Our (sad) Political Landscape

Personal attacks are a very effective political tool.  They may be uncharitable, unseemly and even hateful, but one thing is for certain, they are effective.  Today it’s impossible to turn on TV and not realize how context and fairness have been banished from newsrooms.  And amid the impeachment brouhaha, the media fills its quiver with out-of-context quotes and half-truths.

The president campaigned on five promises.

• Improve the economy and bring jobs back to the United States.
• Stop illegal immigration. The president doesn’t believe that the United States has an obligation to accept millions of immigrants who have to be supported by the American taxpayer.  He doesn’t oppose immigration, he simply believes in law & order and demands that immigration be legal and regulated.  He also wants immigrants to add something to our society rather than being dependent on the government from the day they arrive, which is why he believes in merit-based immigration.
• Defeat Islamic terrorism. Trump is deeply offended that the Muslim world has not risen up en masse against terrorism.  Trump is a New Yorker and he took 9/11 very personally and doesn’t believe it benefits the nation to accept many immigrants from Islamic countries because of the Islamic world’s soft reaction to terrorism; and he fears that many Muslims bring that attitude when they immigrate here.
• Stop China and the rest of the world from exploiting the United States financially. And to that end he has renegotiated NAFTA and other trade agreements around the world, all to America’s benefit.
• Rebuild a depleted military. After eight years of neglect, the president is rebuilding a military that according to former Defense Secretary James Mattis’ testimony before Congress in 2017, was incapable of deterring Chinese or Russian aggression

And while the president’s agenda remains a work in progress, an honest assessment of his administration would evaluate how well he has adhered to his promises.  The same should be done for the previous administration.

President Obama’s passion was using the federal government to directly improve the economic circumstances of the have-nots by providing subsidized health care and wealth redistribution through a variety of entitlement programs, all while imposing social justice by federal regulation.

So when judging the honesty of the media in reporting on the two administrations I think it’s fair to ask, which administration is/was closer to accomplishing what it set out to accomplish and how did the media cover each.

From Charlottesville forward the liberal media has leveraged the ‘tragedy of the day’ to inflame the American people against the president.  I’ll illustrate using just one ridiculous, yet representative example.  Remember when First Lady Melania Trump visited Houston after the hurricane in 2017 and was roundly criticized for wearing high heels on Air Force One (which she later changed into sneakers)?  Yet Michelle Obama escaped the same criticism for wearing $540 shoes to a food bank—why?   C’mon folks, a double standard regarding a First Lady’s footwear—give me a break!

Trump is criticized for removing 50 troops from northeast Syria, but nary a word from the media when Obama withdrew our forces from Iraq, which resulted in the rise of ISIS, tens of thousands slaughtered, and the greatest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.

Yogi Berra once quipped, “It ain’t over, ‘till it’s over”—but in Trump’s case, it will never be over.  The Democrat Party lost the 2016 election and has been throwing a tantrum ever since.  So let’s get real, the Trump-haters began talking impeachment the day the president was inaugurated.  But talk is cheap, so they foisted the Mueller probe upon us, and were infuriated when it turned out to be a bust.

Now we have the impeachment inquiry, a process Speaker. Pelosi conducts with all the equity of the Spanish Inquisition, i.e., closed door secrecy, out of context quotes, selective reporting, well-placed leaks and false assertions.

Who knows how this will all end, but here’s the irony.  The media will get its comeuppance either next year (or in five if Trump is re-elected.)  Just as MSNBC and other anti-Trump outlets’ ratings dropped precipitously following the Mueller investigation, look for their ratings to absolutely tank when they no longer have Trump to denigrate.  The sad reality is that just like the current field of democrat presidential candidates; the media doesn’t have anything worthwhile to write or talk about.

Quote of the day:  “The liberal media perpetuate political bias so forcefully and unrelentingly, it’s gone from subtle background noise to the entirety of its narrative.”—Political Law