David McElroy

Do you ever have days when you feel like ditching the “civilized world” and moving to a remote cabin without leaving a forwarding address? I’ve been feeling that urge lately — and it’s getting stronger.

The more I know and understand people, the more I dislike most of them. I wish I could like more of them. I really do. There are a few who I care about deeply, to differing degrees, but the vast majority of people seem determined to present themselves in a way intended to make me hate the entire human race.

I’ve become sick of the vicious and nasty hatred that I read and hear from people simply because others have the temerity to disagree with them. I see it more online today than in real life, but I suspect it’s just because people feel anonymous enough online (even on Facebook) to vent their real feelings instead of hiding them as they do when they’re face to face with people.

I’ve become heartsick about the almost complete inability of a large percentage of people to even attempt to understand each other. So many people lash out in anger if they even suspect that someone disagrees with them on political or cultural issues.

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Have you noticed that politics is becoming more like television? There was a day — long before we were born — when politics was about ideas. Well … ideas, money and power. But at least there were real ideas involved back when politics was communicated solely through spoken or written words.

Today, politics is all a show. But it’s not just a spectator thing. It’s like a giant game show. With the help of the media, politics has become an elaborate version of the old game show, “Let’s Make a Deal.”

You all know how the game is played. Hundreds of people dress in ridiculous costumes, hoping for the chance to trade their dignity for unknown riches — just like those of us who line up like Dorothy and her pals asking the Wizard of Oz for gifts. But that’s mixing metaphors. Let’s look at the ways in which democracy is like “Let’s Make a Deal.”

First, everything’s apparently orchestrated by a slick huckster. In the TV show, we have Monty Hall. In real life, we have Monty Media. Yes, the media are there to make sure the right ideas are discussed, absorbed and approved of, shaping the conversation and excluding points of view they consider to be “outside the mainstream.” By shaping the conversation and guiding the process, the media decide which players get to play and what games they’re allowed to play.

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I have a confession to make. Up until the day he resigned in 1974, I was a fervent supporter of President Richard Nixon, because I thought he was a victim of political opponents and the “liberal media.” Of course, I was a mere kid at the time, but I was still a True Believer of the worst kind.

When Nixon resigned on Aug. 8, 1974, I finally accepted the truth that had been right in front of me for a long time. I sat down and wrote the letter you see here and it ran on Aug. 18 as a letter to the editor in The Birmingham News. The paper had no way to know it was running a letter from someone who wouldn’t even be eligible to vote for years to come.

I don’t bring this up just to point out my own gullibility — although there’s that, too — but to point to something painfully common. People have a natural instinct to trust politicians who they agree with. They have a tendency to accept almost anything from the ones they like, even though they hold their enemies to a much different standard.

I think about this every time there’s a scandal involving a popular politician. I’ve thought about it recently when it comes to supporters of Barack Obama, who are determined to keep supporting their candidate, even though it should be clear by now that he’s just a black Democrat playing the part of George W. Bush.

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