{"id":13689,"date":"2016-03-24T23:10:14","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T23:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13689"},"modified":"2016-03-24T23:10:49","modified_gmt":"2016-03-24T23:10:49","slug":"social-media-have-become-a-campaign-curse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13689","title":{"rendered":"Social media have become a campaign curse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"[<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

I think I’ve discovered an undeniable truth.<\/p>\n

Social media are to blame for the ghastly decline of intelligent political discourse in this great country of ours.<\/p>\n

It’s not a big-time flash. Others likely have drawn similar conclusions and written about it.<\/p>\n

I am now going to refer to the Twitter War that’s going on between Donald J. Trump and Rafael Edward Cruz. Donald vs. Ted. It’s getting childish in the extreme and it’s lending nothing whatsoever to any kind of intelligent discussion among Republicans over which of these men should be their party’s nominee for president of the United States.<\/p>\n

The crux of the Twitter fight centers on their wives. Melania Trump and Heidi Cruz are now being kicked around like the proverbial footballs that they are not<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It’s sickening me.<\/p>\n

A pro-Trump super-PAC put something out there about Mrs. Trump appearing in the nude. Trump tweeted some threats to Cruz about it, threatening to say something mean about Mrs. Cruz.<\/p>\n

Ted Cruz denied having anything to do with the ad. Trump ain’t buying it. Now it’s Cruz calling Trump a “coward.”<\/p>\n

Back and forth they go.<\/p>\n

And voters are supposed to make intelligent decisions — based on this petulant patter — on which of them should carry the GOP banner forward against the Democratic nominee this fall?<\/p>\n

Give me a break!<\/p>\n

Maybe the mainstream media — and I don’t mean as the conservative epithet the term has come to mean — is responsible. By “mainstream,” I refer to the major broadcast and cable news networks and the print media who keep reporting this stuff.<\/p>\n

Heck, bloggers all along the political spectrum have weighed in on it — as this blog is doing at this moment.<\/p>\n

So … I’ll accept my share of the blame for this social media craze and its alleged “contribution” to the\u00a0quality of our national political debate.<\/p>\n

I’m not proud of myself.<\/p>\n

My only recourse is to ignore<\/em> this social media sniping.<\/p>\n

Therefore, I will.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think I’ve discovered an undeniable truth. Social media are to blame for the ghastly decline of intelligent political discourse in this great country of ours. It’s not a big-time flash. Others likely have drawn similar conclusions and written about it. I am now going to refer to the Twitter War that’s going on between … Continue reading Social media have become a campaign curse<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13,14],"tags":[1424,1941,6076,6075,4300,4537,4932],"class_list":["post-13689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-gop","tag-heidi-cruz","tag-melania-trump","tag-social-media","tag-ted-cruz","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13689"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13695,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13689\/revisions\/13695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}