Common Ground Left and Right

James Quillian — Economist, Political Analyst, Natural Law

This applies to all of us in the great unwashed — not the country’s leadership class. Among ordinary Americans, left and right share more than either side wants to admit. Start with ignorance. Reading is fading fast.

86% of Americans now get their news digitally. Only 7% rely on print.
Over half get their “news” from Facebook, YouTube, or similar platforms — meaning headlines, captions, and a few sentences stand in for actual information. The share of adults who read for pleasure every day has collapsed by roughly 40% over two decades. In 2004, about 28% read daily. Today it’s 16%.

Most people now operate on fragments — headlines, click‑bait, and the first paragraph of an article. Capturing a citizen’s attention works the same way a matador works a bull: wave the red flag, get the charge, then deliver the sword.

Americans get the digital red flag. They follow it straight into someone else’s agenda. And the real danger isn’t the misinformation they’re supposedly being protected from — it’s the citizens who adopt the agenda and enforce it on everyone around them.

Meanwhile, Congress hoards information. Constituents are kept in the dark so they can’t interfere with personal political ambitions. Almost no one knows what’s actually happening in the world. They only know what the powerful want them to know. Opinions are shaped from the top down. Personal interaction is minimized. Public forums barely exist. People cling to pundits who are easy to manage because they fear losing their platform.

More misinformation flows from those in control than from the public they claim to be protecting.

Neither side — left or right — can accomplish anything without freedom of speech. And for the first time in a long while, concern about that freedom is starting to surface. Even in popular culture. Bruce Springsteen, for example, has begun touching the subject.

Americans have been insulated from stress for years. Now stress is unavoidable. And when stress rises, deeper thinking follows. It’s possible the masses may rediscover the First Amendment out of necessity. Both sides are being stifled. Both sides are feeling it.

So here’s the question:
Can the left and right recognize the common threat, hold their fire on each other for a moment, and reclaim a public voice — before returning to their usual disagreements?

It’s the only path that gives either side a future.