National Enquirer Moving to New Mars Headquarters!
I was shuffling around in the express checkout line of my big box grocer the other day, waiting for the nice lady in front of me to unload a full shopping cart onto the conveyor even though the sign said 15 items or less. I assume she was in a hurry and the sign was for lesser peons like myself, not m’lady. Her bill came to $150. So I had plenty of time to study the gift card rack, the candy section, the gum, all those marketing strategies the store used for a last minute buying pitch to us captive shoppers.
The displays of National Enquirers, Star Magazine, Soap Opera Digest or the Globe all shouted headlines of impossible scandals, dead Elvis sightings, the affairs of movie idols, starlets gone to fat and obscurity, weird prophecies and creepy tattle-tale muckraking. Oprah’s secret love child, Hillary’s 6 months to live, Ted Cruz’s father linked to JFK assassination, Bigfoot’s logger love slave, Brad Pitt forced into rehab, Cher’s shocking breakdown, Sarah Palin’s satanic counselor — this is the stuff of viral e-mails, half insane, totally fabricated, obvious to anyone but the hopelessly drug addicted or irreparably dumb. All my life I have wondered who the hell buys these things and I have, being the elitist college educated liberal white male I apparently am, thought only the really ignorant, the poor white trash, the pathetically empty-souled, the truly gullible, the socially inept, would pay the money to toss a copy into their grocery bag laden with chips, pop, lean cuisine, candy and frozen pizzas.
But now I don’t know. We just voted in the headline for the National Enquirer: LIAR ELECTED COMMANDER IN CHIEF. TRUMP CLAIMS THE WORLD IS FLAT!! The New York Times, quoting the President’s latest tweets, might as well be the banner headlines for the Globe. How do the tabloids compete with this now? By reporting the truth? BOWLING GREEN MASSACRE A HOAX!!! SWEDISH TERRORISM NON-EXISTENT!! CRIME WAVE NOT THE HIGHEST IN DECADES!!! ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION LOWEST IN YEARS!!! INAUGURATION NUMBERS FOR TRUMP LOWER THAN OBAMA!! RUSSIANS HACKED THE ELECTION!! WORLD PROVEN TO BE ROUND!!!!!!!!
Those tabloids made my skin crawl. Just something pulpy and phony and nasty, something wrong with the need for sensational trash instead of real news, something that left a bad taste the way diet pop coats your mouth for half a day with an artificial metallic residue. The world is strange enough without manufacturing two headed babies and the tawdry affairs of movie stars. All those folks who bought and believed this sensationalism, well, they outnumbered the rest of us, apparently, and they took their belief in all this faux news down to the ballot box. It could make me yearn for the days of illiteracy. 15 items or less. I don’t believe that anymore either.
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Years ago, we had a bumper sticker that read:
Question Authority
I was glad to do my part then as an aware and thinking citizen of these United States, especially when it was only required on a part time basis. Even Nixon only said one or two things a day that needed my close examination.
But now, I can’t even get out of bed in the morning without finding it necessary to question the government. It’s turned into a full time, unpaid job. I’ve become more or less an intern, on call 24/7 to review and authenticate Trump Administration executive orders, bill submissions, and twitter comments.
I suppose it might be an exaggeration to compare myself to Monica Lewinsky, but on the other hand it does seem like I’ve assumed a position, one that’s more than I ever bargained for.
I had two bumper stickers back then. One was VOTE FOR NOBODY and the other was EAT THE RICH! I think America took me up on the first one. Maybe the second one will be a remedy.