
How Oprah Winfrey Helped Create Our Irrational, Pseudoscientific Fantasyland - anarbadalov
https://slate.com/health-and-science/2018/01/oprah-winfrey-helped-create-our-irrational-pseudoscientific-american-fantasyland.html
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koonsolo
I have a nice example on how people will always choose celebrities over good
politicians.

In Belgium, there is this political party NVA, who used to say that
politicians shouldn't appear in entertainment programs. This party also lived
by it. They only appeared in political debates. Back then that party was
small.

At the time, there was this popular politician Steve Stevaert, of an opposing
(big) party. He always appeared at TV entertainment shows, and people loved
him. They thought he was a very sympathetic. People voted for him because they
probably felt close to him.

NVA saw that their (in my eyes politically correct) strategy wasn't working.
So one of their major politicians, Bart De Wever, started to appear in
entertainment shows. Now this guy had a hidden talent: he could make really
funny dry jokes, and people loved him for that. Because of his entertainment
value, all kinds of shows invited him.

Guess what, that political party became huge, one of the biggest in Belgium.
People voted for him.

So unless there is a law that forbids politicians to appear in entertainment
shows, I guess people will vote for the ones who appear in the popular media.
Sad but true.

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qubex
To everybody considering this a _good thing_ (and even to those considering
this a _bad thing_ ), I suggest reading Neil Postman's excellent cautionary
analysis _Amusing Ourselves to Death_ (1985 and subsequent revisions):
basically he predicted that a 24-hour news cycle and bombastic personalities
with debates framed in terms of fifteen-second sound-bites would result in
politics becoming nothing more than a form of entertainment, and that citizens
would begin to respond to it as such. That was with few-to-many traditional
mass-media; with social media the tendency has become (counterintuitively) if
anything even more heightened. It's a horrific state of affairs. Anyway, it’s
a book I first read in 1998 and though written in the Regan years struck me as
being unbelievably pertinent even to the world when I first read it, let alone
now.

I remember that right after the Columbine mass-shooting in 1999 my best friend
and I were sitting in his bedroom. We were late teenagers (18), expatriates
living in Italy, getting our “international” news from the very first online
news sources such as cnn.com and the bbc website. George W. Bush was clearly
on track to become the Republican candidate and was equally clearly under the
thumb of the NRA. I remember muttering that if the Democrats had any sense
they'd deploy against him with a candidate with mass-market appeal... “Oprah
Winfrey or Jerry Springer, and sod the consequences”. My friend, wise beyond
his years, presciently remarked “Jerry Springer I shan't deign with a
response, but Oprah Winfrey and the touchy-feely feel-good stuff of folks like
Robin Williams is all that is bad about what is good about America... the day
a party will nominate one of those to run as their candidate you'll know it's
all over, the experiment of the Founding Fathers will have gone down the
drain, it'll be the end of everything because the system will have the means
but no incentive to recover”. Those words have haunted me ever since. I
reminded him of that grim pronouncement of his just the other day
(coincidentally the day Oprah gave that speech was also the exact same day he
became a father) and he just looked at me with tired eyes that glasses over
with sadness.

------
em3rgent0rdr
ridiculously how Americans are agitating for Oprah as the best chance to save
us from Trump...just goes to show the sad state of affairs in US. Oprah and
Trump are two sides of the same coin.

~~~
tdb7893
The much more common sentiment among my liberal friends is that after Trump
they want someone who knows what the hell they are doing and Oprah is not that
person. Maybe it's just the liberals I know but they have so far all been
hostile to her running.

~~~
Lazare
Fingers crossed, but then again, all the conservatives I know detested Trump
too, and yet here we are.

If the field is fractured, a surprisingly small group of fans can push a
highly disliked candidate to the top of the heap, and once that happens, the
inexorable logic of the electoral system can make it difficult to reverse.
(I'm thinking here of Trump, of course, but Clinton is almost as good an
example.)

~~~
cmurf
2018 Jan 1-7 87% of Republicans approve of Trump, 5% of Democrats approve, 32%
of independents approve

[http://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-
rat...](http://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-
donald-trump.aspx)

~~~
Lazare
Right, but the situation was very different prior to and during the primaries.
Only once he became the nominee and (especially) president did Republican's
start to come round. As, I'm sure, most of the Democrat's asking Oprah not to
run would do so if she won the nomination.

My point is, if popularity 2+ years before the election was any guide, then we
would probably be talking about how weird it is to have a third President Bush
right now (I still remember headlines from 2016 about "Bush surges to 2016 GOP
frontrunner"). A year later and Jeb was an embarrassing fizzle.

~~~
cmurf
The point of my citation is to contrast with the anecdote about conservatives
detesting Trump. Overwhelmingly Republicans (not necessarily conservatives)
approve of what he's doing. It'll be vaguely interesting to see if these
numbers weakend meaningfully after the most recent week's episodes of
Celebrity Chaos Clown.

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empath75
Guys, can we just, as a society, agree not to elect any more celebrities to
public office.

I just want my next president to be boring. Just some dweeby guy/gal in a suit
who isn’t part of some political dynasty, that went to school, studied hard
and got a law degree, and served for a few years in a relevant public office,
like governor or senator. You know like a normal politician. Or what used to
be one.

The American political system for all its faults, is pretty good and maybe we
should like try and do something normal instead of throwing a tantrum because
the last guy tried to fix health insurance.

~~~
tomlock
Since Ronald Reagan there's been a precedent set that it isn't a bad thing for
conservatives to have previously been in showbiz. Same is definitely true on
the "other" side.

I honestly would prefer to see some salt-of-the-earth person not involved in
politics elected to office ala Ricky Muir in Australia (where I'm from).

I don't necessarily think lack of political experience is a bad thing for a
politician to have. Many of the positions which hold the requisite political
knowledge and support elected officials are hired, not elected.

~~~
sjg007
It helps to be charismatic, which celebrities have in spades. And you have to
be attractive. I’d rather there be intelligent debate rather than
overgeneralized tweets. Twitter is toxic. Even here on hacker news we can’t
have lively debate. Critical thinking is going extinct. And nobody cares.

~~~
tomlock
I don't think its as bad as all that! I think people do care that reasoned
argument seems to be drowned out by toxic soundbites, but there's just
currently no good way to interact with the world without using toxic channels.
I'm optimistic about someone finding a solution. I also definitely think
people care. I think its just that those that don't care are currently
amplified.

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thisisit
As an outsider I have always found it interesting Oprah has a huge gathering
from her talk shows. While there are stories outlining her rise, I wanted to
see some of her "best" interviews, especially during her early years. But
Google or YT have not been very helpful.

~~~
ebbv
She's not a good interviewer. Her success has nothing to do with any kind of
interviewing skill, it has to do with choosing hot button issues and topics
that her audience find compelling. That's it. That's why there's so much woo-
woo on her show over the years, and so many total fluff interviews, and so
much panic about child safety. Because it was a daytime show aimed at
housewives.

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imron
Dave Rubin has a good take on a potential presidential run by Oprah:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41d9DFsfmrA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41d9DFsfmrA)

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
He makes some great points. The issues no longer matters for US politicians.
All that matters is their cult of personality building around politicians.

~~~
imron
It's his second point that I found the most concerning - the increasing trend
of governing by executive order, coupled with the cult of the personality is a
recipe for disaster.

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dmoy
If it's Oprah vs Trump 2020, I feel like we're rapidly approaching Fahrenheit
451 crazyland politics (just specifically the politicians, nothing else about
the book).

~~~
dcposch
Oprah v Trump would be straight-up two cable television stars running for
“leader of the free world”. (A phrase that already sounds even more ridiculous
than it did a few years ago.)

One popularized the racist Birther / “born in Kenya” meme. The other is
biggest promoter behind Dr Phil, probably the most prominent modern American
quack doctor.

They’d be representing opposite parties, but they have a lot in common. Both
have publicly promoted the uniquely damaging lie that vaccines cause autism.

Both are media people first and foremost, hucksters, promoters, peddlers of
false hopes and false fears.

Waves of dangerous Mexicans are not, in fact, “pouring across our southern
border”. Dr Phil does not actually have a magic solution for weight loss.
Trump does not now, and never did have a plan to “Make America Great Again”.

It’s all for show.

—

Just curious, if it comes to Trump v Oprah 2020, how many of you currently in
America would consider starting or joining a venture outside the US?

~~~
SmirkingRevenge
I'm pretty sure I'd find plenty of reason to dislike the leaders of state no
matter where I live. Most of what is great about this country isn't done in
Washington - we can survive bad leaders (hopefully).

~~~
dcposch
True, and maybe it is just a case of the grass being greener.

The closest analogue to Trump/Oprah in modern western history is probably
Silvio Berlusconi.

That fiasco wasn’t even a swift dramatic thing—just a grinding two decades and
counting of stagnation, inept government, corruption and brain drain as your
best youth go abroad.

I hope it doesn’t happen here and I want to do anything I can to help.

Past some hypothetical point, though, I think my wanderlust and sense of pride
would take me elsewhere.

Innovation can happen anywhere, and fortune favors the bold.

~~~
mc32
I thought old Silvio was thinking of making a "comeback"[1]? I mean, who
knows.

[1][https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/world/europe/sicily-
elect...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/world/europe/sicily-election-
berlusconi.html)

------
everdev
I'm no fan of Oprah or even know her politics but it's funny that when someone
says "I'm considering a run for President" you can expect a queue of negative
news articles.

Makes me wonder if they're sponsored by political opponents. I find it hard to
believe that Slate had this story in the queue and that her announcement was
simply a coincidence.

Or does the news media simply want to ride the Oprah for President wave?

~~~
akkat
It is possible that it is simply an attack peace but I don't think so. Opera
is now a person of greater interest. That means that more people are likely to
read an article about her. Therefore news sites want to write things about
her.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _more people are likely to read an article about her. Therefore news sites
> want to write things about her._

This is what journalism is supposed to do. Oprah switched channels from talk
show host to potential politician. I want good journalists to inform me on
her.

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dba7dba
I had no idea about some of the connections brought up in the article. All I
had to say was lol. She is opposite of Trump but still share same attributes:
outsider from DC, rich, and media savvy.

It's not really her fault that she took off with her unscientific stories.
There definitely was an audience ready for it. People usually hear what they
want to hear. Or so I'm told.

Edit

~~~
labster
> She is a kid of opposite of Trump in a way. Outsider. Rich. Media savvy.

What? Those are all traits they have in common. Not really opposites. Do you
mean she's a liberal counterpart to Trump?

~~~
627467
Yes, Oprah is a mirror version of Trump: take a trait, find its left-right,
up-down, and you can place both in opposite ends of the spectrum.

"Progressivism" became so stale that it allowed Trump to become elected, and
with Oprah we would see "progressivism" struggle to pull its own Trump card in
desperation.

