Topic: Year 1 of # 45: Reflecting on Politics and the Information Bubble
Segment: D Report
Participants: Dave Poyer, MA in International relations, Former Political Consultant
Broadcast Air Date: 1/12/18 KUCR 88.3 FM.
Time: 5:15 PM (PST)
KUCR station page: http://www.kucr.org
Archive pages: https://soundcloud.com/stoppretending, http://www.dreport.org
Send comments about this segment to: comments@dreport.org

Segment produced in KUCR, the radio station of the University California in Riverside.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are the sole responsibility of the respective speakers and do not represent the endorsed position of the UC Regents, UC Riverside or KUCR.

Discussion Topics:
– What can we say about the electorate, a year into the presidency of # 45?
– Was the decision to vote for #45 based on local interests?
– Have supporters of # 45 realized that the presidential campaign promises are not going to be delivered?
– How do the empty political word games affect people at the local street level?
– Will the sound bites of #45 injure the United States globally?
– Is there shock among supporters of # 45 at the actions of # 45?
– What do we do when the “clean up” to “make America great again” surprises us by targeting us and our neighbors?
– How do you turn to your neighbor and say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know #45 was going to do these things to you;” when I voted for him.
– Can we figure out what pubic officials are going to do in the future by looking at what they have already done?
– Why is John Kelly, someone trained to occupy countries, in charge of policing the Border?
– When was the last time a U.S. president was un-invited from visiting the United Kingdom?
– Why do we hear from critics of #45 and little to none from supporters of #45?
– Is it scary to have to second guess your previous support of #45?
– Is politics a game of convincing people to vote against their own interests?
– How do we learn to repeat the same talking points in place of individual thought?
– Does media political information operate as an insulation bubble that limits alternative points of view?
– Is politics something you access by pouring into a glass or is it so big you have to swim into it?
– What happened to the age of information freedom that was supposed to liberate us from bias?
– How does the country where the majority of world lives, surveil and censor information?
– What is the great firewall of China?
– Is the information being curated, screened and filtered to produce an illusion of free access to information?
–  If you live in China,  can you find the picture from1989 Tiananmen Square,  of the man standing in front of the tank?

[One of several photographs of the event was taken by Jeff Widener of the Associated Press, 1989]

– Isn’t the fear of a future where your information is screened just for you a little late if your social media and search engines have been filtering information just for you for years?
– If information is not free then what are we not seeing about  our own culture?
– If information is not free then what are we not seeing about the world?
– Have we replaced our individual conversations for repetitions of talking points as scripts?
– What are the new alternative forms of political engagement?
– Who really is in charge?
– Is the Unites States operating under a corporate oligarchy?
– Why would you include a deduction item for hedge fund managers in a tax reform bill stated to help those living paycheck-to-paycheck?
– How much money do you need to have  the bank in order to get the president on phone?
– Is Oprah a good presidential candidate because  she is a  billionaire that speaks the same language of corporate wealth?
– What if #45 is not hurting his political support base, because his base are billionaires?
– Is voting along party lines a practice of voting against our own self-interests?
– Has the Democratic party moved to the “right?”
– Is there evidence to describe Hilary Clinton as a War Hawk?
– Why didn’t Obama make meaningful changes to the banking industry that reflected support of the non-bankers?
– Why don’t third-party candidates get included into the political conversation?
– Why is capitalism not central to the political dialogue of America?
– What does the politics for non-corporate parties look like?