Our Politics Are Full of These Myths

I am increasingly struck by the extent to which our politics is dominated by myths. I am not talking about stories of elemental gods or tragic heroes, but rather about political narratives we tell ourselves which, though they are predicated on a kernel of truth, are nevertheless broadly misleading and generally confuse and distort our politics.

Both sides of the political aisle believe in their fair share of myths, and I suspect that by listing a few examples I will manage to get everyone angry. Let’s get started.

The right has managed to convince itself that every American institution is out to get it. For example, many conservatives believe that the mainstream media is made up solely of hard core progressive ideologues determined to destroy the Republican Party and elevate the Democratic Party to permanent-majority status. This is not true.

“ In our personal lives, we implicitly understand that politics is not war, and therefore that our political opponents are not our enemies. ”

The mainstream media, to the extent that the term applies to any real-world institutions, is biased; but not because of some sort of nefarious conspiracy theory. Rather, the media is biased because the people who work in it are almost universally liberal democrats. These college educated urbanites—most of whom live in a handful of Northeast cities, and most of whom are upper-middle class and white—do not generally set out to slant their news coverage in favor of the Democratic party, but more often than not are blinded to their own biases by the progressive bubble they live in.

There are examples of malicious media bias, the mainstream media coverage of the sexual assault allegations levied against Joe Biden springs to mind, but more often than not what we call bias in the news is more a result of ignorance than nastiness. A good example is the mainstream media coverage of Florida’s response to the coronavirus. Here too there are cases of intentional bias, but most of the truly subpar reporting on what has been happening in Florida, and it has been subpar, is attributable to the fact that too many reporters at the New York Times and elsewhere are elitist snobs who think anyone who doesn’t live in New York, Las Angeles, or D.C. is a rube who can’t be trusted to brush their own teeth without supervision. These reporters, because of their shallow understanding about much of our country, are unaware that the counties in Florida are quite powerful, and therefore Governor Ron DeSantis was able to give local governments more leeway when imposing lockdowns because the most at risk areas had already started the lockdown process by the time the State sprang into action. Florida’s response has been perfectly appropriate given the facts on the ground, and the national press in New York and D.C. were the last to find out.

Democrats believe in their own set of myths. You may have heard that a woman earns somewhere around eighty cents on the dollar for doing the same work as a man. This is not true. Not only is paying a woman less for doing the same work as a man illegal, the basic claim is dishonest. The claim that progressives usually make is formulated to imply that a man and a woman with comparable educational and working experience, employed by the same company, and doing the same job are paid different amounts of money. The reality is that these statistics do not compare comparably qualified men and women working comparable hours, but rather compare the average earnings of men and women across society. Even when we control for industry and other variables, it is not possible to start with a disparity between the average earnings of men and women—which often do not even factor in differences between hours worked—and conclude that men and women earn less money for doing the same work. Indeed, as Christina Hoff Sommers explains here and elsewhere, these “studies” do not account for numerous differences between the average behaviors and preferences of men and women relating to the field of employment, family planning and career trajectory.

It is true that on average men and women do not earn the same amount of money, just as it is true that in general the mainstream media is biased. But these kernels of truth are too often distorted and exaggerated by partisans on the left and the right to get their respective bases worked up and avoid having to propose serious solutions. And it is all too easy for members of the electorate to accept these sophistries at face value without doing enough independent research to learn that politicians and pundits who know better are lying to their voters and viewers.

I wonder how many Republicans go through their whole lives believing that the systemic bias in the mainstream media is malicious and intentional, or in any other of the right’s favorite myths. And how many Democrats go through life believing that two teachers or bankers or lawyers working for the same employer and with comparable backgrounds are paid different salaries because one is a man and one is a woman?

Our politics are full of these myths. Many Republicans, for example, believe that rampant voter fraud frequently changes the outcome of elections. But while voter fraud does happen, it is incredibly uncommon and can only possibly make a difference in incredibly close elections. Likewise, many Democrats believe that voter suppression is rampant, and that without it Stacey Abrams would be the governor of Georgia. This is simply not true, not only because the claims center around a false understanding of Georgia’s election laws and of the powers of the state’s attorney general, but because Stacey Abrams lost by over 50,000 votes.

These myths all have one thing in common: they ascribe devious motives to the opposition where, in general, none exist. The media are not out to slander the average conservative anymore than the average employer is out to discriminate against women, but we nevertheless treat these institutions with suspicion because we are fooled into thinking they are out to get us.

I have friends who are Democrats, as does every Republican I know; and I’m sure those readers who are Democrats probably have lots of friends who are Republicans. In our personal lives, we implicitly understand that politics is not war, and therefore that our political opponents are not our enemies. When our elites lie to us in an effort to stir up paranoia and hostility, we start to resent our fellow countrymen who differ from us politically for no reason.

Our generation has many years of political engagement ahead of it, and I for one do not want to spend that time angry at people and institutions for things they didn’t do. It is up to us to break the cycle of lies and mythmaking that so pervades our nation's politics. I hope we are up for the challenge.