I'll admit, our household was in a rut. We turned to the same shows day after day -- The Five, then Special Report. Sometimes I would have Greta talking in the background while I read. O'Reilly? It depended on my tolerance for bombasticism on a given day. I work an early shift, so I rarely have the chance to watch Megyn. And that dumbbell who follows her? Nah. I'd hear him sometimes on my drive home from work, if the other talk radio channel had gone to commercial. I think he has a sheet of talking points that he has carried in his wallet since 2009, and he's still repeating them seven years later; only now with an extra-added dash of Trump-love.
Fox News has gone insane.
It's hard to be a conservative...at least a rational one. What are our TV news options? Yep, only one, and that one has betrayed us. It's like the Bizzaro Jerry episode of Seinfeld, in which life as we know it has been turned on its head. Maybe the whole world has gone insane and there are only a few of us left who realize it. Or maybe we are the insane ones.
Unlike Peggy Noonan, who flouts her "regular-folk" friends -- you know, the cab drivers and bodega clerks she crosses paths with, I do actually know one or so people who are Trump fans. They're normally lucid thinkers, people I admire and feel a kinship with. I admit, now I'm looking at them askance. Sort of like that thing you spot on the sidewalk in the dark when you're walking your dog, and you aren't quite sure. Is it a tree branch or a claw-tooth alien mutant that wants you to think it's a tree branch? I admit, it's caused me to semi-question my taste in friends.
I want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them. "Don't you see what a brain-dead dolt he is?" I want to scream, to snap them out of it.
"Well, he's anti-establishment," they'd say.
Okay, so was Charles Manson, if we want to get nitpicky about it. Why don't you run him for president?
I don't want to ascribe any ulterior motives to the folks on Fox, but either they're in the tank for Trump because they want favors/jobs/reflected fame/a handout, or they truly are dolts.
You know who they are. Some I suspected all along weren't rocket scientists; some have enough money (e.g., Bill O'Reilly from "co-writing" books and Greta from her Scientology e-metering or whatever the hell those people do), so I haven't quite figured out their motives. Some perhaps are simply band-wagoneers. Regardless, they have a duty to the people who tune in and who buy William DeVane's gold and HurryCanes™, and who thus pay their salaries, to not be sycophants.
Therefore, we've deleted The Five from our DVR queue. We watch Bret Baier a couple of nights a week. O'Reilly is gone. We'd rather turn to an episode of "Air Disasters" than watch Greta's show.
So, what has Trump done for me? He's freed up a few hours of my time. I like to read. I have a bunch of books downloaded to my Kindle; more than enough to last me for the next four or so years of the Clinton II administration.
I do think the fallout, though, will be interesting. I may even have to re-tune in to Fox just to watch.
But saying, "I told you so" is going to cut like bile in my throat.
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