Donald Trump has changed America. Mr. Trump didn’t shift the Overton Window. He put a brick through it. His take on what’s wrong with America isn’t shocking anymore because his view has become the mainstream opinion.
So, all of that is true. But has he changed America? Well, yes. On this and that he’s made changes and they are changes for the better. His immigration policy and the results he’s getting on deportation are important. His birthright citizenship fight is historic and if it succeeds it will change the dynamics of immigration into this country.
But how will I gauge whether Donald Trump’s second term is a success or failure? For me success is permanently defunding PBS and NPR. That’s the whole thing in a nutshell. That is the litmus test. I want David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart laid off by PBS due to lack of funding. I want to see them on YouTube or Patreon making silly noises whenever someone pledges ten dollars for a super chat or whatever it’s called. I want Big Bird and Elmo forced to go back to being waiters in the NYC theater district and I want that woman who runs NPR and testified before Congress that there was no bias on her watch, fired and forced to start an Only Fans channel. Let’s face it. As long as all of us are still paying for these people to insult and slander us on the public airwaves, we are not winning anything. We’re just losing less.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t need NPR or PBS to cease to exist. I absolutely want leftists to have their own echo chambers. This is a free country (theoretically) and if they want to buy tote bags and overpriced wine from their favorite fake journalists at “All Things Considered” or the “PBS New Hour” then let them go ahead and knock themselves out. By all means do so. But let them pay for the damn thing themselves. They’re always saying how public funding is only like 15% of their total funding. If that’s the case then they won’t miss our money at all.
But everyone knows that’s not the case. If they suddenly had to get along without the federal government they would be broke. Brooks and Capehart wouldn’t be able to afford their bow ties and spats. And there wouldn’t be any money to fund their hard-hitting exposes on the health benefits of attending drag queen story hour in the Tenderloin.
So that’s it. Trump can announce that he’s winning so much that people are getting tired of winning but as long as NPR still has journalism hacks in hushed tones declaring the body count from the break up of USAID then I won’t declare him the winner. He’s just losing slightly less hard.
But I haven’t given up hope. There’s still a window of opportunity for the bill that defunds these stations to be passed in the Senate. Sometime in August that bill will expire and our last best chance to kill Sesame Street and fake news will end. So come on Donald from one kid from the Outer Boroughs to another put your shoulder behind this thing and make us both winners.