Frankly I need to decompress. The race for the presidency this time has absolutely worn me out, at least in terms of my ability to absorb more spin from either the Democratic or Republican operations. Much of the news has become unwatchable as politics drenches nearly all the stories which parade through the public consciousness these days. Pundits starts "punditing" before the bodies are cool in the case of the rash of terrible shootings we've endured over the last several months. They are so eager to tell me what to think, that they fail to fully tell me what happened. During the conventions I'm forced to go to C-Span to hear any of the early speeches in the conventions (and some of the later ones too) because the reporters won't shut their traps. Even the grand spectacle of the nomination roll call gets shunted into the background so that pundits can yammer yet more. Why the hell the go all the way to Cleveland or Philadelphia to ignore the event and talk over it. Dreadful!
The modern media has become a damn spectacle, a morass of emotional claptrap and attenuated attention spans. In a world where news is a commodity intended to be produced at profit, the news becomes more about style and its delivery, than about the motes of facts which are at the core of what's important. Self-serving boot lickers on both sides of the aisle are quick to glom onto any event and translate it so that their picked audience can absorb its lessons.
So after the close of the Democratic convention I am going into radio silence when it comes to the political media. Despite the cool and cogent elegance of the speeches by both Barrack and Michelle Obama, the whole thing has become tiresome overall. (God I miss him already!) I am bone weary of the tomfoolery Donald "Jackass" Trump perpetrates on a daily basis. Likewise the smarmy attempts to normalize his behavior as well as that of his opponent Hillary Clinton just becomes too much. Let it fucking be for a while. I need personally to cleanse my palate and get some perspective on what passes for discourse in the new America, a land increasingly driven by the momentary twitterings of no-nothings and nabobs, tools who spout inanities while the bodies drop.
So let me back away, turn down the volume, pay attention to movies from olden days and books from ancient times and just let it all flow on down the stream like the refuse which passes through the byways of Rio. I'll plug back in later when things have settled down and the measurements the pollsters insist on taking each waking moment of the day actually have some value as a predictive model of the future.
I'll pay attention to the election again, but not right now.
Let's all get some rest.
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“They are so eager to tell me what to think, that they fail to fully tell me what happened.”
ReplyDeleteYep, I hear ya Rip. I’ve gone full-retro and just get the bulk of my news off the radio anymore (my old friends AM and FM.) Not that that doesn’t suffer a lot of the bias and mind control that goes with tube news but I at least seem to be able to turn it off and try to process it a little more readily…I don’t know…Seems to be a War on for our minds y’know?
Reporting has lost its way. I'm hungry as a consumer for facts and details about the world, but most of the time these days I get someone's opinion about it. I'm less interested in how this might or might affect some pol's favorables than I am about the facts of the matter itself. I've noticed that CNN is somewhat improved in this regard, especially their international desk, but aside from the BBC and PBS, it's hard to get straight news from the big boys. They've cut back on their actual reporting and closed a lot of their bureaus across the world and instead fill up the time with blather. Sometimes the blather can be enlightening, and there are certain experts I stop and listen to, but most of the time it's just the same old slop.
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I've been attempting to imagine what will be said about the election when it is looked at historically 25, or 50 years from now. First off I think the fact that both major canidates have such low favorability rating is signifigant this election isnt about who you like but who you like less. And second I think history will see this election as a failure for America to take a stand and create stronger alternative parties. Many Republicans are unhappy with Trump but they fell in line rather than do something about it figuring that destroying the party would be even worse. But sometimes the only way to fix a broken house is to knock it down and rebuild. On the Dem side it has become clear that the primary was rigged for Hilary but rather than fight Sanders has decided it's more important to fight the right than to punish the party that did him a great disservice. Will history see these as correct choices? Only time will tell I guess.
ReplyDeleteI do think we are seeing the triggers for changes in the party structures. The court decisions in funding sources, allowing individuals to contribute unlimited amounts has really undermined the power of the big two parties and will I suspect end up creating smaller more fragmented parties. It will take some changes in state regs to allow for ballot access but eventually I think we are seeing some big changes in the system.
DeleteIf Hillary wins, the norms will for the time being reassert themselves, but the change will eventually come. If Trump wins, I suspect change will come more swiftly as his election will be seen as a repudiation of the two party system, which he has by and large disavowed save where he needs its for technical reasons.
The role the media has played in his rise will also be examined, but I fear little reflection will come from that corner.
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