It's kinda like hip-hop. You either love it or hate it and there's no track that's gonna change your mind.
That's America in 2019. Polarized. But it's even worse, not only are we on two sides, we can't even agree on the rules. One side watches o Fox and reads Breitbart and the Daily Caller and the other watches MSNBC and reads "The New York Times" and Daily Kos. We get different facts, different opinions, and we're not about to change our minds. It's like one side is playing football and the other baseball.
Oh, there are those on the left saying the right is playing unfair and employing falsehoods, but their exhortations are falling on deaf ears. Nobody on the other side is listening. Although I will say for the past few decades the left has been vulnerable to the right's criticisms, although that is changing.
So the report is out. Sure, we felt there might be a bombshell. But when there wasn't, we just switched the channel, believing the report was no different from a prize fight or Evel Knievel jumping the Snake River Canyon. Endless hype, and then the event happens and we move on.
The rank and file didn't believe Trump colluded with the Russians anyway. They don't perceive him to be that smart and that Machiavellian. Trump's like a pinball and we keep expecting the machine to tilt but he keeps bouncing off the rubber bands and bumpers, wreaking havoc, but now we're used to it.
We've got outrage fatigue.
For a while we were excited by the Democrats' control of the House, but that's now faded too. We've found out that the individual has no power, it's a game and we're left out, and now that the Dems control the House there's gridlock, a brake on the system and we can stop paying attention.
We're dying to stop paying attention. It's been three years already where we've been focused on the news, we want to get back to our regular lives. The only movie that's interesting is the Presidential election of 2020 and the Democratic nomination process. We know Trump will run as the Republican candidate, we know his minions will support him, but can the left beat him?
It's not looking good. There's chaos. Nancy Pelosi looks like Jeremy Corbyn, refusing to sanction Ilan Omar for her anti-Semitic trope about Jews having dual loyalty. To the point where the left is afraid to show up at AIPAC, even though the organization's total lobbying expenditures amounted to $3.5 million and it's not even in the Top 50. (nyti.ms/2JEAz7m) But I bet there are lefties who don't believe this, it's not only the right that picks and chooses facts.
And that's just damn sad.
The point being is the left experiencing a Trump moment, or is it shooting itself in the foot? Has the Democratic base moved far left, or is the far left just getting attention?
The mainstream media missed Trump, those left behind, those who are racist. Are they missing people who don't want to move that far left?
And then we've got the Green New Deal. Sounds good on paper, but then read John Hickenlooper's opinion piece in today's "Washington Post": wapo.st/2TCjQkw Hickenlooper says it's not possible, that we must move in that direction, but realistically.
But realism has left the discussion. Trump's wall will never be built and there won't be a Green New Deal. Trump is agitating for the wall to solidify his base. The left is for addressing climate change, but are we on the verge of a guaranteed income? I doubt it when everybody's bitching about welfare and Betsy DeVos wants to defund the Special Olympics.
That's the nation we live in today. A narcissistic one. You might say the youth are different, with their school loans and hobbled futures, but they're busy posting on Instagram and trying to be influencers. Meanwhile, it's now de rigueur to move back in with your parents after graduating from college and actresses want a minimum wage for waiters and waitresses but they say they don't want it. The actresses' hearts are in the right place, they just don't know the inner workings of the restaurant world. Just because you eat that doesn't make you an expert on food service.
But you can't tell anybody they're wrong these days. If you do, expect to be hectored on social media. And it's to the point where we've dropped friends because they're on the other side of the political fence.
So Trump says the Mueller report is a triumph, a complete exoneration, and the left says the devil is in the details and when we see the actual report...
And the rank and file are watching Netflix.
There's a thin layer of people addicted to the news. The rest of us have been glued ever since the Trump phenomenon gained traction, but we're sick of it now. With the cheerleading cable channels, the newspapers that trump up one side or the other. It's a 24/7 circus, it never shuts down, everything's important.
But it's not.
That's what we've learned. We only have power over our own little lives. And we want to refocus on them. Sure, we'll vote in the next election, but one thing's for sure, there's always an election thereafter.
Or as George Carlin so eloquently put it, "Save the planet? SAVE YOURSELF!"
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