> Also, conservatives have moved far rightward, which might make others relatively more leftish.
I don't think this is true, I think the left-wing media has fixated increasingly on the far-right or exaggerating the extent to which individuals on the right are "far-right" which gives the impression that the right is drifting, but it's just the media changing how it represents the right. To be clear, the right is changing, but it's not perceptibly drifting to the right.
> Also, reactionaries politicize lots of things, such as climate change. Education and research isn't affirmative action for conservatives - they need to prove their ideas. Climate change denial lacks the science behind it; it shouldn't be taught. That doesn't make climate change education biased toward liberals.
2 things:
1. We don't even need to invoke conservative beliefs (certainly we don't need to cherry-pick the most overtly anti-science of conservative beliefs), we can look at moderate liberal beliefs, like colorblind approaches to combatting racism which are equally vilified and actively suppressed.
2. If we're talking about "ideas competing in some marketplace" then why are the left so frequently resorting to cancellation of intellectuals rather than debate? E.g., consider all of the petitions to have professors fired or to have papers deleted from journals. And I'm not talking about dumb kids circulating petitions to have their professors fired, but university faculty circulating petitions to have their colleagues fired for ideological (not factual) transgressions.
But every time we talk about this, left-wing folks pretend that the debate is whether or not to allow creationism or climate denial in the classroom. This seems transparently disingenuous to me.
> cherry-pick the most overtly anti-science of conservative beliefs
It would be convenient to denigrate those facts in some way, but they are there: Conservatives (generally) back climate change denial, which will cause generations of catastrophe.
> colorblind approaches to combatting racism which are equally vilified and actively suppressed
I don't agree they are "equally vilified" as the overt and covert racism of many on the right. I think "actively suppressed" lacks much basis or meaning except conservative repetition.
There is debate on left, that's true, and that's a good thing.
> why are the left so frequently resorting to cancellation of intellectuals rather than debate?
I don't agree that it's a phenomenon of the left; conservatives repeating that claim doesn't make it true (any more than climate change denial). Look at the conservative efforts to silence protestors (laws limiting protests, legalizing striking them with cars), professors (such as the right-wing donor at UNC, threats to and reductions of tenure at major universities), students (e.g., the football players at U of Texas), etc. Look at Colin Kaepernick, who the President of the United States attacked and who lost his career. Look at many executive branch employees, in Washington and the states, who were fired for telling the truth and following the law, and judges who were attacked for the same. Right-wing politicians and journalists who are destroyed for challenging Trump or reactionary dogma. Etc.
I would summarize the drift as far-right voices are getting louder (in terms of air time / reach) and centrist-right voices are getting quieter.
On the left, far-left voices are also getting louder, but I don't think the centrist-left voices have gotten quieter as much as their centrist-right counterparts.
The end result is that "the right" seems more right (in terms of speech) while "the left" seems... conflicted (in terms of speech).
Even if that's masking the underlying counts and beliefs.
If a journalistic institution's goal is to advocate for a side, they are motivated to report on when the other side is doing something radical and not when they're doing something sensible. The opposite for the side you're supporting.
I don't know if it's more or less charitable to suggest that they're primarily driven by revenue. The incentives are basically the same in that model, except the lean is audience-generated rather than centrally controlled. You'd expect more extreme positions on both sides, which is consistent with what you're saying.
A combination of both best fits the evidence, I think. You write controversial articles about both sides to get clicks, and write about the center of your side to get political support. So you get people on both sides with very skewed views (the far) of the other, and who think of their own side as idealogically diverse (the far) but grounded in reality (the center). If the media landscape is primarily liberal, you'd expect it to look the way you're describing it.
I really like that conclusion, because it's perfectly consistent with my experience. I don't really have evidence to support this, though, and I'm not sure how to go about getting any.
Right-wing support for Trump and his far right policies dominates the GOP. Moderate or even conservative Republicans, who even say that the election was legitimate, are cast out and can't win primaries.
I don't think this is true, I think the left-wing media has fixated increasingly on the far-right or exaggerating the extent to which individuals on the right are "far-right" which gives the impression that the right is drifting, but it's just the media changing how it represents the right. To be clear, the right is changing, but it's not perceptibly drifting to the right.
> Also, reactionaries politicize lots of things, such as climate change. Education and research isn't affirmative action for conservatives - they need to prove their ideas. Climate change denial lacks the science behind it; it shouldn't be taught. That doesn't make climate change education biased toward liberals.
2 things:
1. We don't even need to invoke conservative beliefs (certainly we don't need to cherry-pick the most overtly anti-science of conservative beliefs), we can look at moderate liberal beliefs, like colorblind approaches to combatting racism which are equally vilified and actively suppressed.
2. If we're talking about "ideas competing in some marketplace" then why are the left so frequently resorting to cancellation of intellectuals rather than debate? E.g., consider all of the petitions to have professors fired or to have papers deleted from journals. And I'm not talking about dumb kids circulating petitions to have their professors fired, but university faculty circulating petitions to have their colleagues fired for ideological (not factual) transgressions.
But every time we talk about this, left-wing folks pretend that the debate is whether or not to allow creationism or climate denial in the classroom. This seems transparently disingenuous to me.