The Bubble: Fla. shooting survivors step into America's partisan divide
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There’s a rally for change after the mass-shooting in Parkland, Florida. Students are speaking up and taking action.
USA TODAY
Each week, USA TODAY’s OnPolitics blog takes a look at how media from the left and the right reacted to a political news story, giving liberals and conservatives a peek into the other’s media bubble.
This week the emotional pleas for action on gun control from the students who survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., sparked fiery opinions on both the right and the left.Â
Conspiracists on the extreme right promoted absurd theories about the students, and more mainstream conservative voices said the teens’ opinions must be viewed in light of their trauma and youth. Liberals, on the other hand, lauded the students, decried the criticism against them and said they offered a new way forward for progressives.Â
Last week: Stop reporting on mass shootings, conservative says
Conservative bubble: ‘Media rendered awe-stricken’ by ‘shrieks of children’
The media’s embrace of the Stoneman Douglas students is a “glorious display” of the left’s “cult of youth,” Christian pastor Peter Burfeind said in The Federalist.Â
“Yes, ‘cult’ perfectly suits a media rendered awe-stricken and rationally stunted by the shrieks of children. They share a psychological profile with historic cultists, from Adolph Hitler’s Nuremberg crowds to Jim Jones’ flock,” Burfeind said.Â
A youthful person of color with ambiguous gender identification (but leaning toward the feminine) screaming out impassioned leftist pleas checks all the Left’s boxes and imbues its message with divine authority. If she’s undocumented, all the better.
More: ‘Generation Columbine’ has never known a world without school shootings
Liberal bubble: The ‘right is officially terrified’ of Parkland students
Conservatives are desperately trying to silence Stoneman Douglas students because they “take away the most critical tool conservatives use to win political arguments: the personal vilification of those who disagree with them,” said Washington Post blogger Paul Waldman.Â
Liberals are guilty of demonizing their opponents too, but “that technique lies at the absolute core of the right’s rhetoric, Waldman said.Â
So right now, conservatives are engaged in a two-pronged attempt to take it back. On the more extreme side, you have the social media trolls, the conspiracy theorists, the more repugnant media figures, who are offering insane claims that the students are paid agents of dark forces, and can therefore be ignored. On the more allegedly mainstream side, you have radio and television hosts who are saying that the students are naive and foolish, and should not by virtue of their victimhood be granted any special status — and can therefore be ignored.
More: Tragedy, conspiracy and the problem with trending videos
Conservative bubble: What did the students ‘do to earn their claim to expertise?’
Right-blogger Ben Shapiro does not understand why the survivors of the Parkland shooting are being taken seriously as “newfound authorities on the evils of the Second Amendment.”Â
“What, pray tell, did these students do to earn their claim to expertise?” Shapiro asks in an article for the National Review. “They were present during a mass shooting, and they have the right point of view, according to the Left.”
Liberals hypocritically promote their views at the same time they say the students are too young to buy firearms because gun control advocates want to use their “innocence as a political asset,” Shapiro said. “Humoring children so far as we can bear it — up to and including in policy considerations — is a horrible style of parenting, let alone governing.”Â
More: ‘My friend is dead because they’re not doing their job’: Shooting victims grill lawmakers
Liberal bubble: The students are teaching usÂ
“Despite contending with death threats and mockery, as well as slammed doors,” the “Stoneman Douglas students are organized and organizing and we should all be taking notes,” wrote Dahlia Lithwick in Slate.Â
“I understand the twin temptations to shelter them from what’s to come and to lecture them about the ways they may be doing it wrong,” Lithwick said. “But I, for one, have found myself humbled to near-silence by these brave teenagers, and not just because they are media savvy and seemingly without fear.
“These kids aren’t naïve. They are just better at this than we are.”
More: The Parkland survivors started a movement when they took on gun violence. Here’s how it happened.
Conservative bubble: ‘Young conservatives must speak too’
“While the efforts of the affected students to organize politically are commendable and impressive, we must remember that it’s not heartless to stand for your liberties and call for cooler heads to prevail before you decide on policy,” conservative California college student Jake Haas wrote in the Washington Examiner.Â
And college conservatives “have a unique duty in reminding our peers and classmates about our God-given rights,” Haas said. “Our rights don’t come from government, they come from God. It is our responsibility to remind others of this fact. That is our duty, so let’s get to it.”
More: Florida lawmaker’s aide fired after falsely claiming Parkland students are crisis ‘actors’
Liberal bubble: ‘Shooting survivors aren’t here to play nice’
“This is what politicizing a tragedy looks like, and the kids are more than happy to keep doing it,” said the Los Angeles Times‘ Matt Pearce.Â
“The students have been bold, confrontational and even abrasive, rarely holding back their anger, even if it means disrespecting their older, establishment opponents,” Pearce said.Â
The students’ advocacy has also been expressed in the language of their generation, which is well-versed in the combative “dunks,” “burns” and “owns” of arguing on social media. They know how to speak into their own cameras, they know how to play to audiences online, and so when a fight breaks out on social media, it’s on their turf.
More: Conspiracy theorists find Florida student activists too good to be true
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