The Liberal Echo Chamber

It has been noted more than once, but most recently by Michael Barone in his article "Cocooned Liberals are Unprepared for Political Debate". that liberals in America are effectively isolated from alternative points of view.  For, while conservatives cannot help but encounter "the other side" in their daily lives, the folks on the left can live completely isolated from minds different from their own.   And this works to their disadvantage, because they simply cannot imagine that anyone would think any differently than they and all their liberal friends.

This is more than just birds of a feather flocking together.  This is more like baby birds who have never left their nest and who only eat the worms what the mama bird brings.  For, while conservatives are always confronting and becoming at least somewhat acquainted with the views of liberals, many liberals never even come into contact with conservative thought.   And this, Barone points out, leaves liberals woefully unprepared to answer their opponents.

And so the pro-union left in Wisconsin can occupy the state house and rant and rave in front of the cameras and convince themselves that the whole world is against Gov. Scott Walker without realizing that they are operating in their own echo chamber.  They just keep passing around and sipping the Kool-Aid without realizing that folks outside Madison don't really appreciate what they are doing and don't relish the idea of working until they are 80 so that a government bureaucrat can retire at 55.  So, come June 5 it looks like the Kool-Aid drinkers will be crying in their, well, Kool-Aid.