Food for thought from Scott Rassmussen:
“In TV-Newsland, America is presented as a hopelessly divided nation where hate-filled people battle over how they can get the government to give them what they want. Extremists of all political persuasions are presented as reflecting the real views of everyday Americans. It’s a scary world in which every symbolic event can be used to demonstrate that most Americans are stupid, racist, socialist or whatever other condescending view the elites wish to project.
“I recognize, of course, that there’s an audience for this sort of thing. Conflict sells and that’s true whether it’s Survivor, the Bachelorette or national politics. There’s nothing wrong with entertainment executives putting on shows that draw good ratings. But it is a great disservice to the nation to equate what happens on the nightly news to what is happening in America.
“More than 90 percent of Americans don’t watch the evening news and experience an entirely different America. It’s an America where most people want to work hard, play hard, take care of their families, help their neighbors and do what they can to make their corner of the world a little bit better. When someone falls on hard times, others look for ways to help out.
“In this real version of America, there are 63 million community volunteers, 27 million entrepreneurs and tens of millions of others who serve their community in different ways. Rather than begging for a dysfunctional political system to bail them out, the vast majority of Americans recognize that these community servants are the people who can actually get things done and solve the problems before us.” [Townhall]
