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Shades and shields, cones and caps.
Masks that thwart cams, not Covid.
White people being white bigots. Marching.
Always marching in step, one behind the other.
Symbols.
Equant crosses.
Hooked crosses.
Torches.
Uniforms and camo.
Sheets and Khakis.
Fascists on the hoof.
Oh dear.

Boys, you look fabulous.

It seems to me that I’ve written about this before. I write so much for myself and others in other places that I often forget where these things are floating around. Admittedly, this is a huge idea that is difficult to break down into something easily consumable. However, I know we have some of the smartest readers on the block, so perhaps someone can convert this into something actionable.

Trumpism specifically and populism in general depends on a grievance state. It’s easy enough. All you need to tell people is that they aren’t achieving as much as they should be and that someone else is to blame for their failure. Obviously, there are two key points here. First, you need to convince people that they are failures. This is a lot easier said than done. You don’t want to overdo it. If you lean on that too much then they think you are insulting them. Of course, the next step is just too easy. You aren’t getting ahead because of this other group of people. The only thing that matters is finding the right scapegoat.

If I use myself as an example, I could say that I did not become a high school counselor like I had planned earlier in my career. I got the masters degree and applied for a lot of openings, but it just never happened. I could point out that sometimes I didn’t fit the demographic they were looking for. There are just not many male counselors in schools. If I were susceptible to grievance then I might start blaming women since they are the ones that hold the position. I might blame other ethnic minorities that seem to get more opportunities than I do. As you might suspect, this would be a mind trick to excuse myself of any culpability.

These are the two incontrovertible facts I come to. First, I am not currently in that position because of the choices I have made. There were times where I could have stayed on a campus and worked my way up to that level. There are other times when there are certain things I could have done outside of my job to prepare myself for that opportunity. I did not do those things. The second fact, is that I am better off where I am and actually am able to do more good performing the job I currently have. Naturally, this is not all about me, but our stories are common. Come across just about anyone and they could tell you that they could have gotten further and made more money if things had turned out differently.

Gratitude is easy enough and yet so elusive at the same time. I got opportunities others did not get. Many of us could say the same. Acknowledging that is the hard part. Acknowledging that we are where we should be is hard. Acknowledging that we are where we are because of choices we have made is even harder. So, finding a way to convince people that they should be thankful for what they do have sounds like a near impossible task. Furthermore, convincing them that they don’t have that dream job because of themselves is also hard. It’s so much easier to pick out a group to blame. Being happy in our skin seems so simple and yet so complicated. Maybe someone out there can find a way to make this actionable and not philosophical.

Rick Perry has announced that he’s probably running for President of the United Damn States of America.  The man who in a presidential debate could not remember all three of the departments he wanted to abolish and ended up saying “Oops” to a stunned audience of people who can generally remember three things at once, has now decided that he has certifiable evidence that remembering things is not a quality America actually wants in a President.

Being forgetful is actually a plus now! It makes testifying under oath so damn easier.

A lot has been made of the CNN debacle and we have certainly covered that here. However, there is one angle that hasn’t been addressed when it comes to the development of news and commentary industry. If everyone is anything like me, they can remember a time when there was no cable television. There were the major networks and the nightly news was a fixture during everyone’s evening. CNN didn’t even launch until I was seven years old in 1980. For most Americans that was about the time when most families started switching over to something more than basic cable.

The three major networks got to broadcast their programs for free over the airwaves. Families were able to pick up these programs for free as well. Implied in this arrangement was an agreement with the various governmental agencies that regulate the airwaves. In exchange for the freedom to broadcast there was an expectation of some minimal modicum of decency. That governed the news and the entertainment programs as well. Those networks would have to consider the value of these programs before deciding whether to broadcast them on the public airwaves.

Cable stations don’t have that same agreement. They have to jockey for position with the cable and satellite providers instead. Those are their direct customers. They grade everything based on the number of eyeballs they get. So, the idea of whether anything is newsworthy gets skewed by the eyeball test. Moreover, whether something adds to the public discourse and the general improvement of political commentary also takes a back seat.

Of course, one could debate whether cable and satellite television has been good or bad overall for the advancement of culture. With every negative has come some tremendous positives. We’ve watched more sitcoms and other dramas from cable and streaming services than from the basic networks over the years. They are able to take more chances and produce more challenging programming than the majors can. They can also give lesser actors a chance to shine. One could argue that these avenues have launched careers that would never have gotten off the ground otherwise.

Unfortunately, those that launched the 24 hour “news” platform probably miscalculated how these would develop over time. In the beginning we might have thought that they could go further in-depth and really educate the public on the source of numerous issues on the ballot and in society. We could have gotten background information on issues that would increase our collective understanding. We could have done a lot of things. Instead we get an amplification effect where our collective fears, slights, and grievances are magnified beyond any reasonable measure.

In this ecosystem it makes perfect sense that a CNN would give Donald Trump a platform. They might even convince themselves that they are doing right because he is a newsmaker and it would be wrong to editorialize by denying him that platform. The problem is the whole nonsense around bias and the mainstream media. Bias is inherent in the process. It is how we decide this story goes first and that story goes second. It is how we decide this story gets that oversized headline. It is how we decide these other stories are added to Friday story dump. At the end of the day it all goes back to who the customer is. On a national network the customer is the public. Our goal is to inform the public and do right by them. On cable and satellite the customer is the cable company and satellite company. They want eyeballs, advertising dollars, and attention. If we get there with quality programming then so much the better. If the programming sucks but brings eyeballs anyway then so be it.

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