I think there’s one introspective question that Bernard Goldberg fails to ask in his criticism of media elites at RealClearPolitics:
I stumbled across an interesting essay by Washington journalist Robert W. Merry in which he says, “When a man as uncouth and reckless as Trump becomes president by running against the nation’s elites, it’s a strong signal that the elites are the problem.”
Memo to America’s elites: Millions of Americans think you’re the ones who are deplorable. They don’t want to be called bigots because they worry about the effects of illegal immigration on America’s schools and hospitals and more broadly on the nation’s sovereignty and culture.
They don’t want to be seen as heartless because they believe that not everybody getting food stamps deserves them.
They don’t want to be viewed as Muslim-hating bigots because they, like the president, believe that a temporary ban on travel from a few countries — countries that harbor terrorism — is a good idea.
And they’re sick of being portrayed as unsophisticated dolts because they don’t abide by the politically correct ideas that are so popular among the elites at our most prestigious universities.
The question is why do they think that they hold mainstream views? They’re professional, trained observers whose job it is to gather information from outside their own narrow circle. It’s more than simple parochialism or confirmation bias. They’re either lying, stupid, or nuts.
Don’t underestimate the power of the bubble. Even the smartest and most well-trained have difficulty escaping through mental effort alone – bubbles are usually burst by reality forcing its way in, not the other way around. They may gather information from outside their narrow circle, but the perceived relevance and meaning of the information usually does not escape the bubble.
There are a lot of parallels here with the intelligence world, which is why I spent a lot of time studying cognitive science.
The bitterness with which the old spooks over at Pat Lang’s place talk about the modern intelligence and foreign policy community would seem to underscore that.