Complaints about search function “bias” against conservative perspectives as in the recent article “Utah Sen. Mike Lee goes after Google” is part of a recent push for “balance” and “equal coverage” to portray a permanent moral equivalence of “right” and “left” on all matters.
We saw this thinking unveiled at Charlottesville to legitimize “both sides” in 2017 and it is the same wrong perspective animating the conservative attack on media and tech.
This perspective rehearsed at the highest levels of representative government incorrectly ascribes powers of control to large companies instead of to the democratic re-balancing that's really happening. That our senator is part of recent Big Tech targeting causes me to lose confidence that he has correctly tuned in to trends within his constituency and voter base.
People aren’t looking for conservative outlets like Breitbart in the numbers that warrant government interventions to “restore balance.” To boost or prop up visibility of these outlets is a form of social engineering actually antithetical to the Republican moorings I grew up with.
The myth of an American bi-partite system (Republican/Democrat, conservative/progressive, good/bad) simplifies governance so it can be continued “as is” by the elites who presently oversee it, even if it is manifestly broken.
Elected officials deepening the political trenches and displaying insensitivity to democratic expression will be increasingly rejected by millennials and the parents they influence, the young people they mentor, and the children they are raising.
The reason search engines are tending to the “left” is because people’s individual moral judgments en masse are recognizing and responding to a real moral center. That this plots “left” means that the “right” should seek moral courage not partisanship and fall-guy targets in Big Tech to cover for moral complacency. Focus.
Jonathan Nellermoe, Salt Lake City
