James May-June 2023 web - Flipbook - Page 42
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NO CHECK ON THE CHECKERS
The “fact checking” business arose with the same
foundational monetary and logistical support that brings
that “legacy” news to us. Have you noticed how journalists, and I mean top ones, are willing to use definitive
terms like “lies,” and “debunked” in their description of
certain people and issues rather than the more cautionary and traditional terms like “disputed” and “alleged?”
Well, that’s because the fact checkers make definitive
statements that allow journalists to definitively dismiss
certain matters and embrace others. While the NewsGuards and PolitiFacts of the journalistic world were
being incubated and lovingly made “institutions,” there
has been no formidable effort made by those who long
for a more balanced media, to create credible and less
politicized alternatives. And that’s a fact!
DEMOCRACY HIJACKED
Speaking of democracy, it should have been a clue
when The Washington Post adopted the term “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” meaning that those who are
part of the machine that generally supports Democrats
would claim the word “Democracy” as their own. Of
course, the United States is instead a democratic republic. But the democracy part of it does die in darkness
when journalists report and investigate primarily on
just one side of the political aisle.
Add to the hijacked word list “authoritarian.” It is
now rarely used by the media to describe aggressive
actions by our current federal government, controlled
by Democrats. Yet it is applied freely to GOP governors
IDEAS
A GOP WAKE UP CALL
“Existential” is the most overused word of the last
three years. Everything, it seems, is deemed “an existential threat” to the world. The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard must be rolling over in his grave at the endless use
of his central concept.
So let me keep Kierkegaard spinning. The failure
of the GOP to flood nursing homes, bingo halls, and
mortuaries (Okay that one is a joke, sort of) in search of
voters willing to cast early ballots remains, as of today,
unaddressed, And it really is an “existential threat” to the
Republican leaders. They must come to understand that
in our post-COVID era, the rules for who votes when
and where, and under the aegis of “voter outreach,” has
changed forever. Democrats know how to spend buckets
of money to advance what could best be termed “selective
democracy.” They know just how to bump against the line
of what is allowed and what is not, should anyone with
any authority and objectivity care.
The GOP has only months remaining to create armies
and methods to match those efforts. (National Republicans ought to examine Georgia’s former U.S. Sen. Kelly
Loeffler’s new voter targeting/turnout organization as a
successful model.)
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JAMES
M AY/ JU N E 2023
ROWENLIFE.COM