Enter
days.” He takes a good stab at explaining why this is. In his brief,
Cillizza says there are a lot of news
organizations now — “a million
smaller shards [of media] makes
that sort of agenda-driving incredibly difficult.” He also says that the
news moves at a frenetic pace that
precludes “pro-activeness,” and
forces “reactiveness.” Also, “America is so polarized,” et cetera. But the
plain and simple truth is that the
bully pulpit is already zero bully,
and it has been for a long time, so it
is r eally hard to see how it can get
less bully than “no bully.”
If you want definitive proof that
the bully pulpit is a pretty ineffective tool for convincing or persuading people, one need only look at
the fact that political scientists
keep on seizing their bully pulpit to
point out how little impact the bully pulpit has, and they’ve failed to
convince people! For once, we have
a tautology that you can believe in.
Remember FDR’s “fireside
chats?” If you do, you are probably remembering them way too
fondly. Ezra Klein, citing George
Edwards and his book On Deaf
Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit, pointed out that a “systematic examination of Roosevelt’s
radio addresses” found that they
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managed “less than a 1 percentage point increase” in his approvals, and that his “more traditional
speeches didn’t do any better.”
And John Sides, also citing Edwards, noted that despite his being
known as “The Great Communicator,” Ronald Reagan couldn’t get
it done in the bully pulpit either:
“Edwards shows that Reagan could
not move opinion on signature issues like aid to the contras. And
The bully pulpit is
already zero bully, and it has
been for a long time, so it is
really hard to see how it can
get less bully than ‘no bully.’”
Reagan’s advocacy for increased
defense spending was soon followed by a decrease in support for
additional defense spending. Public opinion on government spending often moves in the opposite direction as presidential preferences
and government policy.”
And Reagan:
Time and again, I would speak
on television, to a joint session
of Congress, or to other audiences about the problems in