Washed away

“For centuries,” writes our frequent RESOLVE contributor Walter B. Bull Jr., “rapid radical change has been designated as a sea-change.” In fact, William Shakespeare used the phrase as long ago as 1610 when penning a lyric.

American society is witnessing a dramatic sea-change that has been intensified by the election of President Donald Trump and the mainstream media’s intent to derail, if not end, his presidency. But the change, writes Bull, began toward the end of the previous century.

“Various electronic devices were developed to record, categorize, store and analyze large amounts of data at light speed. … At the same time, information delivery systems, mainly televisions, became available to most households for use as an entertainment gathering focal point.”

Radio and television changed the way we experienced historic, including tragic, events, such as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the space shuttle Challenger’s mid-air explosion and, most chillingly, Sept. 11, 2001.

Now, in the era of Trump, news and analysis delivery, extending to laptops, tablets and smartphones, is being de-emphasized, replaced, Bull points out, by “brash claims or subtle messaging (Trump is mentally unstable) with an intent that goes beyond delivery of basic facts.”

The sea change playing out before us as 2018 begins is driven by two forces working in lockstep. The Democrat Party, now completely devoid of moderates, is lurching further and further into a state of frothing-at-the-mouth, radical progressivism. And the mainstream media, of similar mindset, questions nothing and gleefully advances the agenda.

These two camps, so obsessed with diminishing Trump, seem no longer to care they are diminishing themselves. The FBI and Justice Department, as evidenced by the existence of the phony “Steele dossier”, apparently are not afraid of being diminished, as well.

No single news story demonstrates the impact of the media-fueled Democrat agenda to obstruct Trump and the Republican Congressional majority more than the passage of tax cuts at year’s end.

The media’s forecast on corporate and household tax cuts looked like this: Tax-Reform Bill is Unpopular Because Media Mislead Americans (National Review, Dec. 20, 2017).

It’s very clear that the tax bill passed by both the House and Senate (Dec. 19) is indisputably unpopular among Americans. But the reasons for that unpopularity are much less clear. Left-wing bias in the media likely has a lot to do with it.

National Review further pointed out that formerly reliable wire service Associated Press reported passage of the bill via Twitter as providing “steep tax cuts for businesses, the wealthy”. Talking points, not journalism.

As we move into mid-January, about a month after the bill’s passage, most media outlets are straining to avoid almost daily evidence that tax cuts for businesses are having the effect Republicans forecast all along (even as polls reflected a skeptical public). Thankfully, the Washington Examiner shared what its reporters learned when they reviewed a meticulous bit of tallying by Americans for Tax Reform.

A list of 40 firms offering millions of employees bonuses and customers fee cuts has surged to 164 in just 10 days as the likely financial benefit of President Trump’s tax reform has started to settle in.

Perhaps, retorts the media’s mainstreamers, adrift in their turbulent sea. On to other narratives they turn even as Americans rejoice in economic liberation. Trump is a racist, an insane one at that.

And, of course, Russia, Russia, Russia.