OPINION

OPINION | LETTER: Have we learned?

Have we learned?

Editor, The Commercial:

Our country has finally reached the conclusion of a four-year reign of error. A long-ignored semblance of logic awaits the hallowed halls of the White House, though it may well take a decade to set right a multitude of wrongs that have been wrought upon the world.

Many who decry the passing president find solace in the belief that, once fooled, the voting public will not make that mistake again. They greatly overestimate the electorate.

I am reminded of a local dive bar, the Klondike, that was notorious for the amount of violence it harbored or engendered. When it finally closed, many cheered; I didn't. As long as it was in operation, I knew where to find a social segment I wished to avoid. When it closed, that segment did not evaporate; rather it dissipated, to who knew where. As long as those folks had a watering hole, we knew where to find them, or not.

The rabid MAGAs are like that. Just because their mouthpiece lost an election does not mean it, or they, have been silenced; they still permeate our society, awaiting his return or the rise of his replacement. That day shall no doubt come to pass.

What should be different, the lesson I hope the press has finally learned, is that just because the word comes from the White House does not automatically make it true, and just because one squeaky wheel sounds louder than a monotonous majority, that doesn't make it more newsworthy than those with well-considered words.

When the GOP was fielding a plethora of candidates all vying to take the party's reins in 2016, the squeaky wheel spouted garbage calculated to draw attention, and a gullible press complied. When that wheel came out on top, the party jumped all over its fetid chance to seize control, and ignored all that was right and decent in a head-long charge; the astonished press stumbled along behind.

When the squeaky wheel entered the White House, the press corps, accustomed to parlaying with a generally straight-forward politician not given to spouting garbage, assumed he knew of which he spoke and reacted accordingly, offering benefit of the doubt by the truckload. Only later, too much later, did the press dare to call out "BULL!", which by that time was already waist deep and getting deeper.

So while the GOP licks its wounds and plots tomorrow, the party back in power stumbles along trying to find its footing in the bog left behind. The road ahead will be bumpy, but this time let the press stand ready to outline the boundaries.

(My apologies to my Republican friends. Until recently, I reserved my criticism to individuals, not groups. After witnessing some MAGA venom first hand, where all Democrats were labeled enemies of "the state" or worse, I responded in kind; I should not have done that. Politics should never be allowed to overshadow friendship.)

D. H. Ridgway,

Pine Bluff

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