Why Kim Hill’s interview with Scott Brown revealed more about “us” than it did about “them”
I never joined the debate team at school. I couldn’t bear the reality of some boy from another school wagging his finger and yelling “point of information” at me. But if I should have, I would have learnt what every good debater should know — that if you can’t make your opponents point’s from them, you don’t truly grasp the issue.
Our Kim Hill it seems hasn’t quite grappled this, yet . In her recent interview with US ambassador Scott Brown she asked ( the entirely valid question) why women in the US voted for President Trump, pointing to the many occasions he has demonstrated his misogyny and objectification of females. What Kim’s question demonstrates is that as a country we really don’t understand what a significant amount of Americans are like. Not that they are misogynists but that a fair few voted for Trump and actually like the guy. We’ve cast Trump supporters as “them” and placed ourselves on the morally and intellectually superior high ground. As a country our media hasn’t done what they should have and tried to show us a different side.
Kims questioning and defense is by no means her own fault. The reality is we’re being blasted left, right and centre opinions by an overwhelmingly liberal media. These views themselves are usually imported ones, hot off the press from US and Europe with a slight Kiwi “oh we already have healthcare” twist.
In psychology this phenomenon is better known as “false consensus bias”, an illness manifested by remarks made by Hill like “ How could any woman vote for him ? “ or by my peers who say “ Any American who voted for Trump is clearly stupid”. This bias comes about because we’re blindsided by a point of view — the TV tells us Trump is a misogynist, our friends tag us in mildly hilarious memes of an orange blob with Trumps voice and our parents roll their eyes at the radio and declare America has gone to the dogs. Over time these little things morph into our subconscious and we genuinely believe that us, our friends and our country are the sane ones and the “stupid Americans” are the intellectually inferior other side.
We exist like our ancestors did, cut off by the high seas, our moral liberal words echoing off every wave without the Waitomo glow worms to give us a little bit of light and differentiation. When someone outside of our peer group, like Scott Brown talks about the US administration in a different way we are shocked, we react and we get angry. We applaud Kim Hill’s anger in part because Scott Brown doesn’t agree with “us”and even if Brown’s views are “wrong” it’s clear we haven’t even bothered to understand both sides of the argument.
Kim Hill’s interview with Scott Brown was one of the first times the New Zealand media has really spoken to someone from the “ other side”. The reality is that 52% of white American women voted from Trump and almost half the population did the same. That’s an awful lot of people, too many people to be just plain stupid. So why did they ? Why do American women support a man who objectifies them? Why do Americans in the rustbelt want a Mexican wall and their healthcare repealed?
If our media really wanted to understand the issue they would be going after the answers to these questions — showing New Zealand audiences an insight to thinking behind ordinary Americans that led them to vote for such a man as Trump.
I want to make it clear that I don’t agree with what President Trump has said or done. Having spent the last 12 months in the US I have seen the real consequences of some his policies, in particular his travel ban. What compels me to write about this is that returning to New Zealand it’s clear that many people I have spoken haven’t been shown why Americans, in many ways just like us votefor Trump. Yes, we can say we are better ( and maybe we are ) but we can’t go around saying this when we don’t know exactly what we are better of.
If our media were a debate team at school or writing a university essay they would not be making the deans list. A good argument includes both sides view and we are only getting one. Maybe, just maybe if we saw more republican politicians on TV and more interviews with Trump supporters (and not just the fat, white male wearing an American flag bomber jacket type) Kim Hill wouldn’t be left to the “ but we already have it” argument.
