By Brian Harris, Staff Writer
To be honest, I’ve stopped caring about the news.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ll give it a glance every now and again just to keep up on current events. Knowing what’s going on certainly has its perks, and it works wonders on small talk. But there was a time a couple of years ago where I cared about the headlines, and didn’t just passively absorb them, carrying the information with me from conversation to conversation.
Back when Trump got elected last November, there wasn’t a news item I wasn’t invested in.
And whether or not I was terrified, elated, or some combination of the two, it always mattered to me. I always cared.
And now I ping pong between headlines without a genuine interest in the slightest. Trump says something horrible about entire countries? I’ll just shrug and move on. Trump’s Twitter feed alights with another blatantly incorrect claim? What else is on? Trump provokes nuclear equipped nations with name calling? Yawn. These are terrifying things, and yet now I can list them one by one without even batting an eye. And for a while, I couldn’t understand why.
For a couple of weeks now I’ve wondered why the endless barrage of horrors that is our current political climate has barely provoked concern from me, and now I think I’ve finally figured it out. I’ve been worn down.
How did I finally figure it out? Well, let’s review the most recent of these never-ending blips on the radar: on February 27, 2018, White House Communications Director Hope Hicks admitted to telling “white lies” according to the New York Times. One day later, on the 28, she resigned from her position, all the while denying that her resignation had anything to do with her admission just a day prior.
In fact, The New York Times reports that “She [Hope Hicks] told colleagues that she had accomplished what she felt she could with a job that made her one of the most powerful people in Washington, and that there would never be a perfect moment to leave”, according to White House aides.
I mean, what planet are we living on? I read this news item a few days after this all went down and was amazed. This would be, in any other presidency, a gigantic scandal.
A day after admitting to lying as the communications director for President Trump, Ms. Hicks resigns while saying this is the perfect time to leave? The perfect time to leave? Are you serious? While Trump is under fire for her comments? While the Mueller investigation into Trump heats up daily? I mean how stupid do they think we are?
But, of course this isn’t any other presidency but the Trump one. And that’s when I realized it.
We hear stories like this all the time in the headlines, so much so that they blend together.
Just in the past month or two we’ve had controversies with Trump’s family, Rob Porter resigning from his White House Staff Secretary gig after accusations of domestic abuse, and even more that I’m sure I’ve forgotten.
This presidency has worn me down, and I know I’m not alone on that.
It’s tiring to care about all of these things, because they come every other day. I believe America is slowly becoming desensitized to it all, that at the rate we’re going people will soon begin to accept these kinds of scandals as simply part of the job.
That the difference between a policy you disagree with and a horrific national scandal will begin to blur.
And that’s precisely why we need to, as a nation, shed this collective apathy while we still can. I know I will.
Because, if we don’t do something soon, these headlines will simply keep coming.
Enough is, finally, enough.