A Year of Magical Thinking

What a magical year 2019 has been.  As I’ve said in previous blogposts (Politics Through the Looking Glass, Truth or Consequences Today, Living Beyond the Pale), the emotional intensity of today’s political environment has resulted in the suspension of rational thought and common sense.  As a big fan of historical fiction, particularly novels about the Middle Ages, I feel as though magic is making a big comeback and may replace the past 500 years of enlightenment.

As I write this, Donald Trump is about to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives which will surely please those who never wanted him as president to begin with. What I’ve learned from watching some of the impeachment hearings has convinced me that a law degree (like the one I got many years ago) does not guarantee that its recipient will be skilled in basic rules of fairness or decorum. In a political fight like the one we’ve been witnessing, accusations and hearsay are acceptable substitutes for hard evidence, emotion clearly plays much better on television than wisdom, and adding the suffix “gate” to any noun will make it a crime.

Americans haven’t been drawn to the impeachment mini-series as they are to any number of insipid TV shows that generally have higher viewership. Maybe Latin terms like quid pro quo and scary plots like “Trump is a Russian agent” don’t have the same sex appeal as your run-of-the-mill Netflix movie (I wouldn’t know since I watch so little TV ).  Whatever the problem with this episode of Impeach the President is, the Gallup organization now reports that support for impeachment and removal is sinking like a stone – an 11-point swing since the series began.

As any storyteller knows, you have to grab your audience quickly and keep them on the edge of their seats if you don’t want your show to be cancelled mid-season. There’s simply no suspense in this tale. Can we just get the Senate trial over with and return to normal programming?

As many others have said, wanting to believe something is true explains much of what is described as “fake news”. In other words, most people have their minds made up – on the Left and the Right. If we already have decided what is true, let the facts be damned!  It doesn’t matter one bit that unemployment is at historic lows, that the stock market is up 30% this year, that illegal border crossings are down 70% since May, that food stamp use is at a 10-year low, or that most economists now agree the U.S. economy is certainly not teetering on the edge of recession. Despite the naysayers in the media, despite those who are chronically unhappy, and despite those who would rather see millions of people suffer than have Trump re-elected in 2020, I have a sneaking suspicion that most folks are really looking forward to a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah or other winter holiday they celebrate.

And if that’s not enough, I understand that Gary Larson’s “The Far Side” comic strip is returning after a 25-year hiatus. After all, we need a good laugh every once in a while.