when there was ever any connection between the two, the academics would roll their eyes and be dismissive of the blue-collar people, who may have not always been theory conscious but were good people, a la Samwise Gamgee

Samwise Gamgee isn't a good person, he's a fictitious character in a fantasy novel.

You can’t explain away taking away people’s right to input in their own governance with theory, to me.

You need to have something before it can be taken away from you.

Society of the Spectacle is the most dog-eared book I own.

Then you know the illusion of choice isn't the same thing as a people's right to self-governance. And further, that a movement of people in opposition to a media established regime is not stealing their neighbors' liberty by asserting some of its own.

Not even if all the TVs and radios and newspapers say so.