For the last few weeks, I have watched CNN every weekday morning. While I often watch CNN, I usually only watch for a short time before moving onto Fox News, then MSNBC, and then HLN. Lately, however, I’ve left it on CNN for several hours at a time.
It does not matter whether the news topic is North Korea launching missiles, the war in Syria, or the fight to nominate Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Every topic will be turned into a discussion about how President Trump has done something wrong in some regard.
Occasionally, I do see the anchors give a voice to the other side of the argument, which is refreshing. But like many Americans have complained, the media seem to lose the entire point of what many Americans really care about.
CNN tends to focus on a few issues all day long, even more so than other channels, so I began to wonder, “Is this what Americans really care about?”
For several days, I took the biggest issue, the one CNN seemed to talk about the longest, and especially if they polled Americans on it, and I posted it to Facebook. I’d say my Facebook is a decent place to poll Americans. Some live in Washington, D.C., but not many. Most live in middle America, the west and down south. While I admittedly have a great deal of conservative friends, there is a good mix of libertarians, independents and Democrats, including my parents, and they are certainly not shy about giving me their opinion.
So what do Americans truly care about? Not what is being reported on the news if you take a look at this sampling of answers, taken directly from Facebook as they were written to me:
Q: What is your BIGGEST concern in America today? ISIS? Women’s issues? Jobs?
A: The amount of anger in people’s hearts. And the violence people show, in the name of peace they always state, or a way they need to prove a point. Media doesn’t take responsibility for the uproar they give people, and the amount of controversy people have towards issues that sometimes do not make any sense. I could keep going but I’ll leave it at that.
A: Complacency and lack of accountability out of fear of failure, fear of rejection or overall insecurity. People don’t seem to know or believe their value and what they are capable of, so they shy away from going after what they want because it’s “easier” to stay in the same place. I think this is what results in so much anger and resentment in our society
A: Keeping our country safe.
A: I’m truly concerned we, as a nation, have lost the ability to compromise on anything! In politics everything is so partisan and in everyday life it seems like no one respects the “agree to disagree” idea anymore.
Q: 1. Do you agree with President Trump that America should build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico?
2. Do you believe in sanctuary cities?
3. If yes to #2, does the rape of the 14-year-old girl in Rockville, Md., in a high school bathroom by someone here illegally but attending school change your mind?
4. If no to #2, does the idea that those here illegally are afraid to report rapes, domestic violence abuse and other crimes for fear of deportation change your mind?
A: 1. No
2. No4. I’d be concerned that people would not report things about other people who need help who are legal. If you are here illegally, I have little concern for the consequence associated with negligence in following the immigration laws. A: I don’t know about an actual wall…but illegals need to be taken care of…I can’t go into their country illegally.
I’m more upset about the healthcare issue right now… A: 1. No.
2. Yes.3. When I see another white teenager shooting something up I don’t call for the rounding up of all white teens, I ask for increased access to mental health services and common sense, federal gun laws. A: 1. Wall is money wasted. Even the border patrol reports that the money he’s planning to spend on more officers and a wall can be much better spent by them to execute programs and fill critical needs.
2. No. Sanctuary cities have been filling in where bad immigration policy has failed. 3. Rape is always bad.4. Rape and abuse are always bad. Choosing to accept violence over deportation sucks. A: 1. Yes.
2. No.
4. Absolutely not. The difference is, a 14-year-old girl is innocent and had no control over that situation. A person afraid of reporting someone because they may be deported is a personal weakness and personal issue that is completely controllable. We have consequences in life.
Q: What do you want to see fixed in healthcare and what do you hope doesn’t go away?
A: Primarily, let’s not fine the poor for being poor. Let’s not force insurance companies into the lives of people who do not want insurance.
Every healthcare career, or even the average, should not be a path to exorbitant wealth. Like any industry there should be some small percentage of superstars: brain surgeons, other difficult specialties. But every person who can take out an appendix or set a broken leg or run a drug experiment should not be pulling in 20x what your average retail worker or nurse makes. The root of these crazy salary differences is not schooling, its the system and its entanglement with insurance and malpractice laws and a number of other things that smarter people than me can point out.
Healthcare should not be about greed and profiteering and pure capitalism. It’s not a problem the government is going to fix (if at all) by involving insurance companies, which do no tangible work regarding care of patients, and only move money around. A: We have a small business that employs 7 people. We are exempt from having to supply health insurance to our employees because of the size of our business. However, because we feel responsible to our employees and as way to offer value to our business to keep quality employees, we do offer it. We pay 100 percent of our employees’ costs of health insurance and they only pay if they want to insure other family members. Our costs to cover those employees has risen roughly 35 percent in the last few years. So in one case for a single employee we pay over $700 per month for $2500 deductible and copays. BUT if this same employee went to buy it individually on the market under an Obamacare plan with a better deductible they would only pay around $350 per month! It just feels like we get penalized for trying to do the right thing for your employees. It’s frustrating. I know a lot of small business owners would like to provide group health for their employees but simply cannot afford to. A significant portion of people in our country are employed by small business owners too. I would like to see some kind of way to make it more affordable for small business to insure their employees.
These were not all of the answers I received, but I think if the media and politicians alike took more time asking Americans outside of coastal states and Washington, D.C., what they thought and what they care about, we could start having discussions that would help improve our country.
Elizabeth Peace (@_epeace) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She worked as a journalist and TV news anchor for more than a decade before working as the communications director for a member of Congress. She is now the principal of Capital Media Training in Washington, D.C. She is a former airman now married to a U.S. Marine.
If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.
