My News Withdrawal

It's been a month since Election Day, and I have been in news withdrawal. It's not that I eschew all incoming information, but for the last four weeks I have made every effort to avoid any article or social media post or television story about our president-elect.

I don't care to hear any post-mortems on the election, why he won, why she lost, or a litany of predictions about what he's going to do. I don't want to read essays about the forgotten voter. I certainly don't want to hear prognostications from any pundit who got the election outcome blatantly wrong but, rather than being held accountable, continues to have a speaking role in the blather-sphere.

I'm not willing to expend any brain power reading about who's on his transition team or who he's chosen for the cabinet. It's not that I don't care about the negative impact he will likely have on the Supreme Court, Obamacare, climate change, and other issues. I simply burned out on all of it.

I haven't watched any of the late-night-show monologues, although I had already cut way back on them because none of the hosts are creating television that compels me to record them in the first place. I gave up on "The Daily Show" many months ago, so I've missed Trevor Noah's take on the election entirely. While Samantha Bee's "Full Frontal" remains one of our favorite shows, my wife and I sadly skipped through it this week because we felt like we were being hit in the head by a ball-peen hammer.

I have unfollowed several reporters as well as some friends who continue to post items on this subject on their Twitter and Facebook feeds. In fact, I spend a lot less time checking those outlets -- because they're too full of that from which I'm abstaining.

It's not that I'm denying reality. Rather, I feel as if I binged and overdosed harshly on the far-too-long campaign season, and quitting cold turkey was the only answer. Or maybe the better analogy is to a crash diet -- except instead of keeping unhealthy crap out of my mouth, I've barred it from my eyes and ears.

Most of all, I'm glad I don't have a daily talk radio show in which I probably couldn't ignore all of this. I'm happy to do my politics-free three hours a week of nonsense on Friday afternoons and walk out of the building feeling happy -- instead of the sense of dread I witness on the faces of too many of you.

Labels: