A Glimmer of Hope

I’m a bit of a news junkie. As if that were not apparent to anyone following my posts. But my news gathering regimen has taken quite a few turns over the last few decades.

Back in the day – before cable TV – the news was mainly what I read in the Sunday paper and saw on the nightly TV broadcasts (ABC, NBC, CBS,.. that was about it).  As new media was added in the age of the internet and satellites - along came cable channels like CNN.  A news junkies panacea of “Nothing but news 7x24”… I loved it.  Never had to wait for a news broadcast to catch up on the latest events.  CNN was followed by other similar formats, but CNN pretty much set the standard in the early days of cable. They were followed in short order by other topic driven channels like ESPN: Sports 7x24; Bloomberg: Business 7x24; etc.

The age of genre specialization was off and running and internet content was not far behind.  From YouTube to FaceBook the new social media platforms offered content so granular that individual genre in the form of ‘influencers’ has made what was once a source of information, now a source of uneducated opinion, speculation, conspiracy, and largely unrestrained hyperbole.

Faced with sensory overload and few bona fide fact-based sources I went into a sort of sensory shutdown. I deleted my Facebook account altogether; removed CNN and like networks (all were slowly becoming pits of opinion rather than news) from my favorites on my ‘Smart TV’; and basically, returned to where I started. I bought digital subscriptions to the Washington Post; LA Times, yada,… Started recording the news broadcasts of CNBC’s Shepard Smith and the weekly CBS 60 minutes series. Still needed a good conservative source though. CNBC was just not enough. FOX & Newsmax were jokes. Then, last weekend, CBS 60 Minutes had an interview with someone I had never heard of:  Andrew Sullivan (sincere apologies sir).  Apparently, I had been living under a conservative rock for decades.

As I listened to Mr. Sullivan’s story and philosophy, I could feel the cool breeze of fresh conservative air being brought back into my lungs. I subscribed immediately to ‘The Weekly Dish’: Mr. Sullivan’s blog. Then I read his latest (November 19, 2021) blog post and realized I had found my source of conservative integrity.  

He is the first bona fide conservative I have read that understands that the American form of Democracy is liberal by design. That true conservatism is a rudder not a sail. That the Constitution of the United States was – and should continue to be - one of the most progressive experiments in governance ever developed.

I never expected to be caught up in a modern day social influencer’s take on current events and political discourse.  But this man’s thought leadership is exactly what the American Right needs right now. I hope that, in some small way, I can help him be heard. 

JWB