My first blast:
JUST DURING THIS PRESS CONFERENCE
Donald Trump- I watch CNN and there's so much hatred. That's why I don't watch anymore.
Donald Trump- I got 306 electoral votes, the most since Ronald Reagan (he must have forgotten Barack Obama in 2012, Barack Obama in 2008, Bill Clinton in 1996 and George H. W. Bush in 1988.)
Donald Trump- The leaks are real, but the stories are fake.
I am so irritated, I have decided if the president ever stops by my apartment and expects to be invited to dinner, he can forget it. Even if he brings a casserole.
I couldn't believe people took what I wrote so seriously. I would never turn down a good casserole. I would give the president a generous tip for delivering the meal and send him on his way.
Still frustrated as I watched our president behave in a manner in which I have never seen a president behave in my six decades on this earth, I delivered what I thought was another Facebook zinger.
What I discovered, as so many others have before me, is that in today's charged climate, the evidence of a global warming in our national political discussion is undeniable. I immediately had some people who dropped me as a Facebook friend because I had dared to speak negatively about President Trump.
I would never have even considered dropping any of them when they made negative, sometimes vitriolic statements about President Obama (In fact, many of them had agreed with me when I criticized President Obama's mishandling of the Education Department during his eight years, though in retrospect, the Obama years look much better now that Betsy DeVos is heading the department.)
Part of the problem is that so many people limit their news consumption to whichever outlets provide the news that reinforces their own beliefs. If your dial is locked into Fox News at the beginning of the evening, it is likely to still be there at bedtime.
The same holds true for connoisseurs of CNN or MSNBC.
I try to watch them all for at least a short while each evening. I turn the dial to CNN sometimes then switch to MSNBC, CSpan, and Fox News (though I draw the line at Sean Hannity.)
Many of my friends who watch Fox News in the evening, restrict their talk radio listening to shows done by Fox news anchors or by Rush Limbaugh. Too many times they have heard Limbaugh's description of the "drive-by media," or Fox News' misleading "We report, you decide," slogan, when it is plainly clear that what they report is often designed to make you decide things in a certain way and it is totally designed to portray the media as a monolithic evil creature that wants to take away your freedoms and give them to people who do not believe in "traditional" American values.
My friends who would never dream of watching Fox News often have no understanding of issues that mean a great deal to millions of people across the United States.
This type of tunnel vision has not only led to complete hatred between those on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but it has led to a dumbing down of our public discourse, which has contributed to the polarization that has afflicted our society.
Had this situation existed in the 1960s, there would have been no Everett Dirksen to step forward and make critical civil rights legislation a reality. In the 1970s, Democrats and Republicans would never have worked together to shepherd this country through the constitutional crisis that Richard Nixon laid on our doorstep.
What I saw today on my Facebook page was a microcosm of what this country has become- people who will not tolerate anyone whose political views differ from their own and even worse, people who will refuse to budge from their stances and compromise on the issues that divide our country so that we can move forward.
I still have faith that we will get past this troubling phase.
And the man who will lead us to a better future is President Donald Trump.
Of course, he may not like the way it turns out.
That last line is going to lose me some more Facebook friends.
8 comments:
I used to think CNN had some credibility. Then I saw the hatchet job they did on Ferguson. Since then I haven't trusted a thing that they have reported on. I believe they are ratings driven and not necessarily interested in reporting complete, factual news. Whatever drives up ratings is what they give us. I haven't spent much time watching other networks, but I'm sure they are all the same. Having said that, I tend to believe Trump when he says that the press is screwing it up. I've seen it happen.
In Trump's extended news conference, the statements were so aggressive and bizarre it was startling. First reaction was to search how to tell when someone is lying. Bullying is not Leadership. Pray for our children and grandchildren.
Pleeaase...he is speaking truth and we are all so conditioned to conspired spin and politispeak by the media and maligned leaders it's refreshing. I must admit Trump can be a bit rambley, but he's letting them have it. Good for us.
Oh puh-leeze!!!
The biggest liberal whiner and unprincipled hack in the four-state area whining about "divisiveness"!!! Give me a break!!!
All of us know what we are going to hear be it Fox or MSNBC or CNN. So we choose accordingly.
I'm glad I have a choice of my form of poison listening to the media. Whenever I want to read some "fake news/free Swill" well, thank you Randy.
12:28- I honestly cannot fathom how we are supposed to believe anything he says. He has countless times that he's claimed "I've never said that" and video shows him saying or tweeting that exact thing... verbatim. What makes him so trustworthy? Isn't it far more likely that the man, who has been caught in lies numerous times, is continuing to do so and that the media is reporting the truth?
In the past I watch CNN but can no longer take the hate. I now watch FOX only in my opinion the only news station worth watching. Go ahead and watch the others and feel angry and depressed that is what they thrive on now...
Fake news is when you describe your inauguration as larger than others when such is demonstrably false. False news is when you say you won by more electoral votes than anybody since Ronald Reagan, and when proven false by a reporter, you say, "That's what I was told." That is scary when the president is given false information proven by a goggle search, but still repeats it as fact. Even Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace at Faux News had to call bullshit on that one. To describe the media, the fourth estate, as an enemy of the people, is not only deceitful, but un-American. This is not alternative websites like Breibart, he is describing, it it NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and the New York Times for goodness sakes. Our president has observable mental defects, all media should not only be alarmed, but reporting such.
Before our own Rush Limbaugh, the colluding crooked media was made up of ABC, CBS, NBC, Washington Post, and NY Times
Now we have a choice other than these lowest of the low life's of America. Major surveys now put the credibility of news people as way below used car salesmen, Congress and Organized Crime.
The trash has earned their reputation.
Thank God Allmighty for FOX and Rush!!
Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text 24/7
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