March 1, 2016
Hello blog readers, it's Neil again. This week, I'm supposed to share my opinion on the media's coverage of the 2016 presidential election. It's not good. As a self-identifying center-right libertarian, I'm pretty mistrustful and resentful of most people with public political interests, either conservative or liberal, and feel that while it may make you feel like a good person for a little bit to do something good for your party for a little bit, a more political mind is naturally a more cynical one that often views people as statistics and oversimplifies complicated ethical issues down to simple statements of "this is the only way and anyone who thinks differently is a bad person". That being said, I think that by its own standards, the media is covering the election just fine. By standards of common decency, they are covering it in a beyond awful fashion. Let's look at the candidates, shall we?
First we have Ted Cruz, who managed to defy the embarrassment of his filibuster a few years back to become a sometimes-OK-sometimes-abysmal policy advocate. The best thing about Bernie Sanders is also the worst thing- he's a wide-eyed idealist. Donald Trump... more on him later. Ben Carson was a former neurosurgeon who got into politics and, while I find his desire to bring church and state closer to be, for lack of a better term, inappropriate, I find him the easiest to get behind of all of the existing candidates otherwise due to his surprisingly accurate statements on political correctness. John Kasich has managed to win my dad over due to his appearance as a moderate Republican, though his record apparently isn't as moderate as a semi-progressive like my dad (or especially my sister) would like to believe. Hilary Clinton might be someone I'd vote for if she were not, well, a Clinton. And while Marco Rubio's social policies may not be perfect, his relentless string of burns on Donald Trump in the most recent CNN debate was reason enough to vote for him.
Trump was always an obnoxious personality for his infamous legacy as a business mogul, reality television star, and various political "commentary" on various news channels. And yet, no one ever thought he would try to run a campaign. OK, they thought he would, but not that it would be a success. He thinks that he can pressure Mexico into building a giant wall to keep them out, a wall that would probably take at least fifty years to build. The only way he could do that would probably be starting a war with Mexico, which I would honestly not put past him and find pretty hypocritical given his criticism of the Bush administration and the Iraq War (though that's more against the Bush family that he wants to belittle rather than actually about the ethics of the Iraq War, and he wants to step up torture without the pretense of "enhanced interrogation"). He supported multiple Democratic positions in the late 1990s/early 2000s, such as formerly being pro-choice on abortion, but reversed his positions in order to appear more conservative. This has been seen as contradicting himself rather than views evolving over time when receiving new information or having a change of heart due to direct experience. Some say he, for better or worse, tells it like it is, but I think he rather tells it like he would like to pretend it is in order to paint himself as the hero and everyone else as the villains. Through his general attitude, whether intentionally or not, he has managed to offend nearly everyone, such as blacks, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, and women. The only volatile socio-political group he has not offended is LGBTs, because it's clearly not worth his time. And his recent inability to make a definitive yes-or-no answer that, for his benefit, probably should've been a no, on whether or not he accepts the support of David Duke, the current representative of the modern Ku Klux Klan, when sixteen years ago he did criticize the KKK ideology, has once more served to embarrass what he thinks he stands for. Some have even theorized that he was meant as a false flag candidate for Hilary Clinton's campaign due to his previous support of the Clintons in the 1990s, and that Hilary set him up to be a ridiculous exaggeration of Republican candidates that uses populism and sensationalism to "win" the media over, "earn" the Republican nomination, and hand her an easy win. This however is just a conspiracy theory, albeit a strangely plausible one. What has allowed him to succeed as he has? Some say it is because of his attitude centered around winning, even at the cost of actual politics. Some say it is because of his anti-establishment nature that fearlessly criticizes the Obama administration. I feel like that it is a general rise in cynicism among Americans.
It's been said that a cynical culture breeds a cynical audience. The rise of quasi-progressive social politics being forced into nearly every facet of life in the 2010s, such as literature, comics, film, television, and video games, has been a double-edged sword. While it has allowed for more awareness on how we treat others and has even made some of my favorite media works possible, such as The Legend of Korra, Portal, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Steven Universe, and, to a lesser extent, Archer, BoJack Horseman, Disney/Pixar's Brave and Inside Out, F is For Family, Gravity Falls, The Lego Movie, and the most recent installment of Mortal Kombat; it has also allowed for a new form of pretentious culture that ends up legitimizing the very mentality it claims to be against. In order to be a post-racial and post-gender society in which people don't need to come out of the closet, can love whomever or whatever they are most naturally attracted to, and can alter their body to match their brain if need be and use whichever bathroom they prefer, we should stop acknowledging these aspects of people outside of pragmatic purposes, and not even engage in "positive discrimination", which is trying to put non-straight, non-white, non-male, and non-cis people everywhere simply because of such aspects (I suppose this is more commonly referred to as affirmative action) and treating them less like people and more like glass sculptures- fragile, in constant need of everyone's admiration, and put on a pedestal for the whole world to see how amazing it is. Unfortunately, as irrational political correctness becomes more accepted, so does irrational political incorrectness. Plenty of people living in the Bible Belt are tired of Barack Obama ignoring most issues of fiscal and foreign policy (or at least, not doing a particularly admirable job in putting forth sustainable policies in those departments) in favor of pushing for progress in social issues and establishing a good relationship with Hollywood, and are OK with having an apparent unapologetic bigot running the country if it means having a president with his priorities in order. Others have just been so turned off by Obama that they just don't care what happens next to the country and are just throwing in the towel and letting someone with no political experience take over (Chris Christie). The media, as much as they hate to admit it, love Trump, and are pretty close to dependent on him. Some of the more liberal media publications, such as the A. V. Club, The Huffington Post, Salon, and Vox, while claiming to be idealists and against cynicism, political or otherwise, usually write about all of the bad things going on, and while criticizing others who complain without providing solutions, the only solutions they provide are usually extreme, alienating, and while they may not appear necessarily bigoted now and against bigotry, they may definitely appear so fifty years down the line if and/or when straight white men become an oppressed minority. Ironically, most of the people at these publications are privilege central, only hire "the other" through affirmative action, and seem to have self-hatred and white guilt ingrained into their heads.
I don't want to be cynical, but when others are this cynical about the world they live in, it seems that I have little choice but to follow suit, albeit in my own way. I have enjoyed various works that have espoused both idealism and cynicism in varying shades, and feel that in this confusing world, it's best to be a little bit of all four of the mentalities in the four-philosophy ensemble- idealist, cynic, realist, and apathetic. Perhaps be each one twenty-five percent a piece, and be one a little more than the rest depending on the situation. The show I hope to make, "Fanz", will, in a similar manner to shows like BoJack Horseman and Rick and Morty, go pretty far down the rabbit hole of looking at cynical views and show that while some are useful, it is idealism that will truly win out in the end. It will also look at those who, as mentioned earlier, claim to be idealists simply because their politics lean left when they are more cynical than even the most reactionary conservatives could ever be and show just how dangerous that delusional type of thinking can be. Ultimately, the show will provide a message of idealism that promotes seeing people as people first and as skin colors and gender and sexual identities second, how works of fiction can improve how we live, why having other people in your life is so important, and why we can and should try to pave opportunities for those we care about, and even some of those we might not otherwise care about, to lead a better life than we all do now, regardless of politics. As stated by Stephen Colbert once (when out of character), "Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying "yes" begins things. Saying "yes" is how things grow. Saying "yes" leads to knowledge. "Yes" is for young people. So as long as you have the strength to, say "yes". Thank you for reading, and I'll see you next week.
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