Every day leaves me more & more convinced that something fundamental in our country snapped in our country over the past 7+ years. Whatever it was, it led to Donald Trump defeating what the GOP had boasted as an unusually deep bench of qualified candidates for its presidential nod.
Yesterday, I found something in a comment from Megyn Kelly that captures what's changed in our country, why the reality that the primaries yielded Donald Trump as Top Dog is a symptom of the current state of our disunion rather than its cause.
Megyn was distressed with President Obama because across our nation, people are angry after the Orlando shootings. And he is failing as president because he isn't tapping into that. Because he isn't tapping into anger.
This comment wasn't from some 2-bit political pundit or whacked out Alex Jones-type. it was from the mega-intelligent, uber poised, normally lucid bright shining star of Fox News, the woman considered the most balanced commentator at the Fair & Balanced network.
Now that I think of it, can't get a comment from Brit Hume out of my mind, either - and it harks to a larger problem than just the 2016 presidential election. Brit described the president's criticism of Trump as having a "contemptuous tone... aimed at Republicans & more specifically at Donald Trump is not something that we have heard him express with regard to ISIS... These comments were dripping with contempt."
Brit's comments came back to me yesterday afternoon, during a Current Events discussion at a local senior care residence. One of the participants, an older man in his 70s, made a sarcastic build - "Trump is EVIL. The Republican party is EVIL. Republicans are EVIL." As he said it, thought to myself, "Bet he heard Brit!"
Sure enough, the man was a Republican, using sarcasm & vile words to paint a picture of Democrats liberals progressives that only existed in HIS mind.
This is a Republican quirk that I've been aware of for eight years. Ever since Barack Obama became his party's presidential candidate. It's something I heard from a super close amigo who ditched me as a friend because I would not feed her hate.
In 2008, I supported Barack Obama; she supported John McCain. Over & over, she'd do the same thing as the man at yesterday's discussion, the same thing as Brit, taking a criticism of a candidate & spinning it into a condemnation of the candidate, the party, all party members.
Here's the thing about what Brit did, what the man did, what my friend did - it ends conversation. It inflates any point beyond discussion. According to Brit, President Obama's frustration was directed at all Republicans, albeit specifically referencing Donald Trump. No, Brit - he's just super pissed at Trump. But by making it far more than it actually was, any reasoned response is impossible.
But, hey - go ahead & call out President Obama for being contemptuous of the opposition, that his comments dripped with contempt. See, there's a word for that sort of thought & language - it's called projection.
My friend became so incensed that I would not feed her anger, she dropped me as a friend. All I said was, "I don't rip into your candidate & I would appreciate it if you would not rip into mine." She could have handled my anger at her candidate, but could not tolerate my expectation of at least silence. If she couldn't hear an echo back of her own vitriol, she couldn't bear to hear anything at all.
Which brings me back to Megyn & her disappointment that President Obama wasn't measuring up to her image of an Angry American-in-Chief. He is to be slammed because Americans are angry & he isn't tapping into it. "But the American people are feeling angry. And you know, you would expect the commander-in-Chief, who’s also the comforter-in-chief, to tap into that." No, I don't. And neither should she. Neither should you.
A year ago, a study - one that conservatives dismissed & ridiculed - found that Fox News was "flooding viewers with misinformation" that consistently painted liberals as vile & conservatives as pure true believers. Patriotic became an antonym for Democrat liberal progressive. It wasn't enough to disagree with a different political ideology - it had to be demonized. Literally. It's reported that 20% of Republicans believe that Barack Obama is the anti-Christ. Sheez!
The report found that the very things that made Fox News consistently the #1, most powerful news network could also work to the detriment of the Republican party:
Republican voters get so much of their news from Fox, which cheerleads whatever their candidates are doing or saying, that they suffer from wishful thinking and fail to see that they may not be doing as well as they imagine, or that their ideas are not connecting outside the narrow party base.
And THAT is what will still be with us, long after the present election campaign is a memory. A party base that suffers from wishful, magical thinking, that believes in their candidates & distains all others, that can't see what's actually happening, who are clueless that their ironclad beliefs go only as deep as the narrow party base. Who think they will win because right is on their side, envision Christ as a Republican, see themselves as virtuous & everyone else as something I've never been able to figure out.
From its slogan to its content, Fox News has convinced its devoted viewership that it not only is Fair & Balanced, but that it & its go-to sources are the ONLY honest sources of news.
Megyn & Brit, Bill & Sean and all the rest of the folks at Fox News feed their viewers a brew of biased news designed more to reinforce existing views than to inform & enlarge perspectives, a pool of "non-reality based voters supporting delusional candidates. The impact is felt on a broken legislative process where for one party there is no middle and opposing the President at all costs has become a path to political victory. The conclusion is unmistakable. Fox News has not only broken journalism. The conservative news network is also destroying the Republican Party." (James Easly, May 2015)
Let that sink in for a moment. The end of that paragraph was written over a year ago. Before Donald Trump entered the race, before he vanquished the Republican's deep bench of highly touted talent. Before the world had a clue just how deluded a presumed presidential candidate could be.
Listening to Megyn & Brit yesterday morning, hearing the man at the Current Events discussion, remembering Leslie, the horror all became too clear. Donald Trump may exit the picture, but the world that Fox News created & continues to expand will still be with us. God help us all.
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