I live in the heart of the swamp, Montgomery County, inside the Capitol Beltway, a few minutes’ walk from the DC line. Almost all of my neighbors work for the government or provide services to those who do.
A few days ago, to honor America’s troops and the 4th of July, somebody came through and put American flags at the edge of the median in front of every house in the neighborhood. At first, I thought it was the country roads department advancing the cause of America. But when I looked down at the flags, I saw that a consortium of realtors was responsible for this fine, albeit minor, act of patriotism.
As last year’s coordinated legacy media gaslighting about President Biden’s health and mental acuity has shown, we Americans have been extraordinarily ill-served by our current media outlets. The national and global media in the United States and in just about every country in the so-called free world are incorrigible globalist partisans. That media can be relied upon to coordinate in smearing nationalist politicians and the friends of individual freedom at every opportunity, while covering up the failings and corruption of their political friends. However, that media cannot be relied upon to tell us what is happening right here, right now.
The global internet has brought us blessings, but it has also eroded the local advertising that supported local news coverage. We would have a healthier public debate if everybody were best informed about their own local interests: if they knew what was happening on their street better than in their city, in their city better than in their county, in their county better than in their state, in their state better than in Washington, and in Washington better than they were told about foreign affairs or so-called global concerns. Proper coverage of local issues and our local representatives would make it possible to understand how national and global issues affect each of us, and would tell us how and when we should consider “acting locally” even when we are “thinking globally.”
As our neighborhood’s little patriotic display shows, one group capable of bringing national matters down to the grassroots is our local realtors. It would be marvelous if they would band together not just once a year but throughout the year to provide local weekly print newspapers that deploy professional reporters to provide in-depth coverage of local issues from the courthouse, the zoning board, the city council, and the school district. A federated consortium of such papers could finance statehouse reporters and national coverage as well. All we “somewheres” would have to do is pick up that paper and scan it through the week to know what issues ought to affect us.
Our global ruling elites have their media, a media that gives them talking points on the global issues that concern them. They can get briefed conveniently just by skimming, say, The Economist, or the headlines in The New York Times. We “somewheres” need our own sources of factual reporting and locally relevant analysis that tell us what we need to be concerned about, where we actually live and work.
So thanks for the flag, Keller Williams! But when the fireworks are over, sit down with Curt from Caldwell, Cindy from Century 21, and an army of underemployed editors and journalists and get to work on delivering us local media that is patriotic and informative in October and February. It will advertise your own good sense and goodwill as well as publicize the successes and failures of the local officials on whom your livelihoods and our lives depend.
God willing, you will do well by doing this good.