Age of the Geek

By: 
Travis Fischer

Political realities
     What a week for politics. Along with yet another Republican primary debate, last week saw the final State of the Union Address from President Barack Obama.
     Watching both in close proximity, one has to wonder if these people really do live on the same planet.
     Listening to the president, America remains the strongest economic powerhouse in the world. A nation where the deficit is shrinking and the jobs are growing. One where opportunities are abound for people to achieve the American dream because health insurance is more affordable. And, as a finale of his presidency, let’s just go ahead and cure cancer.
     On the other side, if the Republican primary candidates are to be believed, America is a crumbling mess. We are no longer a world power. The Affordable Care Act is crushing our economy. ISIS is on the verge of killing every last one of us, and they’ll succeed because the government is coming for our guns.
     The truth may be somewhere in the middle, but I know which side of the middle I’d look first.
     If there’s one thing in the last seven years that I’ve never understood it’s the impulse to create a false equivalency between the left and the right.
     “They’re both equally bad!” you hear from that person who hates politics and never passes up an opportunity to tell you how much they aren’t interested in them.
     And to a certain extent, yes. Politicians embellish, exaggerate and cherry-pick information to put themselves in the best possible light and to cast their opponents in the worst.
     For instance, president Obama said that the nation has seen the addition of 900,000 manufacturing jobs in the last six years. This is true, but conveniently neglects to account for the fact that he’s been president for seven years, and that first one was a doozey. One may argue how much he can be held responsible for the things that happened during his first year, but if you want to be technical about it, manufacturing jobs are still down since Obama took office.
     It’d be nice if all our politicians always put their facts and figures in the appropriate context, but I suppose that’s my job.
     In either case, it’s a far cry from Donald Trump claiming the President is going to admit 250,000 Syrian refugees or that he saw thousands of Muslims cheering on New Jersey rooftops during 9/11. Statements like these go way beyond embellishment. There’s no way to cherry-pick facts to make them statements accurate. They’re just false.
     Maybe when you’re a billionaire like Trump, all the denominations under a million start to blur together, but he’s hardly the only one out there creating alternate histories and pulling facts out of thin air. It’s one thing to have differing opinions, but it seems more and more that politicians feel they are entitled to their own realuity.
     The candidates on stage during last week’s debate may have disagreed on many things, but they were unified in their assertion that this country literally cannot withstand another Democratic presidency.
     I’m not sure if the implication is that the government will dissolve and the nation will fall into anarchy, or if they think the North American continent itself will shatter in protest protest and crumble into the ocean.
     That’ll be the next argument against global warming. Florida isn’t sinking, it’s just being patriotic.
     I hear this rhetoric and I can’t help but wonder what metric they are using to determine exactly how devastating the Obama Administration has been to the nation. They never really get around to detailing the specifics of that particular claim. Even if the president embellishes his achievements, any objective assessment of the nation would conclude that we are better off than we were seven years ago.
     Heck, after a decade of letting our nation’s roads and bridges rot away, last month Congress finally managed to pass an infrastructure bill. This is one situation where you could say that the country was literally being destroyed and we’re finally doing something about it.
     Interestingly, in spite of passing with bipartisan support in both the Senate and the House, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul all took time out of their campaigns to vote against the bill. I can’t fathom why. I assume that voting to fund road work would somehow be considered a political weakness among a base that wants to “take back their country.”
     There’s another oddly vague assertion. Where exactly do they think their country is? Who exactly are they taking it back from? I mean, other than the majority of voters who put Obama in the White House. Twice.
     I don’t know what world these people live on, but I wouldn’t want to be there.
 
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and tries to keep his pants free of fire.

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