Politics for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Back in the day - in the 80’s when my children were young, I watched CNN. I enjoyed it because - there were no commercials on cable TV back then (that was the marketing pitch for buying “cable” TV in the early 80’s - no commercials) - but anyway, CNN had an international flair, some fashion and world news stories, the occasional political aside, local and national news updates on the hour. I remember the little chime on the hour announcing a brief news update. It was a pleasant experience, like a mindless way to catch up on this and that. Other than time for Sesame Street when the kids and I would pile up on the couch together and giggle at the martians seeing a phone ringing, I’d have the TV on CNN while I folded laundry and cooked dinner.

I don’t remember when I fell out of love with CNN but I do vividly recall the TV was on Foxnews on 9/11/01 and hasn’t been off Foxnews ever since. The shock, horror and fear felt all around the world on that terrible morning was unforgettable.

Since that day my TV has hardly been off Foxnews. When the Iraq war broke out it was live on TV, holy cow! A real war live on TV! The drum beat around the clock of troop movements, war correspondents in very dangerous situations, and the “shock and awe” of live real time bombing raids was hard not to watch.

America gets attacked. America goes to war. And it’s all on TV!! Amazing stuff.

For the last 17 years since 9/11/01 I’ve been extremely concerned about politics. I believed at the time that President George W Bush was a good man, a patriotic American in a terrible situation. He was trying to contain the damage the 9/11 Islamic terrorists had done by trying to convince everyone we were not at war with Islam.

I never gave a second thought to “Islam” before 9/11 and had no idea who they were. I remember seeing “those religious people who dressed like in Biblical times” but I did not know what their religious tenants were. We all certainly know now don’t we! The entire world has had a crash course in Islam. Since 9/11/01 there have been 32,873 Islamic terrorist attacks throughout the world. (https://www.thereligionofpeace.com) I’ve heard Islam is called “The Religion of Peace” - um - yeah - wow! - hmm.

So, after President George W Bush for eight years came Barack Obama for an unbelievable eight years. Mr Barack Obama is a very odd half muslim, half Christian, half black, half white, half good, half bad mysterious liberal sort of person with very little known history and what was known was sealed away from public viewing. The very odd President Obama must have been some sort of hypnotist who with apparently very little effort turned America’s “premier law enforcement agencies” namely the FBI, IRS, CIA, DOJ and State Departments into his and Hillary Clinton’s personal vendetta servants to use their powers against their “enemies” (Republicans/Conservatives), and more shocking than that is the fact that it was apparently pretty easy to do.

In eight short years with Barack Obama as president, career law men and women risked their careers, reputations, pensions and possibly even prison time to break laws and spy on Americans and specifically Republican candidate for presidency, Donald J Trump on behalf of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. That is really very scary, and as I write on this date 1 1/2 years into now President Donald J Trump’s administration, 5 or 6 high level investigations are still ongoing trying to sort out all the criminal behavior that went on during Obama’s presidency. Currently we have seen some firings, demotions, stonewalling, losing documents, redacting and very bizarre behavior going on in our government. The players in this strange and dangerous time in American history are now referred to as “deep state”.

Unlike 'back in the day' in the 1980's early days of cable TV news and politics are now 24/7/365 on cable TV - around the clock all year long and its easy to see why with all the quite remarkable circumstances that have occurred in just the last 17 years.

The days of “free range” parenting of my children in the early 1980’s before computers and cell phones are gone. My kids were the last generation to be born and raised before computers and cell phones. Those incredibly simpler times are gone forever. My children are grown now with children of their own. The days of commercial free cable TV are gone. We’re living in different times now.

I personally felt such a great sense of relief for America when Donald J Trump was elected president that for the first time since 9/11/01 I feel I can relax and breathe again, change the channel to HGTV to see what normal happy people are doing. It’s comforting to see happy families decorating their homes, renovating, buying, shopping and living normal lives.

President Donald J Trump ran his election campaign with the words “Make America Great Again” but for me his election made America normal again. I trust him to stand strong against the ‘deep state’ and do his job for the American people, and hire smart capable honest patriotic people to get the president’s agenda done. I truly believe Divine Intervention elected Donald J Trump and considering the awesomeness of that I sincerely believe we can relax now and let go of all the fear and angst we’ve all felt for a very long time.

A lot is happening at a fast pace in the world of politics and a lot will continue to happen, but trustworthy people are back at the helm steering the ship through the storms. We can watch Rosanne and laugh, and we can watch cooking shows, HGTV, movies and comedies again. We don’t need politics for breakfast, lunch and dinner.