The Tinnitus of Politics

     In recent weeks there has been a confluence of multiple events that previously would have been been the events that defined decades. A shooting at an elementary school of which its only comparable antecedent Sandy Hook still sticks in the minds of millions among dozens of other notable mass shootings. An ongoing publicized House committee investigating the involvement of a former President in what was at best an unruly mob trespassing on the hallowed ground of the Capitol building, the epicenter of our Republic, and at worst a calculated attempt to overthrow that very Republic. And most of all the monumental decision by the Supreme Court to reverse the almost 50-year decision of Roe v. Wade and upend the status quo on abortion. 

    All of these events in years past would have dramatically shepherded the moderate center of our country into the arms of the Democrats. But to the contrary, generic congressional polling has shown a consistent lead for the Republicans and an expected easy victory for them in the upcoming midterm elections. 

    What has happened is that Americans have been declared war upon, not by another country but by the media who since the 90s have branded every little minor bullshit story BREAKING NEWS, Americans have been bombarded with information, countless scandals, countless shootings, countless meaningless economic statistics. And so to defend themselves from this onslaught Americans have erected a dome over themselves and their immediate surroundings and every subsequent scandal has meant less and less to them. We have an American public that 50 years ago was disgusted by Watergate and a President that was ousted in a bipartisan manner, to a Watergate every week and simply no one cares. 

    Scratch that some people care, but only in a way that is perceived to be politically advantageous, dead silence is heard from Republicans on the Jan 6th committee while Democrats cheer on in what is shaping up to be the mirror image of the Clinton impeachment proceedings. I use Clinton because who even cared about the Trump Impeachment proceedings, the fact that he was impeached twice and that was a mere footnote on his Presidency speaks volumes about how desensitized the American public is and how the veneer of civility and bipartisanship has been dropped. To a Democrat, Bernie Sanders could actually be Vladimir Putin under a mask and he wouldn't lose votes as long as he promised to keep the mask on, and they would breathe a sigh of relief that he's actually 10 years younger. And the same goes for Republicans, we've reached a breaking point after the 30th or 40th scandal where we as Americans have sighed and collectively put our hands up and say we're a member of X political party and nothing that happens anymore is ever gonna change that. 

    In the Information Age, the twin terrors of the Media, Fox News, and CNN may have started this process of constant noise but they created a monster that would outgrow them. The legacy media of the 90s has largely given way to the Social Media of the 10s and 20s, and partisans of the left and right have eschewed any sort of claim of a neutral media in favor of information outlets that outright conform to their preconceived opinions and in that process is why Trump claimed correctly that he could shoot someone and still not lose any voters. And so issues that don't really affect most people, gay rights, school prayer, and foreign policy can be tuned out by the public, even something like abortion. The one issue that exists on both sides of the dome is of course the economy (stupid), the average American is suffering every time they go to the grocery store with a dollar that purchases a fraction of what it could a year ago. Americans suffer every time they go to fill up their car with exorbitant gas prices, Democrats for all their bluster on social issues that a solid majority of Americans will answer to a pollster that they care about, cannot offer a simple solution or explanation to the thought going on in the minds of the Americans who will hand the Republicans Congress in November "things weren't this bad when Trump was in charge". 

  

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