{"id":16829,"date":"2017-03-22T17:56:42","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T21:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=16829"},"modified":"2017-03-22T17:56:42","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T21:56:42","slug":"politics-as-usual-tell-it-like-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-tell-it-like-it-is\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: Tell it like it is"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

When did \u201ctelling it like it is\u201d become some kind of virtue? And what is it exactly that these folks are telling us anyway? Not to get all Clintonian or anything, but does anyone know what the \u201cis\u201d is?
\nI am asking this in all seriousness because across the globe there are political contests underway in which the common selling point of many of the leading candidates is that they are decidedly not politicians; that they are real people, \u201ctelling it like it is.\u201d
\nCandidate after candidate proudly exclaims that they are not politicians, have no experience in the political world, and that that makes them the perfect candidates for a political job.
\nI am not clear when having no experience made you an ideal candidate for some of the most important positions in our government, but here we are. The pendulum has swung pretty far in the other direction.
\nAnd yet, I see why this is happening. Folks are furious with the status quo. Almost everything costs more and yet wages \u2013 if you even have a job \u2013 have stayed the same. People are tired and frustrated with the powers that be who talk and talk and talk and do seemingly nothing to make our lives any better.
\nRather than get answers, we get a wall of words. Bafflegab and talking in circles are indeed infuriating traits that most politicians exhibit. Watch any newscast in which a journalists asks a politician a question and you will undoubtedly witness some version of the same thing \u2013 a whole lot of nothing; twists and turns of speech designed to give the appearance of answering a question but, in fact, doing nothing of the sort.
\nI don\u2019t know about you, but I often end up screaming at the talking heads on CNN, demanding that they answer the bloody question. (By virtue of my latest outburst, my CNN time has been severely restricted)
\nBut it is frustrating to want an answer to a question and instead get obfuscation and misdirection, time and time again. So, I understand folks\u2019 desire to have someone \u201ctell it like it is,\u201d but what, exactly, does that mean? Does it mean he or she tells you what you want to hear? In plain and simple sound bites? Political pablum easily digested by the teeming masses?
\nOr is it what one would hope it is \u2013 straight talking? No BS. Telling you the unvarnished truth.
\nI dare say it is the former, not the latter. Why? Because people don\u2019t want to hear what they don\u2019t want to hear; that you\u201c\u2026can\u2019t handle the truth,\u201d to quote Jack Nicholson. And they are quite successful with this tactic, of providing simplistic answers to very complex questions.
\nBut life is not simple. We have difficult problems that will require thoughtful \u2013 and difficult \u2013 solutions. Solutions that go beyond 140 characters. To do that, we require fully formed adults in political office, making informed decisions on our behalf.
\nSo the \u201ctell it like it is\u201d candidate may ride the huge wave of populism right now, but all waves eventually crash and then get dragged back out to sea.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas When did \u201ctelling it like it is\u201d become some kind of virtue? And what is it exactly that these folks are telling us anyway? Not to get all Clintonian or anything, but does anyone know what the \u201cis\u201d is? I am asking this in all seriousness because across the globe there are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4nr","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 06:14:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}