It’s become fashionable for Fox News pundits to dismiss progressive people as “living in a bubble.” Like most everything else on Fox News, this is idiotic.
The “bubble” is supposed to symbolize an isolated community full of entitled ill-informed individuals who know nothing about life in America outside of their little circle of abortion having gay friendly socialist snowflakes.
Yet Republicans labeling the people of West Hollywood or Brooklyn as being insulated from the “real world” (meaning the shittier parts of the country where nobody wants to live) is simply laughable. Here’s why:
1. More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. Wouldn’t this mean that more Americans are isolated from the “real America” than not? Or would it mean that Republicans are the minority, and therefore, the bubble they speak of?
2. People in these “bubbles” live among and interact with far, far more types of Americans than people in overtly Republican areas. People in San Francisco routinely encounter a variety of different religions, belief systems, cultures, languages, foods, types of music, races, sexual orientations, innovations, clothing options, museum exhibits, books, animals, and recreational options. People in the Texas panhandle do not. Their lives are much more homogenized. They interact mostly with people exactly like themselves, meaning Republicans who drive trucks, and that is a much more a bubble than the people whom they might say are in a bubble. And yes, people of different races and religions are Americans, so fuck off.
3. People in these bubbles travel more. Californians travel more often than Wyomingites. Therefore they leave their bubbles more often, meaning Wyomingites are more bubble-bound than the people supposedly in these bubbles. If people in Austin are in a bubble, why are they able to leave it so often without the bubble popping? Nobody has ever tried to get into Rooster Scratch, Arkansas, and so the bubble remains intact.
4. Supposedly non bubble living Americans flock to these bubbles. Generally, the higher the population density, the more tolerant the people. The more liberal. Los Angeles and New York see a lot of tourists. Alabama doesn’t. This is factual proof that these liberal bubbles are superior places to live. If you walk into a bar in Rooster Scratch, people will look at you strangely, perhaps in a hostile manner. If someone from Rooster Scratch walks into a bar in LA, nobody cares. That Rooster Scratch bar is a little bubble.
5. Republican congressional districts are far more likely to be gerrymandered than Democratic ones. This means that overall, far more Republicans than Democrats are living in actual bubbles – meaning demographically engineered districts built on a predetermined voting result. If you look at a map of most states you’ll see a lot of red bubbles. Here’s North Carolina’s 12th district. It is solidly Republican. The Republicans inside of it are in a topographical bubble that was drawn by Republicans.
6.Republicans are anti-immigration and anti “globalism”, whatever that means. THEY CANNOT TELL YOU WHAT IT MEANS. I can. But they are more isolationist than Democrats. These are literal and explicit characteristics of people who want to live in a bubble.
7. More people live in the bubbles than not. It really depends on what you mean by a bubble. It’s a moronic term so I’m not going to knock on the screen door of your trailer and hash it out. Is Charlotte a bubble? Is Cleveland? Who knows, and if you go around using this “bubble” term I’m quite certain you’re the last person who could explain it. Oh, sorry do you need a fix of synthetic opiates first so you can ramble about it? Fuck you. 81 percent of Americans live in urban areas. Suffice to say the people outside of these areas are in bubbles. Big, empty, hollow bubbles.
8. Fox News is a propaganda outlet and an echo chamber of said propaganda. Nobody believes the things that people who watch Fox News believe, except for the people who watch Fox News. The “liberal” media, according to Fox News viewers, is basically every other news channel. So, there are roughly twelve biased news channels and one that’s got it right on the money. This is indicative that you exist in an intellectual bubble.
9. Republicans stand on divisive issues or “beliefs” that are unpopular with the rest of the country. Their big issues are abortion, union busting, anti-immigration, and having a huge problem with a healthcare bill for which they have no alternative plan. Okay. 58 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, whereas 37 percent say it should be illegal in all or most cases. 62 percent of Americans approve of labor unions. 39 percent believe that immigration should be kept at its current level, and 28 percent believe it should be increased. Only 29 percent believe it should be decreased -a MINTORITY. 55 percent of Americans approve of the Affordable Care Act. These are all stats from the most recent Gallop polls, which are scientific polls by the way. I don’t mean scientific like Toby Keith fucked a brontosaurus and your stripper daughter came out. I’m talking about real fucking science. A minority of Americans believe what Republicans believe. They’re in a bubble.
10. Explain to me how Manhattan is a liberal bubble, and the diabetes belt isn’t a conservative bubble. You can’t. America varies widely by neighborhood, city, county, state, and region. If you want to spend all day looking at various demographic maps and diagramming bubbles you can, and that’s exactly how you got gerrymandering, but it doesn’t make it true. Clearly this decidedly not clever bubble term needs to go away.
I’m no longer surprised when Republicans say things that don’t make any sense, but the deeper you dig, you realize that nothing they say makes sense. This is one tiny example.
They’re stupid or malevolent.
Either way, they’re in a bubble that’s about to pop.
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