It is one thing to talk about the problems of the American media, but quite another to experience them. Having been visiting these shores for a couple of decades now, I feel as though I have some small insight into a big challenge that America is going through. That problem — which National Review readers know well enough that they could probably set it to music and sing it if requested — is the gulf that has emerged in the U.S. media. The mainstream papers and networks are no longer mainstream, let alone centrist. Into that gulf newer, partisan media stepped. In an effort to ward off the competition, the older networks went farther to their own side. And now the American media scene is to all intents and purposes a war of two opposing camps, with one side — the Left — overwhelmingly overrepresented.

In my own country of birth the landscape is interestingly different. There are actually more right-leaning papers in Britain than there are left-leaning ones. The Spectator magazine now outsells the Guardian. And The Times of London has not slipped to the far left as has the New York Times. True, the British media landscape is dominated by the BBC, and this remains a major issue. For this taxpayer-funded service’s heart undoubtedly beats to the left. Nevertheless it has a statutory obligation to present opposing sides. Meaning that a typical BBC debate consists of some strident Marxist and a poor benighted conservative hoping to be allowed to make a point uninterrupted at some stage. Very occasionally the BBC allows a real red-blooded conservative on air, though when it does so the conservative is presented as the acceptable face of the lunatic community.

Still, it is striking to me how much the American media scene has changed in just the years that I have been going on it. Some 15 or so years ago I was in the U.S. to promote a book on conservatism. Back then (in what were far from halcyon days) I experienced a goodish range of what the U.S. media could be. I did most of the cable news networks, and a pretty wide range of radio across the country, including some with left-wing hosts.

I had recently returned from observing part of the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a lot of the interviewers were quite interested in this. Indeed I had some pretty good rows on air with various lefty interviewers who thought it outrageous that Israel should retaliate when rockets were fired at its territory. On one radio show I was interviewed by someone I think was Rachel Maddow. If it wasn’t Maddow then it was certainly a Maddowish creature. We got into a heated, fairly engaging debate about the rights and wrongs of that conflict and other ongoing conflicts. It must have been good radio because the producers canceled all the guests to follow, and the two of us went at it for an extra half hour or so.

My point is that back then bookers for radio and television programs knew that it was still good to get opposing voices on, if for no other reason than that it makes for good broadcasting. There isn’t all that much fun in listening to a program where everyone has the same monotone views. Brian Stelter’s ratings prove that. Exchanges of views that are heated, if largely courteous, make for good listening.

It was the same in the years that followed. As well as doing Fox, when I was in the U.S. I would generally get on MSNBC, CNN, and other networks. And even these shows were largely courteous. In fact after one trip I got back to Britain and happened to speak to a conservative friend in the U.K. who had done a similar tour. “Why was that so enjoyable for both of us?” I asked her. “Because over there they treat us like human beings,” she replied. And that was broadly true. Even hosts who might disagree with you expressed gratitude to you for giving your time for free to join them. To varying extents they were interested in what you had to say. And the whole thing was predicated on a basic idea: which was that, if you were on, then you were on because you had some expertise, or at least something to say, and it was the job of the network and the host to help you to say it.

In those years the difference from the BBC was much to America’s credit. If a red-blooded conservative appears on the BBC today, the corporation behaves as though he must be stopped by whatever means. On the BBC’s Newsnight or the Today program, any conservative invited on will be treated like a known criminal whose criminality must be better known. So you will get a first question, the answer to which the interviewer will interrupt. This will then be used as the basis for a second question, which will be an attempt to show that you have already contradicted your first answer. After a few more seconds of this, the host will announce that, regrettably, it’s time to move on to the next segment. I don’t think many conservatives leave Broadcasting House without wondering why they came in.

By contrast, even just four years ago, when my book The Strange Death of Europe was out, I was still getting on some leftist American media, and I was treated well enough. National Public Radio invited me on to discuss the book (on immigration, identity, and Islam), and the presenter and I had a fairly enjoyable to-and-fro. He tried to trip me up, and I had a good time tripping him up in return. I even managed to make a couple of substantive points. It was good-natured in the way that a conversation with an ex can be good-natured. But perhaps it was clear even then that this was unusual. A colleague from NR emailed me afterwards to say that he had happened to be listening to NPR and almost crashed his car when it was announced that I was going to be up next talking about my book on immigration.

These experiences are no longer just unusual — they do not occur at all anymore. In recent years in the U.S., it is almost strictly the right-wing media that invite me on. And I have no special problem with that. I love doing Fox. Its presenters are always well briefed, courteous, knowledgeable, and — an ingredient not everyone remembers — fun. It is a great means by which to communicate with a huge slice of the American public. Never­the­less, when I mention to someone that I do Fox, I still get people asking me why I appear there and not, say, on CNN. My answer is easy. These networks simply don’t invite people on anymore if they have opposing views. I have thought long and hard about this, and my belief is that, in the last number of years (you might blame the Trump presidency for this, at least for acting as an accelerant, or you might blame another side), the different political sides have come to no longer trust their opponents at all.

The right-wing media fear that if they give a platform to the Left, then the Left is going to sneak in some communist ideology. But that is a minuscule fear compared with the outright paranoia of the left-wing media. They honestly seem to believe that if I and others like me come onto their platform, then we are going to try to use the opportunity to smuggle far-right, even fascist, views out to their audience. They don’t bother to notice that people like me on the right loathe the far right and fascism at least as much as anyone on the left does. Still, they have this fear. When my last book came out, I had expected the usual NPR invitation at least, but invitation came there none. A while later I heard that I had been responsible for a terrible internal combustion within the organization. Someone had suggested me as a potential interviewee, and a portion of the office went to DEFCON 1 to stop it and then hound the individual who had suggested it.

I know these fears from the BBC. When that same book came out, one of my interviewers opened by saying that there was a word I used in the book (I think the word was “deranged”) that Donald Trump had also used. And probably Viktor Orbán, too. I realized that there was some mis­understanding. Not just that right-wingers somehow agree on which words we should use and then deploy them like code, but that I must by any means necessary be tied to these figures, and that if they don’t take me out then Orbán or Trump will somehow grow in influence. Which shows not just a paranoia but a deep misunderstanding about the differences of thought on the political right.

It is a lachrymose situation for a democracy to be in — for so many to believe that those in even the vaguest vicinity of your political opponents must be treated as though they are in fact mini versions of those people. For to believe this is to shut down any possibility of real debate or the exchange of ideas. As well as to under­estimate a significant number of mostly reasonable people. I wish it would change. I miss my opponents.