A liberal New York Times writer told a liberal MSNBC host that the problem with conservatives is they exist in their own ideological echo chamber. Without a sense of irony, All In host Chris Hayes on Monday night wondered, “What do you make of this sort of inward turning that we’re sort of seeing effectuated in the Republican field?”
Op-ed columnist Paul Krugman complained, “Well, this has been obvious for a while and it's just getting worse.” The journalist for a newspaper that hasn’t endorsed a Republican for president in almost 60 years derided, “This hermetic universe of you only watch Fox News and you only listen to people and if some information that doesn't suit your world view comes along, it's because of the liberal bias of the media.”
Hayes at least had the self awareness to ponder:
HAYES: You know, there are people watching this who say liberals read Paul Krugman and every time they get in an argument with him they’re citing Paul Krugman or they’re watching MSNBC and they’re contained in their own little bubble, too.
Krugman rather lamely responded that he believed “Fox News watchers have no idea what’s on MSNBC.”
A partial transcript is below:
All In
11/2/15CHRIS HAYES: As we reported last week, the Republican National Committee decided to suspend their only debate scheduled to appear on Spanish- language television. That’s the February 26th discussion of ideas hosted by NBC News and Telemundo. Now, Telemundo say sister network of MSNBC. New York Times" points out that last night Jeb Bush’s campaign manager lobbied to reinstate Telemundo at that big meeting but the campaign manager for Donald Trump refused, threatening to boycott the debate. Suspending the debate with Telemundo seems to be at odds with the party’s goal following the 2012 election of greater outreach to a greater variety of different constituencies including first and foremost Latinos. And it’s reflective of a broader trend within the party of speak exclusively to its base in a kind of self-contained universe, something which New York Times op-ed columnist and Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman has been writing about for years. Joining me now is Paul Krugman. It’s wonderful to have you here. What do you make of this sort of inward turning that we’re sort of seeing effectuated in the Republican field?
KRUGMAN: Well, this has been obvious for a while and it’s just getting worse. This hermetic universe of you only watch FOX News and you only listen to people and if some information that doesn’t suit your world view comes along, it’s because of the liberal bias of the media. So, yeah.
HAYES: You know, there are people watching this who say liberals read Paul Krugman and every time they get in an argument with him they’re citing Paul Krugman or they’re watching MSNBC and they’re contained in their own little bubble, too.
KRUGMAN: Yeah. I mean, certainly, people like people who are like you. You like people who share your opinions. But it’s just not — you know, people like me are aware of what’s on Fox News. I have a suspicion that the people on MS — who are Fox News watchers have no idea what’s on MSNBC. And we see that in lots of things. I mean, one of the kind of things we do in my professional circuit is we say that a liberal economist can imitate a conservative economist, can pretend, can — you know, what will one of those guys say? The reverse is not true.
So, there is a level of openness to at least acknowledging that there are other viewpoints, not agreeing with them but understanding them that is not symmetric.
