Politicians and for that matter the media have hungered for a turnabout year. A period where everything is topsy turvey and what seemed a line to red to cross has become a replay of Frances maginot line before WW II. The line has not only been passed it has been oblierated.
No more does shocking statements or actions bring lasting consquence for politicians and no more does the cable media be able to find the integrity to give the public context or the courage to hold renegade lawmakers feet to the fire.
Two autopsies need to be done. How on earth could the republican party allow itself to be the trump party. And how is it imaginable that the media aided and abetted their actions.
The answers for why 2017 will go down in history as a time when America turned from hope and change to cynicim and devolution are rooted in political foul play and media appeasement.
Donald Trump didnt take over the republican party and its voters they handed themseleves over like willing hostages. A minority right wing of the party who for so many years was held in check by the more moderate section of the party suddenly was let loose. Like an inhibited Victorian from the 19th century who suddenly cant deny their innate urges, republicans gave into racism,misogyny and futhering the gap of income inequality.
With Trump not holding back on his desiresthe gop also took their foot off the brake for stopping the very grosteque white supremacy that always lingered in their cultural views and policy decision making.
They like trump would not only look the other way at the ugliness of racist behaviorbut chose to embrace those for their donations and their votes. Republicans tasted the forbidden fruit of winning at any cost and wanted more.
This same appetite for allowing the forbidden to reach new heights was consumed by many in the cable media as well. The laser focus the networks gave trump starting in 2015 continued unabated as the ratings soared in 2016. And to throw more gasoline on the fire the cable media other obsession.Yet another Clinton "scandal" was also far to pervasive for the media to pass up. Even if the so called scandal was more republican hyperbole and less of whether Hillary Clinton was capable for the office of President. If her policies would have received as much attention from the media as her supposed transgresses the presidetial election outcome in 2016 could have been different.
But cable news became ratings ambulance chasers. A menu of a main course of trump, sprinkling in a little Bernie Sanders underdog dramatics was for cable news just too delicious.
For Republicans and cable news forbidden fruit was too good to stop taking the next bite. Power for a gop that all too often felt frustrated in the Obama years has made its deal with the trump devil. As for cable media repeating news about trump, his endless tweets and his scoundrel behavoir makes trump newsmsker in chief. While the crtical issues of our time like climate changes never more evident in then in the mass fires in the state of CA which has destroyed numermous home effected 1000's of businesses and killed people plays as an after thought on most nightly news shows.
There will be many more news stories in 2018 and while the deleterious words and actions of trump should be covered. They should not blot the sun of stories the public desperately needs to be informed of.