A
Brief History of a House Divided
Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 8/28/19
Russia, Russia / collusion,
collusion / impeachment, impeachment / racism, racism, and now recession,
recession.
Media
assault didn’t start with our current president, though it did of course start
with a Republican president. Ronald
Reagan was a cowboy from California whose ignorance of geo-politics and
diplomacy would surely cause him to blow up the world. And we dare not have a president saying,
“Government is not the solution; government is the problem,” or – while still
California’s governor – “The college
Vietnam protestors are screaming ‘Make love not war,’ but considering their
appearance I doubt they could do either.”
Just
whom does such rhetoric sound like?
While its tenor may not be as acidic as Trump’s, its aim was just as
sure. And the head cheerleaders of the
Reagan opposition were, yes, the three major pre-cable television networks. If not as malicious as today’s cable
networks, they were still definitely anti-Reagan.
In
spite of his supposed instability, Reagan was re-elected. Sam Donaldson of ABC was to Reagan as Jim
Acosta of CNN is to President Trump.
Both so-called reporters made themselves the story.
In
Reagan’s day cable television was in its infancy, CNN being launched in 1980,
the year Reagan was elected. The three
major television networks were foot soldiers for the Democrat Party just as
they and at least two cable networks are today.
Conservatives, having never enjoyed media support, edged bravely into
the winds of bias and subjective journalism wherever and however they
could. Their primary conduit was
radio. Radio “spots” funded by Texas oil
man H.L. Hunt kept the conservative faithful from despair. The journalism and compelling voice of Paul
Harvey, intertwined with American lore and values, kept them from sheer
depression.
Conservatives
slightly cracked the media in 1966 in the person of William F. Buckley and his
television program, “Firing Line.” It
was only a crack. Rush Limbaugh would
push the door further in 1988. Only when
cable television expanded was the door pushed open by Fox News in 1996. Even so, there were two GOP presidents, Bush
I and Bush II, who bore the brunt of the old networks’ bias. Bush I was portrayed as “a wimp,” he who flew
WWII combat missions and was shot down, only to fly again. His son, like Reagan, was presented as
something of a strutting, strident cowboy.
The Bushes weren’t Texans. They
were privileged whites from Connecticut merely using Republican Texas as their
new base of power. Or so the northeast
media asserted.
Clinton
and Obama, on the other hand, were media darlings. Clinton was the bright boy. Obama was the future for sure. He would put conservatives in their place.
But
it came to pass that, partly because of the IRS’s treatment of the Tea Party
and globalism gone wild, the peasants came with their pitchforks. From every crook and cranny they came, mostly
from heartland America and small towns, though from large industrial cities as
well. We’re all familiar with “… and a
little child shall lead them,” but nowhere in the annals of history do we find
“…and a billionaire shall lead them.” But
a billionaire did lead ordinary folks to victory, vindicating Buckley who had
said he’d rather be governed by the first 100 people in the Boston telephone
book than by the Harvard faculty.
Yes,
the billionaire talks ugly. He hits
back. His rhetoric falls far short of
Lincoln’s “mystic chords of memory” and “the better angels of our nature.” But the billionaire is listening to his peasants
and they are influencing him for good, not on his hitting back which he needs
to continue, but on his increasingly apparent love for ordinary folks and their
values. Who knew (the educated media
elites should have) that globalism was understood by the non-elites at both the
intellectual and pocketbook levels? Who
ever dreamed that the non-elites, so many of them people of faith, would
support a thrice married playboy?
It’s
fortunate that ancient Jews didn’t reject the help of King Cyrus even though he
was a pagan Persian. Not a perfect
vessel, that Cyrus.
It
would be nice if those who fault people of faith for supporting the president cared
more about the abhorrent practice of abortion, the loss of manufacturing to other
nations, and the illegal immigration crisis. It would be wise if free-marketers
stopped taking social conservatives for granted.
Those
peasants are smart. Guided by common
sense, they know a smart, authentic dude when they see one. Given that the face of the Democrat Party is
now the anti-Semitic members of The Squad, it’s possible that the Jewish
community will join the peasants in giving the playboy a rousing victory in
2020.
Roger Hines
8/21/19
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