The Cost of Inattention

I know that everyone is constantly up in arms about things that President Trump has said, often through Twitter. And a lot of it is beyond imagination-- why would you tweet out insults about the nation you are about to visit?

But as the press and much of the nation stays in a state of constant tumult over this, little seems to be said about the fact that nothing-- nothing at all-- is being done about (arguably) the six biggest challenges facing our nation right now. Let's discuss those (in no particular order).

1.  Guns

Since 2009, the United States has had 57 times more school shootings than all of the other G7 industrialized nations combined.  We have had 288, Canada had two, France had two, and Germany had one. There is something terribly wrong. We can and should have a discussion about solutions (and people may have very different solutions) but the fact is that our political leadership is avoiding the discussion.

2.  Debt

I have written about this before-- the Trump tax cuts exacerbated the acceleration of our national debt. Republicans are very very concerned about this-- but only when they are not in power. Our political leadership, again, is simply avoiding this discussion (as is much of the media).

3. Climate change

The fact of this is before our eyes. Yet our political leadership is avoiding the discussion.

4.  Russian interference with our past and future elections

When Robert Mueller appeared last week and finally made a public statement, he was opaque on some things and muted on others. But on this he was crystal clear: Russia interfered with the 2016 election, and is intent on doing so again. And yet, our political leadership is avoiding the discussion and the press is not engaging the issue. Instead, we obsess over tweets.

5.  Income disparities

This was a big issue in the last election. It has not gone away. And yet, our political leadership avoids the discussion.

6.  Health care

It seems that no one is satisfied with our health care system. But our political leadership is doing nothing to propose alternatives.

When we obsess over tweets, we effectively give the Trump administration a pass on all of these issues. The press is culpable as well-- they know that the profitable click-bait is in the tweets, and they cover every salacious bit and ignore all of the above most of the time. The Trump administration has successfully turned our political discourse into a reality show, plump with manufactured drama and disconnected from what is going on in the real world outside of the mansion. [and yes, that is a picture from the web series "Burning Love," which was awesome]