The title of this post was easy to write (for once) because I know exactly what I want to say. I just hate saying it. I try very hard to steer clear of writing about politics on here or any of my social media accounts, but I want to make some observations that I think pertain to both parties.
A friend of mine posted a link on Facebook to a fascinating and thought-provoking essay by Camille Paglia about Trump and the election of 2016. I'm not sure if my friend realized it was originally published in June 2017. It may not matter. While I don't agree with everything Paglia said, she made some excellent points.
Part of the reason I like the Paglia essay is that she makes intelligent observations about both parties. For example:
"The administration bears full responsibility for fanning the flames of an already aroused "Resistance." However, I fail to see the "chaos" in the White House that the mainstream media (as well as conservative Never Trumpers) keep harping on—or rather, I see no more chaos than was abundantly present during the first six months of both the Clinton and Obama administrations."
Americans need to hear voices like that. We need to hear folks who look at politicians in both parties and hold a mirror up to them so they can see their own foibles.
When I was a freshman in college I took a class called Key Presidential Elections of the Twentieth Century. For the first time, I heard intelligent, lucid ideas about presidential elections that didn't come from either of my parents. (My parents were both very intelligent and active in politics. Mom is still alive, and in fact still feisty about politics.) This is yet another reason why college is important. We are all vulnerable to different ideas at ages 17-25 (roughly) and we need to hear ideas that shake us up and teach us how to think objectively. I purposely didn't tell my parents a lot about that poli sci class because they were staunch Republicans and the professor clearly wasn't. He referred to President Reagan as "the painted doll."
I learned to watch the idiotic sound bites that are political ads and to ignore the inflammatory rhetoric. For instance, Democrat accuses Republican of voting against a bill to help xyz group. Republican seems heartless. I do some research and find out the bill had tons of other things in it that were bigger and more prominent and probably Republican didn't realize the rider about xyz group was there; or possibly he felt like he had to vote for the bill because the other issues were more important. You can make the exact same argument for Democrats and how they vote. We really need single-issue bills in Congress, not bills stuffed with a million pounds of pork.
Politicians do this type of thing all.the.time. They have folks researching every single thing the opponent has ever done or said. By these standards, no politician is safe from mud slinging, unless they grew up in a monastery and have done and said almost nothing to anybody in their entire lives.
What I find so horrifying right now is that both parties are viciously attacking each other, and things are escalating alarmingly. The mud slinging here in Georgia has become a mud avalanche, and I bet it's that way everywhere.
As yesterday's clumsy bombs sent to Hillary, Obama, and others demonstrate, and the attacks on politicians in restaurants demonstrate, we are becoming less and less about disagreeing respectfully and more and more about being childish.
I blame Hollywood.
Seriously.
When I was a kid I went to see movies where there were lots of words exchanged, and violence was never the point of the whole movie. There were good guys and there were bad guys.
Nowadays, dialogue takes a back seat to action. Character development is tossed out the window. It's all about special effects. I dare you to think of an intelligent action movie that has been released in the past ten years. It's all about comic book villains and comic book morals.
There's no time for silly old-fashioned things like character development, dialogue, and real ideas.
With CGI, movies have become the realm of ANYTHING GOES. Instead of just a bad guy, we have villains that have to be special in some way -- they can't just be guys who want to kill one or two people, or even one or two countries. Oh no. They have to be out to destroy all mankind, in nuclear-type annihilation. It's like the running joke in the Austin Powers movies about wanting "millions" -- no wait, let's factor in inflation -- BILLIONS -- in order not to detonate a nuclear device.
The mindset is: let's make it bigger and badder and bolder. BIGGER. BOLDER. Let's really BLOW STUFF UP EVERY FIVE MINUTES!
Politicians have taken their cues from the movies and now everything is reduced to shock-inducing TV commercials. People usually don't take the time or trouble to sit down for an hour or more and truly research the candidates, comparing their positions on key issues. Sometimes you see it done in the media, but most folks don't trust the media any more. Did CNN make that chart? Nope, I don't believe a thing from them. Did Fox News make that chart? Oh hell no. They are totally Republican tools.
See how that works? The media outlets on both sides have lost all credibility.
We are all jaded.
I think also we are all tired of the mud slinging and the distortions.
I am tired of Congress in general. Why don't we have term limits or single issue bills? Simple. Politicians don't want those things. They don't want to shake up the status quo.
I am disgusted and disheartened by all of this nonsense. Wesley was right -- too bad he's not running for office right now...
