I’ve been thinking about old washing machines, the kind my Grandma Ann with her nine kids and two dozen grandkids had that ran all day, every day, lasted decades and rarely needed more than a new belt. How these days, we can’t be bothered with repairs; how scrolling and the marketing machine tells us it’s cheaper and easier to just buy a new one; how we constantly crave the next newest thing.
Three weeks ago, Kentucky Republicans were playing a game of bingo on the House floor in which they made fun of Democrats in the ultra-minority by taking jabs at some of the most vulnerable Kentuckians. Twenty years ago, playing games like this with people’s lives, getting caught making fun of your own constituents, would have been in the news for days and tanked political careers.
Today it’s just another blip in the spin cycle.
People are so distracted by (?), enamored with (?), addicted to (?) the 24/7 circus in Washington D.C. that it’s hard for local representatives to get our attention. Many people I talk to still don’t have any idea who represents them in the Kentucky statehouse.
But they know who Joe Rogan is.
And what Hannity or Maddow said last night.
And that the president is denigrating the pope — which you are certain is a political disaster (like those bingo cards) until you hear the words “Satan is in Rome” and you remember that it’s 2026 and we no longer repair washing machines and the presidency is a real live cult.
I tried to watch the the KET debate this week with the candidates for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s seat, and have to admit I was enamored with the fact that GOP candidate Daniel Cameron would appear solo. I gave him big credit for this until he refused to answer one of the first questions about January 6 being an insurrection saying it was “in the past” blah blah blah and pivoted as if we no longer discuss anything in the past, and that’s when I gave up and turned off the TV.
No wonder citizens tune out.
Over the last week I listened to George Packer’s book about the pandemic, twice. And then I ordered the hard copy. That’s how important I think this book is, and will become.
I’d forgotten — maybe because we’d all like to forget — the details of what happened during the Covid-19 era and who could blame us? Packer slow-walks us through the pandemic and the aftermath. No pivoting. No scrolling past what mattered and matters still. No giving in to the spin cycle or skipping over the repairs that need to be made.
Three weeks ago Kentucky Republicans in our statehouse, with their 80% majority, made fun of their own constituents by playing a game of bingo on the House floor and the news cycle moved on about three days later.
We need to slow down. We need to hold the powerful to account.
We don’t need a new machine.
We need to fix the one we’ve got.
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