The biggest deficit in America today is the lack of sincerity. Just about everywhere you look in life people are phony as a three dollar bill. The few who stand out as sincere, a Joe Rogan, a Tucker Carlson, are reaping rewards beyond measure. All because they decided to take a different path and be authentic.
I truly believe that neither of those two people mentioned care what you think about them, they are going to opine and allow the chips to fall where they may. Fortunately for both they live in a society so absent sincerity and genuine appeal that they possess a golden aura. They stand out big in contrast.
And it isn’t that they speak truth to power, though both do, it is that they express true core beliefs, they have foundational principles. Even if some are misguided they hold these sacred and therefore live by a creed. One of their own making mind you, but a basis for looking out at the world that informs them. And has stood them both well.
There is a reason that in a sea of online personalities, a line-up of promoted talking heads in every direction from networks to cable, these two stand alone.
I truly believe you can draw a line of demarcation, and that the Clintons killed off sincerity completely back around 1990. Before then there were entertainers, personalities, talking heads, and even politicians who were sincere when they spoke to people. They meant what they said, stood by their word, had some measure of integrity. With the Clinton rise, and their minions now populating all of politics, integrity, a requirement for being truly sincere, is in even shorter supply than sincerity itself.
Money has corrupted all, and chased integrity into hiding. No one speaks of integrity anymore, at least not out loud, or outside the home. Even the mention of the very word might cause a window to open to every public soul, showing the emptiness, vacuousness, that lies inside. A Lexus/Nexus word search in the mainstream media would find the word “integrity” seldom used today. The rarest of rare commodities.
We actually lived through a golden age of sincerity during the 1960’s when men of intellect appeared on multiple programs to discuss their principles, discuss current events, and opine on the important subjects of the day. At any given time of day you could witness John Lennon on daytime talk arguing against the Vietnam War, or see a spat between Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, and William Buckley over US policy that went on until midnight. To a man they were sincere in their beliefs, standing and posture. Right, or wrong, they stood steadfast and held integrity in their beliefs, willing to face public condemnation for standing up and speaking their truths out loud. They really are an anachronism, a throw-back, people properly educated who used their God-given intellect in some attempt to force change. Change for the better. Although I’d argue that in Gore’s case the change was for the worse. But that is another column completely.
The days of intelligent TV are long gone. We live in an age where there are no more Dick Cavetts, there are not even any more Michael Douglas. Instead we got “Ellen”, instead we got “Wendy Williams”, and that awful crew of nasty crows from “The View”. A more horrible gaggle of females cannot be assembled on earth, it’s an hours worth of sheep shit, it just keeps coming out, and coming out, and it seems as if it will never end.
The very next intelligent statement that Joy Behar utters will be her first, and anyone who would pay a lick of attention to Whoopi Goldberg, a woman who used abortion as her preferred means of birth control over, and over, is far, far, beyond me. I wouldn’t spit on Whoopi if she was on fire. You’d be hard pressed to find a more worthless and horrible individual.
This is what passes today for discourse, so is it any wonder where our collective mindset comes from in the public sphere. Does not the promotion of “The View” and “Ellen” explain our Democrat leaning populace and mindset in popular culture?
Where vacuous is virtue integrity has no value.
Look around. No one in Congress has even a thread of sincerity, and even less integrity. No politicians. No entertainers. No sports heroes.
When was the last time you even heard the term “Statesman”?
A principled non-partisan, standing for right over wrong.
Long live Joe Rogan, misguided at times as he may be. Long live Tucker Carlson, white bread as he may be. At least they speak a language of truth in short supply these days.
Think back, think back before “bite his lip Bill Clinton”.
Oh, sorry, you’ve no time to think back, “The View” is coming on.