferences and to market their appeals directly to each of us. Many of us are not sufficiently educated about the way in which we may be manipulated by this — and by invasive marketing techniques (nor how we can protect ourselves from it). Nor do we have any “rules of the road” or guidelines to help us navigate this rapidly-changing morass.
We end the show reflecting on the relatively light sentence meted out last week to Paul Manafort, Pres. Trump’s former campaign manager. We try to understand why white collar criminals — whose crimes cause millions of dollars worth of damage and ruin many people’s lives (as in the foreclosure crisis) — can get away with lighter sentences (served in “country club” jails), while a teenage African-American may be sentenced to longer times (in much more “hardened” prisons) for possessing $100 worth of drugs.
