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Politico: Media Blames “Groupthink” for Failing to See Trump’s Victory and Hillary’s Loss Coming

by Rush Limbaugh - Apr 25,2017

RUSH: Politico Magazine, did you see it today? They’ve got this massive, massive story on why is the media the way it is, and primarily how did they miss the election? How did they miss it? What happened? What is wrong with the media? Why could we not see that Trump was cruising to a victory? Why could we not see that Hillary was cruising to a humiliating defeat?

The media loves writing about itself, talking about themselves, so it’s this very introspective piece. You know what come up with? Yeah, they live in a bubble. They live in a bubble. But it’s not the living in a bubble by itself that’s the problem. It’s what’s happening in the bubble.

Oh, by the way, I should point out, it isn’t bias. No, no, no. No, no, no. The media is telling us, no bias. It’s not that. That’s what the conservatives always say, but it isn’t bias. It’s groupthink. (laughing) Well, what causes the groupthink? A guy points out that his own survey, only 7% of journalists are Republican. The media bubbles are New York, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, maybe a little bit of Chicago. They’re Boston, the Northeastern corridor, and then the Left Coast. And if it’s not there, then journalists don’t know what’s going on in America.

The only thing they know that’s going on is where they live. And so it makes ’em totally innocent, folks, they’re innocent and don’t intend any of this. But it’s like the New York Times, if they publish in New York and in Manhattan then of course they’re gonna reflect the views and the political attitudes of people that live in Manhattan. They’re a national newspaper, they’re supposed to be able, if they don’t agree with it, at least reports what’s happening in Iowa, what’s happening in, by the way, Michigan or Wisconsin.

Why is it that their candidate, why do they lie to themselves that their candidate was cruising for a landslide win and they chalk it all up to groupthink. Groupthink and living in a bubble, meaning they all live together, they all live in the same place. He didn’t say that they all marry each other and they all have affairs with each other and they all live in two or three of the same neighborhoods. They go to the same bars, the same restaurants. Doesn’t mention that. They just live geographically in the same places.

But they talk about groupthink. It’s not bias. It’s just they don’t have anybody that thinks any differently than they do. How would that even be possible with the way journalism schools churn out mind-numbed robots? It is bias, it’s closed-mindedness, it’s a little bit of prejudice, and it’s a lot, dare I say, of bigotry. But this guy just wants you to know that bias has nothing to do with why the media’s missing all this news. Bias has nothing to do with why. And apparently they’re very, very troubled. They’re very, very worried. How did they miss?

They didn’t miss diddly-squat! I don’t even believe the premise. I think they knew Hillary was in trouble with trying to prop her up. Some of them didn’t. But I’ve read enough here in this Surrendered book a lot of people knew that this campaign was fraudulent. There are a lot of people that knew it was in on borrowed time. There are a lot of people that knew Hillary Clinton was waddling around in quicksand and half of her support staff was, too. There’s a lot of people that knew. What they told themselves was that Trump is such a reprobate, that Trump is such an absolute, just a pig and an animal and a barbarian that there’s no way that our gal could lose to this.

It wasn’t journalism that screwed them up. It wasn’t groupthink. It wasn’t living in a bubble. It is in fact their own liberal prejudice and their stubborn refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of anybody or anything that thinks differently than they do. That’s all it is. They can write all these introspective pieces they want and they can wring their hands and they can worry about how they missed it. And it’s not gonna change a thing.

There isn’t going to be a single thing change, other than if they’re able to do it, wipe out Fox News. That’s the only thing. There won’t be any structural change or content change anywhere at the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, LA Times, USA Today, there won’t be any change. And this hand wringing of, “How did we miss it?” there might be some in the group that literally were taken by total surprise, but I think most of them were just in denial.

I think all these media people, I don’t think they know 10% of what they think they know. I think they’re some of the most closed-minded, uncurious, prejudicial people that you’ll ever run into in any cross section of society. The journalists in any group of people are gonna be the least informed but the most arrogant. They’re gonna be the least informed but have the biggest condescending personalities.

They’re gonna be the least informed, and they’re not open to what they don’t know. That is a very, very bad personal characteristic. It’s very important, if you want to be a well-rounded, successful person, you have to know what you don’t know. They won’t admit that there’s anything they don’t know worth knowing.


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