OPINION:
On any given day, the nation’s headlines will look like this: ‘Donald Trump says polls showing him lagging are wrong.’ ‘Kamala Harris says Donald Trump is wrong.’ ‘Joe Biden says his favorite ice cream flavor is still chocolate chip.’
This is not news. This is who-gives-a-freak filler being passed off as news. What else it’s not? Informative, interesting, important or inspirational.
Politics, in this around-the-clock news reality of modern society, has devolved into ‘he said, she said,’ ‘he responded, she responded’ running narratives that fold into neat little social media headlines for the gossipers and low-information types to gobble then vomit back into the media world. It’s not just the trolls who grab at this nonsense and run. Pundits — many paid — on television, for radio, and in the online and print press fill the airwaves with regurgitated nonsense they’ve heard then overheard, that they then pass off as news on the nightly news shows.
So-and-so said this! Story at top of the hour.
And bottom of the hour. And all the minutes in between the hours. How is this beneficial to the American people?
Gone are the days when politics meant the presentation of platforms and principles; when politicians were expected — by watchdogs in the press — to state clearly their objections, then stick around for questions about their objectives. Transparency? Accountability? It’s all about the duck and dodge now. At least, for Democrats it is. Trump is like the Captain James T. Kirk of the media world. He’s always seeking out the new, exploring the strange, boldly going where few have gone before — witness his willingness to chat with MAGA hating members of the press, time after time after time. Kamala Harris won’t even go on Fox News for a presidential debate.
There are a couple reasons today’s press and political worlds are so reliant on bottom feeding to fill the space and time, and part has to do with the corporate takeover of most media and the profit-driven mentality that breeds entertainment junk. Another part, too, has to do with the nonstop cycle of news and accompanying and obvious need to report on something, translate, anything; and yet another is the acceptance by consumers to accept this low-grade media by continuing to tune in, read, watch, listen.
But what a disservice to the American people.
Voters deserve to know where their candidates stand on issues of importance. There’s a war between Israel and Hamas that is on the cusp of exploding into a world-wide engagement because Iran is threatening to attack, and America is warning the Jewish nation not to launch preemptive strikes. There’s an economy that’s so bad the Internet is filled with videos of young shoppers who have just learned the very same groceries they ordered at Walmart during the Trump years are now selling for three times the price, four times the price — even more.
There’s an LGBTQ agenda that’s stealing the innocence of children and ushering in an evil of a kind that’s never before seen in this nation, and that threatens to change the nature of medical care, the education system — even of humanity — forever after, forever more, forever. There’s a real danger of China and its communist designs becoming the dominant nation and ideology of the world, and America, the supposed light of liberty, going dark and falling to the 4 CCP. There’s a pressing economic matter called digital currency that could, if widely implemented, spell the doom of freedom everywhere.
There’s a fight for free speech that’s waging across England and headed straight for America’s shores; oh, but not in America, land of the free? Two words: COVID years. There’s a problem at the border where so many illegals have crossed into America, and continue to cross into America, that many truth-telling scholars think the West in all its values-driven glory is about to crumble, and instead of a Constitution, there’ll be sharia law, or socialist law, or some combination of the two.
Why is bread $5 a loaf when it was $2.50 just a few years ago?
These are the things that concern American citizens. These are the things that are important to American citizens.
Nobody cares Harris thinks J. D. Vance is weird.
Everybody should care, however, that this is what Harris wants to talk about, instead of the pressing issues that impact all of America. Americans want a president who fights — who, for example, rises from an assassination attempt to mouth, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” — not a president who draws Venn diagrams and leans on the media to explain the latest word salad jumble.
Americans want inspiration and solutions and a return of American Exceptionalism.
Out with the nonstop politicization. In with the principles. In with the unity and “one nation, under God, for all.”
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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