I'd Rather Be Funny

If my job approval rating was 48%, I’d probably get fired  

And deservedly so.  If we could fire you from writing this Blag, we probably would have done that long ago.  

So, big news came around the wires yesterday, when it was revealed that according to a recent poll, 48% of the American people approve of President Obama's job performance.  That's wonderful.  

I say this all sarcastically, not because I myself approve or disapprove of the president's job performance.  That's not important.  I say this all sarcastically because I want to make a point about the current state of discourse in American politics:

It's very sad to me that we've reached a point in history where no American president will ever do a good job again.

Whether or not the president actually does a good job is entirely irrelevant now.  Blame whoever you want for this, but it's the state we've reached.  No matter who is in charge, there will be an entire contingent of the government and roughly half of the US population who take it upon themselves to make sure they're the ones who tell you that the other side is wrong.  Granted, that's almost always been the case, but it happens much more quickly an openly now.  Here's the deal:

News used to take the form of newspapers.  They came out once per day, and were intently fact-checked and credible sources of information, with a minimum of opinion.  Even then, the opinion pages were specifically highlighted as such.  Politicians would need to make headlines (which was an actual thing then) by actually making good policy decisions.  Even then, they would have an entire day to do it before the morning editions came out.  Television did little to change this, as the Evening News was created for networks to provide one hour of informational programming per day in exchange for otherwise free use of the broadcast spectrum.  It still had a one-day news cycle, but watered down any decision that was made into the proverbial 8-second sound byte.  

Cable television really made a mess of things.  All of a sudden, 60 minutes of news broadcast per day became 1,440 minutes, and the need to find more things to plug into all of this time led to a marked increase in opinion programming.  Also, the driving force behind news was no longer the desire to tell contextualized facts, but to drive revenue through sponsorships and, subsequently, ratings.  Ratings go up not as a result of more or better information, but as a result of increased sensationalism.  The news is no longer telling a story, but telling it with more emotion than anyone else, and more from the point of view of a larger demographic.  Not only does each side of the political spectrum get its own stable of stories they get to hear, but they get their own facts they want to hear, and with no acknowledgement that the other side may have a valid point.  And, they get to hear all about why they should be mad at the other side for having the audacity to have a different opinion.  We've gone from "We're doing the right thing, and here's why" to "We're right, and it's unbelievable that the other side doesn't agree!  Outrageous!"  

If that weren't bad enough, the politicization, and segregation of the partisan news has gotten everyone to truly believe in the "us vs. them" mentality of politics.  The other side is no longer "half of the population with an opinion different from mine," but the enemy.  Enemy not of me or my beliefs, but of the state itself.  Calling a politician "Un-American" or openly questioning their official capability, or calls for removal from office, regardless of actual legal validity, are commonplace and part of the daily discourse now, when they used to be bordering on treasonous.  We've accepted this.  It's only getting worse with the proliferation of politicians as frequent users of Facebook and Twitter.  Cheap shots and political snark became not only acceptable, but more relevant to the average voter than actual facts.  And they can be delivered in convenient 140-character bite-size morsels which can be spread around the world in seconds with a single click, without a second thought to truth or, God forbid, propriety.  

So, here we are, in this era that we have allowed to happen, and will continue to allow to happen.  It doesn't matter who the next president is or who's in charge of the next congress.  There will be millions upon millions of people retweeting every time one of them opens their mouth, only hoping to take them down.  Against an army like that, no president stands a chance.