This is 2020...
(This is not a religious post. This post dramatizes one man's opinion in a world gone mad.)
I can hear Barbara Walters in the background as the familiar theme music plays and the seconds click down on the show's trademark pocket watch - tick, tock, tick, tock. Twenty-twenty is an amazing year. Lead stories range from the spread of the Coronavirus and its impact on American families, with its stories of mismanagement, misinformation, and mischaracterizations that dominated headlines for months, to the abject failure of the Hatfield and McCoy Congress to actually do anything benefitting the American people if it wasn't also designed to damage the other party politically.
Barbara's lead-in ignores common sense truths, like if we can stand in line to grocery shop at Walmart, then we can stand in line to vote at the polls, or if we can be safe shopping at the big box store with million-dollar PAC budgets for "necessities" to complete that emergency home improvement project, we can be equally as safe shopping at the small business mom and pop grocery store, whose lifelong dream was crushed by the scientifically unsupported, state mandated closure order. Instead, she shows us snippets of the NBA finals - not the action itself, mind you, but the social justice activities that ruined NBA television ratings. She highlights a video of a bunch of naked celebrities telling us we have a duty to vote for one candidate or the other, as if their manufactured vulnerability overshadows the multi-million dollar far-removed-from-reality backdrops that are their own posh luxury homes. Finally, she opines on the voting record of this senator or that congressman who pushes through stimulus legislation, ignoring the fact that the now multi-millionaire legislator refuses to live in his own represented district, entered Congress with just enough life savings to survive three months without work, has lifelong access to healthcare and pension benefits significantly different from the legislation they forced on their constituent Americans, and has no idea how the average American is going to pay down that additional, unfathomable debt.
She then shifts to the lead story of the night. The election of 2020. This election may very well be remembered as the beginning of the end. Not only do we now have the technology to manipulate a US presidential election, but we have the arrogance to think that that manipulation is both justified and defensible. Republicans decry the mainstream media's treatment of President Trump, highlighted by Savannah Guthrie's overreach as self-appointed Town Hall Interrogator, and espouse attempts to "drain the swamp" as if Republicans aren't lifelong residents within that selfsame swamp. Democrats smile as their carefully controlled narrative drowns out truth and fact, simply ignoring the inconvenience of video and Internet evidence to the contrary. They adopt the spy's mantra of admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations, abandoning failed narratives and moving to the next carefully crafted story as each attempt to distract Americans begins to fray. All of this occurs at a frighteningly frenetic pace as those politically aligned to other parties shake their heads wishing an electable third party candidate would emerge and save us all from the debacle the two-party system has become.
Meanwhile, our carelessly selected handlers flout their power and our lack of accountability on live television. Instead of seriously interviewing Supreme Court Justice nominee Judge Amy Coney Barret, Democrat Senators on the Judiciary Committee pushed agenda items they knew the Judge was unable to answer and never should have been asked. They wasted their time, the Judge's time, and taxpayer dollars, with lines of questioning more akin to a Perry Mason episode than a real confirmation hearing. During the three-day event, instead of delving into the Judge's theories and processes for deciding cases with far-reaching impact, they instead denounced the proceedings as a farce, as if they wouldn't have done the exact same thing if the Senate and President had been Democrat. Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Judge Barrett that at any other time, under any other circumstances, the Judge would receive everyone's vote because of her supreme qualifications alone. He clarified for the Judge that the problem wasn't with her, her record, or her answers. It was with the Senators who couldn't put politics aside for three days for the betterment of the country.
Finally, Barbara closes the show with an appeal to wear masks, social distance responsibly, and to not forget to vote, whether by mail or in person. The lights dim, the camera fades, and Barbara saunters off to her dressing room, maskless. She notices on the television some other organization is covering censorship by social media, but chooses to ignore it. Americans don't want truth or hard-hitting journalism anymore. They want us to simply reinforce pre-existing biases. That's what sells. That's what gets ratings.
Just ask the NBA.
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