Russ Kent: Blame this clown act on the national media

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I love a good political joke.

But when two of them are running for the highest office in the land?

Well, it’s sad, but still darn funny.

Hillary, Donald … Donald, Hillary.

What a fantastic spectacle.

I’ve not seen so much staged, reactionary, fake, over-reactionary, over-dramatized, hypocritical drama in my life.

And I’m not even talking about the two candidates.

I speak of a media that doesn’t know how to handle the success of a candidate it hates and the hatred and distrust shown to the candidate it loves.

I saw a post on Facebook last week. It said something about trading in that whole clan of Kardashians for a single George Carlin, just so he could comment on the 2016 presidential election.

It’s a good thought.

But we don’t need Carlin. We have the national media.

I laugh daily at their ineptness, and their disingenuous, utterly-clueless, hypocritical outlook on anything having to do with this election.

This is the first election of its kind, a national election where a majority of voters are not voting for any candidate.

They’re just voting against the other guy.

The winner will not be the person loved the most, it will be the person hated, detested, distrusted and feared the least.

And the national media created this clown act.

And America’s GOP.

You know, the Goof Off Party. They do nothing for four years, then nominate a candidate with ABSOLUTELY no charisma to run for president.

Republicans share a lot of blame for the election we’re suffering through right now.

They are the reason so many conservative voters are backing Trump.

I don’t blame the Democrats.

They stumbled onto a winning formula eight years ago with Barack Obama.

Democrats figured out that pizzazz matters a lot more than platforms in a national election orchestrated by the national media.

And that is why issues and platforms no longer matter.

The only things that matter are personality and sound bites.

Because that’s where the media led us in 2008, and again in 2012.

Style over substance.

Brilliant!

Not good for the country. But entertaining as can be.

And Amercans are pretty good at being manipulated.

President Barack Obama was not qualified to be president. But the media loved him.

He was handsome, articulate and the promises that flowed from his lips were expressed with eloquence, and so filled with compassion.

It helped he was a Democrat.

The fact that much of what Obama promised was nothing more than blunder didn’t matter.

It was the way he looked and the way he sounded that was important … to the media.

Watching those guys talk about Obama was a a lot like watching one of those old newsreels from the 1960s. You know, when teenage girls were so overcome with emotion by seeing the Beatles they fainted.

When Obama was on TV you could hear the love, the adoration, the infatuation in the voices and expressions of 90 percent of the national media. I kept waiting for one of them to faint in his presence.

The Republican candidate in 2008, or 2012?

Can anyone remember? Let me give you a clue. B.O.R.I.N.G.

John McCain and Mitt Romney. Yep. Milquetoast.

Look it up in the dictionary. I think there are pictures of McCain and Romney included in the definition.

But Trump has borrowed the Democrats’ winning formula. Style over substance. He outshouted every other GOP candidate in the primaries and the media loved it.

The Democratic primaries were almost as bloody. But Hillary had a lot more charisma than Bernie Sanders, and a lot more experience at the down-and-dirty art of politics.

Which is the only thing that matters … to the media

She was the media’s favorite.

It worked with Obama.

It worked with Hillary Clinton.

It should work with Trump.

Trump also is unafraid to get down and dirty. In fact he revels in it.

He’s an underdog with charisma and a blank check.

The media should have loved him.

But wait. He’s a billionaire, God forbid. And he’s a Republican (if in name only).

The two things the national media hates most.

So the media attacked Trump.

And Trump fired back.

And the more the media attacked, the stronger Trump’s grassroots following grew.

So the media attacked harder, and Donald Trump came back with more outrageous comments.

And his support grew stronger.

Throw Hillary Clinton and her backers into the mix … and we have a slugfest like none before.

Trump is not qualified to be president.

But neither is Hillary.

But the national media dislikes her less than it dislikes Trump.

That’s a lot of negativity.

Combine that with two of the dirtiest fighters in campaign history and we have … well, 2016.

Punch, counterpunch.

Lie, bigger lie.

You bloody my lip. I’ll break open your skull.

And voters are eating it up.

And that’s how we got where we’re at today.

Trump learned the winning formula: style over substance.

May the most outrageous candidate win.

It’s great television. It’s great for comedians. It’s great for Facebook and Twitter.

But it’s no longer thao great for the national media, which still can’t figure out how to destroy Trump.

So they attack, Trump attacks back.

Hillary throws a right. Trump responds with an uppercut.

Truly entertaining.

But embarrassing.

We can do better. But we won’t … unless we quit letting the media determine who and what we should vote for.

Is this the end of the present day GOP?

I hope so.

I also hope it is the end of the present day Democratic party.

I’m not sure it’s the end of the two-party system.

But that wouldn’t be a bad thing, either.

I hear lots of calls to vote for third-party candidate Gary Johnson.

I’m not there yet, and I doubt I will ever be. I still think it’s a wasted vote. He doesn’t have a chance, despite his Facebook following, which means little in a national election.

Besides. I know who I’m going to vote against.

But in a way, I don’t want this cycle to end.

I love the drama. And I love the silliness.

But the real reason I don’t want it to end, is that one of these bozos is going win the White House.

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Russ Kent

[email protected]

 

Russ Kent is editor of the Galion Inquirer, Bellville Star and Morrow County Sentinel. Email him at rkent@civitasmedia with comments or story ideas.

 

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