For the Love of All That Is Holy, Please Don’t Stop Reading the News in the Age of Trump
Photo by Adam Berry/Getty
If you’re like many Americans, you’ve probably fallen into a rut of inactive discontent since the election. The first couple of weeks, before the Electoral College met and said, “Nah, this is definitely happening,” there were opinionated think pieces written and marches happening across the country. People were sure that their voices would be heard, but over the last few weeks, everyone’s quieted down. Maybe this is because we had to rein it in during holiday festivities with the family, or more likely, it’s probably because keeping up with what’s been happening has been downright exhausting.
From openly racist cabinet nominees to late night tweet storms, we may not be cool with what’s happening, but nothing really surprises us about Trump & Co. anymore. Did people see the repeal of the Affordable Care Act coming from a mile away? Of course. In fact, people are surprised that it’s taken this long to get the ball rolling on the defunding of Planned Parenthood as well. Yeah, people are pissed off, but so many have become jaded reading the news, just counting down the days until this guy’s out of the White House-1,459, to be exact. It’s not uncommon to read a headline that would seem downright ridiculous in any other administration, sigh, and click on to the next puppy video. This is because a puppy video doesn’t stir up reminders of pussy grabbing or giant walls.
That is, until #goldenshowergate broke.
People who had been brushing off Donald Trump’s antics as something that we’re just going to get used to couldn’t resist the tempting hashtag on Twitter. While the information came from a 35-page unverified report released by BuzzFeed, detailing Trump’s alleged ties to Russia, there is no denying that the raunchy material is what the masses really grabbed on to. The unsubstantiated story of how Trump allegedly hired prostitutes to urinate on a bed in the Moscow Ritz Carlton, due to the fact that Mr. Barack Obama and Mrs. Michelle Obama had once slept there, spread like wildfire.
Sure, it’s funny. There’s a lot of material to work with. A lot of material to work with. We can’t resist a salacious story, and the petty nature of this allegation takes the humor to the next level. But, as BuzzFeed pointed out in the original article, these reports were unverified and everything contained in the report should be taken with a very large grain of salt. In fact, one can argue that the story itself wasn’t the contents of the dossier, but the fact that it exists, and has for months.
Since Trump is our president-elect and is to be held in higher esteem than say, R. Kelly, this potentially untrue story would have eventually faded into the background within the week. That is, had the flames not been stoked in yet another 4:00 AM Twitter rant comparing the intelligence community to Nazi Germany, and again at his first official press conference in six months the next day. This scandal is certainly worthy of Scandal’s Olivia Pope, and it most definitely got America paying attention again for the first time in weeks. This shouldn’t have to be said, but in a post-2016 world, nothing is too outrageous anymore but, IT SHOULDN’T TAKE PEE TO GET US TO READ THE NEWS. But it did, and that’s a good thing.
The Press Is at Risk