We certainly are a different nation
than just a few decades ago. I know that might seem to be expected and most of us do accept that things change. But for those of us who lived through it all the differences are staggering in what is enough to disqualify one from public trust and render someone unfit to be President in the eyes of so many millions in the country.
In a couple of months we will be at the 37th anniversary of Gary Hart withdrawing his run for President because a photo came out of a woman sitting on his lap who was not his wife and was alleged to be his girlfriend. Even though it was 1987 and well past the wild '60's the public turned thumbs down in a huge way. Now here we are and in 2016 a candidate paid hush money to a porn star while his wife was pregnant with his child and about half the countries voters thought that was cool. Inch forward to 2024 and that same candidate now not only has that to his "resume" but also a settlement shortly after the 2016 election for defrauding students, a finding of guilt for sexual assault, 2 findings of guilt for defaming the sexual assault victim, a finding of guilt for massive financial fraud running his companies and pending felony cases in 3 states and the District of Columbia.
With that long and lurid resume, with possibly more to come, about half the country still appears ready to fall on their knees and bow their heads to this candidate. It appears that, for most of the media and a huge percentage of people, there is to be no possible behavior that would go too far and disqualify a candidate as happened long ago. It appears the only thing that could do that to a candidate would be being old enough to remember how outraged that same media and populace was nearly 37 years ago.
= new reply since forum marked as read
and the proliferation of 24/7 media that keeps repeating the same stories over and over. I remember when Air America cam on the scene and I was hopeful about getting a wide variety of subjects covered and unique programming that would allow under-reported stories and under-represented groups an opportunity for having regular programming featuring the stories and people of those groups. Initially it was OK somewhat but I wasn't seeing a hoped for diversity for LGBTQ+ focused programming, Native American programming or immigrant focused programming. But I thought maybe it's going to come. Not really and before too long whatever the issue of the day was would be carried through from morning until night from host to host all day long. I need to hear about a topic a couple of times a day but I don't need it constantly for 12 or 14 hours straight saying the same takes/questions over and over with just different voices/heads.
Still to this day it is staggering to me that with 168 hours per week of programming hours for each major network and cable news channel that we still don't "seem to find"
the ability to carve even 15 minutes for programming each week focused on those groups and their issues. But the program managers feel it is a better use of the time to repeat the same thing that was said all day long. But as we know programming in the "public interest" is anything they want to call it any longer.