View from the Side #3

View from the Side #3

“I washed my brain on the ne-ews cycle,
shrunk my mind in the media spin.”

The speed of the news cycle is the surest sign of the tremendous undercurrents going on in the political world right now. And that fact is also one of the gravest threats to public participation in the political life of the nation. Major stories flicker past our eyes and ears and disappear into the memory hole like nearly subliminal advertisements for products we don’t want and couldn’t afford if we did.

The environmental catastrophe of flooding in the midwest is already so last week. The impacts on food production and costs this fall are not as important as Jussie Smollet’s great adventure. Joe Biden’s creepiness. The newest IPhone. While we scream about money taken from the Special Olympics which is then given back

Trump pardons Scooter Libby.
Trump “gives” Golan to Israel.
C02 emissions rise to new record highs.
Arctic sea ice plunges to new lows.
Reps Tlaib and Green file to investigate impeachment of Trump and are ignored by their own party.

Meanwhile, back on the Hill, instead of taking any actual action on these actual issues, Democrats pass resolutions “condemning Trump” (https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/29/politics/house-resolution-health-care/index.html). They plead and complain about how many words of Mueller’s report they’ll be allowed to see, after having wasted two years waiting for it instead of using their Congressional power to do their own investigations. And for reasons completely unclear to me, they won’t call Mueller and Barr in to testify under oath. What don’t I know, that could explain this strange behavior by the supposed opposition party?

Every time I see the words, “The American people think…” or “Democrats want their leaders to…” I know I am reading lies. Those kinds of statements are always, necessarily, by definition untrue. I seldom keep reading.

I will try my best in this series not to tell you what you think. Or what any groups of people all think. From the side, I can’t say what “the Democrats” believe about impeachment, or what crimes “the Republicans” are willing to ignore. That would be a lie.

Instead, I’ll tell you as directly and clearly as I can what I think based on the best information I can find. You can think it through for yourselves and then tell me what you think.

What I think, today, is that, instead of the CNN headline which reads “Trump Whitehouse in Chaos” it should read, “Democrats in Disarray, Confusion Reigns” as they continue to squander their chances of winning the 2020 election by inaction and weakness.

That’s the view from the side this morning.