We have to sort out truth from the advertisement

What seems clear is that no politician or nightly news commentator is speaking from a personal, privately gained idea of their own convictions.

Instead, they are all on a “team” which includes a highly paid research staff that comes up with really clever “talking points.”

Nowhere is this more evident than in Tucker Carson’s recent fall from grace. Without the millions from Fox News paid to his staff to make him seem more enlightened and intelligent than he actually is, he’s left trying to make a living on his own in creating an “on the beat reporter” involved in vital news of our time. Instead, he comes across as a duped fool played by Putin.

This is likely true across the board: Lawrence O’donnell, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Joy Reid, George Santos, Mitch Mcconnell, Taylor Swift, Jon Stewart, “The Pillow Man,” and on and on. Anyone with followers appears to be just mouthing what the staff has come up with that will sell … and they have the finances to support the team.

All are advised by their “team.” We believe that it’s them saying it, but it’s likely not. It’s their conniving writers coming up with what will sell. The personalities only perform in the way their audience expects the “ideas” that polling says will sell to the biggest number of people who already know what they believe.

As citizens, we have to sort out the actual from the advertisement. One way to do it is to look at when Tucker no longer has the money to play in the game. He no longer has half the intelligence and grasp of the facts which he formerly mouthed the words for and so he comes off as the ignorant reporter, hoping his notoriety will still carry him.

— Michael Dille, Boulder