Page "Conservatism in the United States" Paragraph 173

Critic David Frum has argued that the influence of conservative talk radio and Fox News has harmed American conservatism, turning it from " a political philosophy into a market segment " for extremism and conflict making " for bad politics but great TV.

" Backed by the conservative book-publishing industry and think tanks, talk radio and Fox News, have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics.

Outside this alternative reality, the United States is a country dominated by a strong Christian religiosity.

Within it, Christians are a persecuted minority.

Outside the system, President Obama — whatever his policy ­ errors — is a figure of imposing intellect and dignity.

Within the system, he ’ s a pitiful nothing, unable to speak without a teleprompter, an affirmative-action ­ phony doomed to inevitable defeat.

Outside the system, social scientists worry that the U. S. is hardening into one of the most rigid class societies in the Western world, in which the children of the poor have less chance of escape than in France, Germany, or even England.

Inside the system, the U. S. remains ( to borrow the words of Senator Marco Rubio ) “ the only place in the world where it doesn ’ t matter who your parents were or where you came from .”