Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble
On the perils and pathologies of political self-isolation
BOB’S 12 LAWS OF BUBBLES
If you can’t comprehend why an intelligent, well-informed, decent person might believe that (1) Donald Trump was a better president than Joe Biden is, or (2) Joe Biden is a better president than Donald Trump was, or (3) Donald Trump and Joe Biden are roughly equivalent on the great-to-horrific spectrum, then you live in a bubble.
If you can’t comprehend why an intelligent, well-informed, decent person would (1) vote for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris, or (2) vote for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump, or (3) decline to vote for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, then you live in a bubble and need to stop watching cable news and go take a walk.
If you believe that anyone in the United States has not yet decided whether to (1) vote for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris, or (2) vote for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump, or (3) decline to vote for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, then you live in a bubble, and I will gladly sell you a bridge to help you reach all those undecided voters in Brooklyn.
If you believe that you, yourself, possess sufficient logic, facts, and eloquence to persuade someone in America to change his or her mind as to how to vote in an election featuring Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, then you live in a bubble and likely suffer from narcissistic personality disorder.
Correctly noting that someone else lives in a bubble (e.g., your “Trump-loving brother in Carolina” or your “Kamala-worshipping sister in California”) does not preclude the possibility that you also live a bubble.
Living in a bubble drains you of empathy, decays your capacity for introspection, and makes you ignorant. In extreme and generally untreatable cases, bubble-dwellers believe that using terms like “the Democrat Party” and “trickle-down economics” are clever insults and effective rhetorical strategies.
Living in a bubble makes you vulnerable to unseen forces. The medical literature recounts one patient who was unaware that referring to half of the American public as “deplorables” was an unwise electoral strategy.
If you regularly use social media posts to insult the intelligence or decency of polite, respectful people who merely disagree with your politics, then you are actively enbubbling yourself and, in a high percentage of cases, you are also an asshole.
If you sever social or social media connections with polite, respectful people solely because you disagree with their politics, then you are actively enbubbling yourself, and are definitely an asshole.
If you do not live in a bubble, it is still possible that you are an asshole, though the probability is considerably lower than if you do live in a bubble.
People on the right are far less likely to live in bubbles than people on the left, and not because they are smarter, better-read, or nicer. Rather, it’s because contemporary society makes it easy for those on the left to live in bubbles and makes it exceedingly difficult for those on the right to do so. Those on the right must guard their words and hide their thoughts, lest they be punished, ostracized, tormented, and/or assaulted by left-of-center professors, employers, protestors, entertainers, journalists, social media trolls, vandals, vagrants, family members, Thanksgiving guests, and strangers in grocery aisles. As an experiment: (A) Put a Trump sticker on one of your cars and a Harris sticker on the other; (B) Note which car winds up in the body shop for repainting—and how quickly. (NB: In earlier years, Bush, McCain, and Romney bumper stickers were just as effective as Trump stickers in generating revenue for auto repaint shops.)
If you live in San Francisco, you do live in a bubble. (See Graboyes, Robert F., “Left Coast Exobiology: A San Franciscan Ponders Alien Species that Don’t Defecate on Sidewalks, August 22, 2024.)
As the late Rod Serling would say, “For your consideration”: Do I, Bob, live in a bubble? I don’t think so, but readers can judge for themselves. For those unsure of my political leanings (as I occasionally am), in “Antisemitism’s Sharp Left Turn,” I described myself as a “‘classical liberal’ or a ‘libertarian-leaning conservative/conservative-leaning libertarian with a sprinkling of liberal,’” adding that “I vote for both Democrats and Republicans, all too often on a lesser-of-two-evils basis.” My friends are all over the political map, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
A ONE AN’ A TWO AN’ A …
Speaking of bubbles, a splendid example of literal and figurative bubbles is preserved in this 1971 clip from The Lawrence Welk Show—known for its champagne-bubble aesthetic. Here, Gail Farrell and Dick Dale sing Brewer and Shipley's song “One Toke Over The Line,” and Welk seems to believe that the lyrics are religious in nature. At the song’s conclusion, you’ll hear him say, “Now you’ve heard a modern spiritual by Gail and Dale.” While Welk was most likely in a wholesomeness bubble, I suspect that the show’s producers (and perhaps the singers?) knew better.
Robert F. Graboyes is president of RFG Counterpoint, LLC in Alexandria, Virginia. An economist, journalist, and musician, he holds five degrees, including a PhD in economics from Columbia University. An award-winning professor, in 2014, he received the Reason Foundation’s Bastiat Prize for Journalism. He publishes Bastiat’s Window, a Substack-based journal of economics, science, and culture. His music compositions are at YouTube.com/@RFGraboyes/videos.
“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.”
― Raylan Givens, Justified
If one is to win an election, especially a close one, expand your base by seeking more votes. Belittling half of the American people by calling them deplorable or fascists isn't the way to get that accomplished.