Chomsky's analysis of society, and the media, is common across radicals of all political persuasions. They need a theory to explain why their radicalism isnt popular, despite being "obvious" -- so you have false consciousness (marx), manufactured consent (chomsky), class envy (ayn rand), etc.<p>What Chomsky leaves out from his analysis is that he himself exists: a member of the elite, central to vast amounts of elite discourse. His ideas aren't marginal and indeed, in many ways, mainstream.<p>Radicals are, generally, rationalists -- starting theory-first. But in matters as complex as society, you need to be an empiricist.<p>If you study 'popular opinion', consent, etc. as an empiricist you do not find these categories: elite, media, etc. Rather there are shifting groups of people, each with their own interests, engaged in a competition to have their interests realised.<p>When fox news called Arizona their <i>viewers</i> left them -- so fox jumped on election denial precipitating events which led to Jan 6th. What is the analysis here, say?<p>Well chomsky would always 'find his enemies' in the elite: trump down to his base. Whilst this analysis is partly correct, it doesn't explain the existence of trump in the first place: his base <i>chose</i> him. Rather than any prior 'political elite'.<p>The conspiratorial analyses of radicals always ends up with 'and this is why people don't subscribe to my view of the world' -- it is itself a political project to 'manufacture ideological consent' to their own world view. A mechanism they fail to notice.<p>A scientist in these matters has to have basically no political project whatsoever, and not bend their empirical analysis towards their status and away from the status of others. And indeed: how many political scientists are there, by this definition? nearly none.