Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
Much of the historical 'data' is of necessity derived from period writings and media or from interviews or 'oral history' from the anointed of the era. It has been my observation over the years that the majority of academics, writers and media persons, the "anointed," do not well understand the great unwashed in so called middle America and about whom they write. That shows in much current history of the period. They may get the big events about right, sort of have to do that, however, their perceptions of public beliefs and attitudes is general significantly skewed compared to my recollections. The "idealist" approach to foreign policy has always been present amongst the power structure in this nation, all ideologies -- it has almost never been present among the hoi polloi -- tolerated, yes but endorsed or even believed for a second -- no.
I'd say that's because, Ken, too many current writers have bought into the media perpetuation of polls as actually reflecting widely-held opinions as opposed to their snapshot of the (possible) feelings of the 200 or so people who actually answered the phone. I've noticed that those sort of sweeping generalizations aren't as common in histories written about periods before widespread opinion polling.