Fake is the New Real.

Interesting essay about how virtual reality has taken over - but not entirely obscured - the real. This bit caught my attention because it seems to address why my liberal friends are so deeply invested in the idea that Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan et al. are liars, and, yet, have no ability to answer the question of why our economy is so screwed up:

This is our shoddy virtual reality with a CNN or MSNBC logo planted on top. There is you still sitting on your same old couch, watching Chris Matthews yelling himself hoarse about racism, because racism is our virtual reality. It is the world that we are supposed to live in and Chris' job, for which he receives some 5 million a year, is to convince us that we are living in it.

"Racism," Chris yells at the screen, like the idiot shaman of some stone age tribe, and those dull-witted enough to believe him nod knowingly, because it makes them feel as if they know something. And in a world where nothing is real, knowing something makes them feel a little less confused. They don't understand why the prices are suddenly so high and the bank won't give them a loan-- but they can understand that Republicans are bad people and somehow responsible for it.