Old Guy
Sometimes I feel like an “old guy”. Like yesterday, I had to ask a young coach how to take “screenshot” on my IPhone so I could send an image in a text. He was gracious, but I’m sure felt the same way that I did explaining the TV remote control to my Dad. The “shot” got sent, (and I didn’t manage to call 9-11 in the process), but, definitely I was an “old guy”.
Back when I was growing up, TV’s went from giant boxes with tiny black and white screens to smaller boxes with colorful screens, and there were three choices in television news. It was either the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC, Walter Cronkite on CBS, or young Peter Jennings on ABC. In my youth, we went the “way” that Dad’s TV station went. We were mostly a Huntley-Brinkley “house”, but there were a couple years when Dad went with ABC, and we got to meet Peter Jennings. It’s a little different when you’ve said hello to the man who tells you the state of the nation and world every night.
Sliced Up
I’m sure there are some people still loyal to their “network” news. I still feel “close” to NBC, now led by Lester Holt. It’s what Mom and Dad used to watch (an earlier essay – Watching Brian). The sign of our modern political era is that I don’t see Lester or the network news that often. I’m still watching, but it’s a derivative of NBC News, MSNBC. The fact that I haven’t seen Lester Holt in live coverage for years tells everything about what’s happened to American’s consumption of television, and as importantly, social media and cell phone news.
If you think of traditional broadcast media news, you start with a pie sliced into three pieces. (Sure, there was always PBS, but they had a very small piece of the pie, one made without sugar or fattening ingredients). But the “American Pie” today is now sliced into very narrow pieces, perhaps so thin that, like a real pie, the pieces fall apart before you even get them on the plate.
The three main networks still exist. But the “television news” business is now sliced up. There’s MSNBC and CNBC, CNN and CNN International, Fox, and Fox Business, Newsmax and OANN; and there’s also “Cheddar” and News Nation, NBC NOW, and ABC and CBS Live. And then there’s the “direct” news – on YouTube and Tik Tok and all of the other live sources. And finally, you can get “your news” directly from individuals, from Mark Levin and Tucker Carlson to Marc Elias and Simon Rosenberg (two of my favorites).
Alternative Facts
Part of any “discussion” of American politics and events is based on some common agreement. We have a “history” that we share, events that we mutually reacted to, ideals that we hold important. But in our fractured world, none of those things are true, anymore. Even such a basic tenet of American history, that we rebelled against a sovereign king to create a “Democratic/Republic”, is now in question. The Supreme Court is seriously (seriously?) considering the question of whether the President of the United States is sovereign; immune from criminal prosecution for his/her actions.
Attorneys arguing for immunity pointed to George Washington and Alexander Hamilton for precedent and support. There was once a time, not long ago, when we all believed the exact opposite. Many of us still do, but it is no longer a “common” fact. Washington and Hamilton must be spinning in their graves.
Where we get our information determines what we believe. We now all have “separate” sources, based on age, habit, peer pressure, and – the saddest part – what we “want” to hear. We find what we want to believe, then turn to sources to affirm that “want”; whether it’s true or not. Kelly Ann Conway, former and future advisor to Donald Trump, said it best in an interview with then NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd in 2017. They were discussing President Trump’s inaugural crowd size, clearly exaggerated by Press Secretary Sean Spicer.
Conway told Todd: “You’re saying it’s a falsehood and Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that.”
Todd responded: “Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods.”
Conway retorted: “If we’re going to keep referring to the press secretary in those types of terms I think we’re going to have to rethink our relationship here.”
The Worm Turns
Here we are, eight years later. Conway’s “alternative facts” are now “truth” to tens-of-millions of Americans. We now know that “fact” and “falsehood”, here in the 2020’s, are no longer absolute terms. They are relative, depending on what “piece of the pie” is your source.
So, what is it about third party candidates for President? Ross Perot had a significant following in 1992, when he dropped out of the race. He stated his reason as masked men attacking his home and endangering his daughter. A week later he re-entered the race, but the damage was done. He never had that level of voter support again.
This week, Bobby Kennedy Jr released that he had a dead worm in his head, one that ate a portion of his brain before it died. It might be true, but it’s certainly not likely to increase his political support – “Oh, I’m voting for Bobby, even though he’s a worm-eaten former heroin addict who doesn’t take vaccines”. And yesterday, Donald Trump went on Truth Social to “call out” Kennedy for being a “fake” anti-vaxxer. The son of my hero, Bobby Kennedy Senior, might be a lot of things (perhaps thanks to the worm; more likely the heroin) but surely his one bona fide is as THE preeminent voice against vaccination. Just another Trump “alternative fact”, I guess.
