Republican voters are having a tough go of it this Presidential election cycle. They keep getting too much information from candidates like Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and, oh, in about three weeks, Newt Gingrich (again), and they aren’t hearing enough from Mitt Romney. I wonder how much of the conundrum is the result of the media through which they’re communicating, and not necessarily what they’re saying.

No, they’re not victims of liberal bias, or even the tendency of media of any political stripe to trend down toward the lowest, most inane conversations (leading questions, focus on trivialities, and that all-encompassing totalitarian-like “Americans are…” format). It simply could be the nature of the beast, and by that I mean the fantasy world in which today’s media have us wrapped. Or to which we’ve willingly moved. The same situation impacts President Obama just as much as it does his would-be opponents.

For a while now -- I’d say ever since the late 60s -- the news media have presented a view of the world that is bifurcated; there are two “sides” to every story or event, and those points-of-view fall broadly into categories of “left” or Democratic, and “right” or Republican. These perspectives have become all-encompassing filters through which the world is perceived, so that people no longer debate issues as much as reaffirm their belief in one version over another. Only one can be right.

Much has been written about this fantasy republic of ours. You can call the themes “values” or label them conservative or progressive. It doesn’t matter. The result is that the media have wrapped us in these closed, comfortable cocoons of ideas about which we are absolutely certain, in which we choose to live, and by which we define ourselves. “New” media have simply accentuated this migration to a virtual world, feeding us ever-more refined and powerful content to substantiate our most virulent one-sided opinions.

Again, it’s not the media’s fault, but rather our own. We’re lazy. What it presents to us is easier to consume (we can do it whenever and wherever we want by simply pushing a button) and easier to understand (it translates complex things into a running narrative that we can follow, like the plot of a movie). We prefer it to the messy real world in which we are forced to live with people we may not like, let alone agree with.

Now, back to the Republican candidates.

The fantasy media world requires that they hold true to the story line that viewers, not voters or citizens generally, have decided matters most: consistency in the face of changing facts or circumstances; insistence on issues and actions that are unconnected to what they claim to produce; and a prioritization of intentions that elevates simple headlines over complicated governance solutions. So we get spectator-sport attention to taxes, immigration, marriage, creationism, whatever. It’s as if the candidates aren’t living in the real world which, of course, is exactly the problem. They’re not. President Obama has the same problem (I’m convinced his disconnect between his focus on fantasy declarations and the real world is why most voters have simply tuned him out altogether).

But the real world isn’t going away for the rest of us. While the candidates are fighting fantasy battles against big government and union handouts, our country is crumbling. Gays in the military? There are two wars still underway, and more in the offing. Immigration isn’t taking away jobs or costing taxpayers anything compared to what we pay to keep the uninsured healthy. The Do Nothing Congress might make for great soundbites on TV but the lack of action for over a year has been just slightly more ruinous to our country than had it actually done things and failed (though it also missed any chance of success).

It’s not just that the real world isn’t going away, it’s problems are becoming more present in our lives, and therefore harder to ignore. So it takes evermore effort from the candidates in the fantasy republic to keep up their hype, repeat their positions, and declare their beliefs in spite of whatever is thrown at them in challenge. They need to try and keep the fantasy participants in the media world focused on their narrative, not the one that keeps vying for their attention.

It just can’t hold up. You can only repeat the same nonsense so many times before the script calls for a new situation. The characters the candidates play on TV and online just get boring. So the media tee-up new tidbits, unearth more dirt, and find fault in the consistency of the candidates’ comments over time.

This is what causes the average half-life of a Republican candidate to be about a few weeks. I think Gingrich’s return is simply the process going back on itself (look for Ron Paul to interrupt the regurgitation and have his brief fame as front-runner before the first primary votes are cast). In light of these circumstances, perhaps Romney’s strategy of saying as little as possible is the smartest strategy of them all; he can simply let the other candidates flame out, and save his exposure for when it’s a committed contest with the President.

But for now, the messages don’t matter because the medium values volume over substance, shock over reason, and conflict over consensus. And as long as citizens think and act like spectators, we’re going to get to watch the same meaningless junk, from both parties.

Great television and blogging. Horrible politics. And the country keeps on crumbling…