CSotD: So what? Who cares?
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Adam Zyglis points out the vast number of positions and promises that Donald Trump has abandoned since he took office.
He's right and it's a good way to put them all in one place, and, in another context, it might be damaging.
John Kerry's presidential campaign was deeply wounded by both relatively benign and deliberately misinterpreted accusations of inconsistency, the largest being an out-of-context quote in which he said he was in favor of a piece of legislation until it was amended to the point he could no longer support it.
At which point, the term "flip flop" was applied, as John Branch more accurately applies it to Trump.
And I like this cartoon, but both it and Zyglis's piece raise the two critical questions in all reporting:
So what?
Who cares?
Which sounds dismissive, but is not.
I think anyone reading about the Kardashians or about Mama June's new body knows that there's no "So what?" to it, but there is a "Who cares?" because it aroused their curiosity, and they're okay with simply taking in information that isn't critical but is of interest.
For that matter, "So what?" about the symphony?
Bizet is dead, but we've got his music on records so that, if you want to hear it, you don't have to get dressed up and pay for tickets and deal with parking and sit in a crowded room and hear it played probably not as well as George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra did it on that remastered CD that's sitting back in your comfy livingroom.
Yeah, I know: The live symphony is uplifting.
To you.
Mama June's new body might inspire someone to get in shape, and that's pretty uplifting, too.
So somebody does care and the issue of "So what?" is both subjective and relative.
Face it: Mama June's sexy bod is all over my newsfeeds while there's apparently not enough interest in orchestras to make them show up there at all.
And I don't feel better about myself for once more reflecting that, back in the Middle Ages, when gormless, mud-spattered masses watched vulgar, witless puppet shows in the public square, they were simply peasants who grew the wheat and died in the wars and had no voice in the government.
If you believe in universal suffrage, you have to accept that the direction of your nation will be determined in part by people who find Mama June and the Kardashians fascinating.
Rather than Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones, which, we all know, are the pinochle of interlectural attainment.
Which raises the question of where you would set the voting cutoff?
To me, Mama June's yammering is like someone chewing tin foil, while the pretentions of Downton Abbey is only nails on a chalkboard, not nearly as excruciating but still nothing I seek.
And I like football, which you may think makes me a moron.
One big happy democracy.
I've heard pundits say that Trump supporters didn't care about his particular stances in the first place, but just wanted him to come in and stir things up, and he's sure done that.
Meanwhile, whether Mexico pays for the wall or we pay for the wall or there never is a wall doesn't matter.
Especially since he's being enough of an asshole that a lot of illegal aliens are re-thinking coming here, which has something of the same effect.
And maybe lobbing a few missiles into Syria and dropping a bomb on Afghanistan will intimidate other governments, and let America become King of the Mountain or Great Again or whatever.
As for "flipflopping," Bob Gorrell suggests that even conservatives are seeing a shift from looney to more moderately rightwing, and there's plenty of "So what?" and "Who cares?" to ponder in this cartoon.
Your "flipflop" is someone else's "getting it straight," and one of the things I've been hearing on NPR and CNN is people from previous administrations talking about the difference between what you thought you could do before you took office and what you realized on Day One.
It appears that Trump is learning, and David Horsey is dead-on with this depiction, and with the concommitant question of why other nations have leaders who know how stuff works and we elected someone who clearly doesn't.
But if you're going to ask "Why did so many people vote for a preening ignoramus?" you should also ask, "Why didn't people flock to the polls to keep him out of the Oval Office?"
Well, one group trusted his absurd, unworkable promises and the other group trusted the polls and didn't care enough to hedge their bets and apparently didn't care — or even know — about the other items on their local ballots.
Thus people in a democracy get the government they deserve.
So what?
Who cares?
I hate when people tell me their dreams, but Edison Lee got an extra laff this morning because last night I dreamt that I came back from vacation at a newspaper to find the place in something of a stir, and that the publisher wanted to see me.
She told me that she had ordered the name of the paper changed to "The Varsity Rag," which she felt combined self-deprecating whimsy with the concept of going for the youth market. She showed me the new staff lineup, and I saw that she had fired all the smart folks and promoted the airheads, but realized that I wasn't being asked for input, simply being brought up to speed.
I felt — but did not say — that we were trashing 150 years of market-building, as well as abandoning our critical role of telling people what they needed to know in favor of giving them only what they wanted to hear.
I didn't expect to wake up and have it laid out so precisely and well in the funny pages.
So what?
Who cares?
Mrs. Crandall gets to save 50 cents on pudding pops.
Next question?
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