In the aftermath of the inaugural festivities, we’ve all become much too focused on the wrong things.
Case in point: Beyonce, who performed at the inaugural ceremony, is believed to have been lip syncing, which has caused an uproar nationwide.
But, honestly, why do we care? Yes, this does take away from the integrity of her performance as an artist and yadda yadda yadda, but I’m sure she won’t be the last person to lip sync in the history of the world. There will be many more who follow her, and there have been many who have preceded her.
Instead of focusing all of our attention on Beyonce, why can’t we focus on the truly important issues at hand?
President Barack Obama has just started a new term, and he’s got a plethora of obstacles ahead of him — gun control, fiscal plans and war, just to name a few. That’s where our focus should be, not on whether or not a singer was mouthing the words or not (as fun as it may be to gossip about). And don’t even get me started on the First Lady’s “eye roll.”
The truth is that most of us have already moved on from the inauguration excitement and are already back to feeling wary of politics and politicians. I agree that everything in Washington has gotten tangled up and its key players can sometimes be too stubborn for their own good. For those of us who are more inclined to be interested in what’s going on in the political spectrum, it’s easy to get turned off from all of it because of all the bickering, name-calling and preferential treatment.
The 24/7 news cycle doesn’t help, either. In order to fill the airwaves and blogs, sometimes things can be exaggerated or taken out of context, which doesn’t help the problem. An incident that would have never made the inside of a newspaper is now the front page or headline on a website or newscast. It makes most politicians (and people in general) wary of expressing or explaining their true opinions because they know that everything they say can be potentially cut into a misconstrued soundbite.
But, to be fair, politicians also use the media to their advantage as well to place the blame on the other political party or their opponents. It’s a vicious cycle, and it’s one that we are all sick of. Unfortunately, it isn’t something that won’t be going away anytime soon.
It makes sense why we’d much rather gasp and giggle about “Lip Sync Gate 2013” instead of the serious issues at hand. All of the drama forces us away! We deal with such harsh realities day in and day out, so the last thing we want to do in our free time is watch our political leaders acting like children (especially when we can watch “Real Housewives” or “Dance Moms” instead).
Let’s face it, we all know Washington needs a makeover. But if we all continue to tune it out instead of being engaged and expressing what we want to see from our country’s leaders, it isn’t going to change anytime soon.
