In its editorial of November 07, entitled “The emperor has no clothes… but let’s pretend otherwise”, Barbados Today expressed surprise at the outcome of the US presidential election and opined that “citizens around the world” were also shocked at the Trump victory.
Several commenters agreed with the position of the editor but there were those who took exception. For example:
“I was not shocked that Trump win(sic). He is the best person at the moment to run America.”
My favourite was this:
This is a stupid thing to say. It was not a shock, because all reputable polls indicated that he will (sic) win. Please learn from mainstream media who took a positions (sic) like this and now has low viewership because Americans no longer trust them…
That is very good analysis and very excellent advice for any news media today.
It is very disappointing that the editor of this local media house, in a country that prides itself on being the most highly educated per capita in the Caribbean, if not the world, would make such shallow remarks that reflect the views of the elitist, woke mainstream media in the USA.
You know that the editorial is running on fumes when, to support its position, it makes reference to the incoherent, other-worldly opinions of Joy Reid, a commentator with MSNBC.
Literally as this article is being written, we learn that Yale Child Psychiatry Fellow, Dr. Amanda Calhoun has told Joy Reid that “it’s fine to disown relatives who voted for Trump”. Are we hearing multiple distress calls for help here? What a sick society!
It does not take a major in rocket science to understand that we all have our biases. However, when we chose to ignore facts and the weight of opinion of those who matter (in this case, the US electorate), we then elevate ourselves to living in the rarified atmosphere of a parallel universe.
That explains why the editor of Barbados Today did not see it coming. That explains why MSNBC did not see it coming. That explains why CNN, CBS and ABC did not see it coming.
DJT is no “sweet bread” as we would say here in Barbados but people who throw stones should check to see whether their houses are made of stone or glass.
Almost every one of the sixteen paragraphs in this editorial was laden with vacuous statements. Some are so petty and banal that we will not expend grey matter on them: for example paragraph 4 and 6.
Too often, the editor made some broad statements but did not bother to give any examples. For example, it was claimed that Vice President JD Vance, “articulated some eyebrow-raising positions”. Such as what?
Then we were served with this:
He even put the Trump signature on cheques from government funds, which led many recipients to believe the money came from the former president rather than from taxpayers.
As the editorial progressed, it continued to sink to the lower echelons of the banal and thence to the bizarre. The editor opined that, “There are many top army officials that Trump called for their execution”. Apart from the terrible structure of this sentence, where is the evidence?
Neither did the editor let us in on why, “People will also be paying close attention to figures such as the recently-released-from-prison advisor Steve Bannon”. Which people? Why?
But, in our view the real pooper is this:
“Behind the scenes, people are blaming US Attorney General Merrick Garland for his failure to act for almost two years”.
This statement implies that the AG did not do enough to “get” Trump”. From this it is quite clear that the editor has been living in that parallel universe we alluded to earlier and has been residing there for the last four years!
But what really stands out is the fact that not one single critical word was said about the other presidential contender, Kamala Harris. Not one!
Instead we were told early on in the article that the American people “rejected the idealism, hope, and optimism of the Kamala Harris campaign”.
Perhaps the real truth is that freedom-loving Americans saw through the buffoonery of a candidate that could not get two coherent sentences strung together unless they were on a teleprompter. Perhaps they saw thorough the extreme left-wing, neo-communistic, dictatorial DNC and its active plan to destroy America. Perhaps they saw through the sheer nonsense of the Biden-Harris-Obama administration and perceived the common-sense policies of the Trump platform.
I am not sure where exactly in the cosmos, except in the parallel universe inhabited by the editor, the woke elite and the unravelling Deep State that one can use, “idealism, hope, and optimism” to lower the cost of food and gas, stop criminals from coming over the southern border or beat back the persecution of parents and ordinary people by the incumbent US administration.
This, along with the sundry declarations in the rest of this editorial, gives new meaning to the word “unbalanced”. Perhaps the editor might have done the reputation of Barbados Today a favour by limiting this editorial to paragraphs 1 -3, 8, 12 and 13.
It would seem that it has not yet occurred to the editor of Barbados Today that reporting news and critically assessing it are two completely different things. As it stands, the editorial is not worth the cyber space it was assigned.
Having said that, we wish to note that the 2024 US election is fully-loaded with lessons both political and human, secular and spiritual. In the weeks to come we shall try to explore some of these lessons for our benefit here in the Caribbean.
