Media discourse does not think

Identitarian liberal political discourses are part of a media discourse that operates in such a way that people are really not allowed to think. Media discourse attributes approval and disapproval to what people say, as part of what they do. Then most speech when considered in relation to identity-political claims is simply virtue-signaling (or, for vigilant detractors, vice-disclosing). There are games of language use played here that deliberately exclude the use of any actual thinking in the public sphere. People who participate in the media discourse of politics are not engaged in a process of discussion and critical thinking; they are engaged in a public process of social justice warriors of left and right conducting battles that are aimed at getting large, accumulable numbers of people, to declare positions that conform more or less well to expectations, in order to build majorities of people who vote this way or that, and to police thought in the meantime. The liberal-left does this as much as the right, albeit with some differences of style and method and major ones of topic and objects of discussion, major differences of the kind of things to be said, or memes to be iterated. The contemporary political subject in a media space scores points with allies and helps factions score points in battles of public opinion, by declaring oneself this way or that, on this side or that. One does this by declaring an opinion, maybe defending it, but not considering it or thinking about it. Before you speak, what is the right thing to believe has already been determined. Your speech plays no role in determining what that is, but only in confirming or disconfirming it in your case. It is like casting a vote in public. The media have marketing experts who decide on the memes; the public iterates them and people battle with and judge each other accordingly. This judgment is highly moralistic. It is moralistic, because judgment of what is known to be right and wrong is applied, but not ethical, because what ought to be done is in no wise an object of a process of thinking. In American political spaces, you are not invited to think. You are asked to comply and follow.