Jacob Bronowski, the celebrated Polish-British philosopher best known for his 1973 documentary series aired on the BBC, “The Ascent of Man,” described a fascinating feature of Nepal’s Sherpa people. Living high in the Himalayas, Sherpas naturally became skillful mountaineers, serving as guides for early Everest expeditions, including Sir Edmund Hillary, first to reach the summit on May 29, 1953.
The Sherpas, despite possessing intimate knowledge of the mountain, knew the face of Everest only from the familiar perspective of their homes. When first shown pictures of Mount Everest from other vantage points many, even among the most seasoned guides, expressed shock, hardly able to believe their eyes.
Wrote Bronowski, “Their disbelief changed to amazement when they realized that something with which they were so familiar could have other sides to it.”
Sounds to me very much like today’s mainstream media, shocked that their preferred narratives aren’t universally trusted as the only paths – and themselves as the only accredited guides along those paths – to the summit of cultural and political truth.
Conservatives employ many descriptors for traditional news organizations. “Mainstream” media. “Legacy” media. “Establishment” media. “Regime” media.
Today, I add a new word to the lexicon of adjectives describing media bias – Sherpa media. America’s Sherpa media, by my definition, describes the unquestionably skilled, and equally unquestionably biased, cadre of once-trusted guides to cultural and political opinion.
Our Sherpa media, once trusted as expert guides to the summit of truth, has now self-righteously hunkered down, satisfied with their narrow vantage point of observation, urging Americans to follow them along the paths of their agreed upon narratives.
That’s why, in the wake of Trump’s landslide victory and assumed mandate, our Sherpa media are in a state of shocked disbelief that Americans have discovered new and more trustworthy guides to lead them to the summit of the political Mount Everest that is Donald J. Trump and the MAGA movement.
There can be no denying that Trump has proven himself a Mount Everest figure in American politics, a point driven home last weekend by Sylvester Stallone at a Mar-a-Lago victory celebration, asserting that Trump, after accomplishing his political resurrection, now owns mythological status.
How dismayed must our once-trusted Sherpa media guides be to realize the truth of what “Rocky” himself claimed for Trump, haunted at imagining Trump’s rock-faced addition to Mt. Rushmore.
That our Sherpa media have lost the respect and trust of the American people is glaringly obvious, precisely because they are manifestly blind to other perspectives than their own, therefore mystified to learn that Americans living on the other side of Mount MAGA could see differently and discover alternative paths to the summit.
But see differently they most surely do, as evidenced by over 80% of American counties shifting to the right on Election Day 2024, even in urban and decidedly leftist enclaves.
The voters have made it clear that they are ready to hire new guides, leaving the Sherpa media fuming while spewing their condescending attitude toward Americans as they claim superior knowledge of Trump as a danger to American democracy. “If only conservatives would open their eyes and let us guide them to the peak of truth.”
How, though, could Americans ever trust again our Sherpa media, having followed them through the last decade of Trump-dominated news cycles down one dead-end path after another? Russian collusion. The “fine people” hoax. The “inject bleach” hoax. The Blinken-inspired lies of 51 former intelligence experts on Hunter’s laptop. The Mar-a-Lago raid and other lawfare expeditions of a weaponized Justice Department.
Our Sherpa media sought to guide Americans along all these, and many more, as paths to truth, despite Americans’ clear-eyed conclusion that the Biden administration had embarked on a dangerous path that, fat from leading the public to truth, exposed the utter corruption of those in power.
With each one of these lies (and many more, by which our Sherpa media led the public deep into paths with no exit) a greater number of Americans abandoned their once-esteemed media guides.
With greater numbers of news consumers in these post-election days departing from “Old” news sources like ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, etc., Americans are openly declaring their liberation from fear of being labeled racists, misogynists, fascists, uneducated and, to use Biden’s latest slur, garbage.
Sherpa media bias sent Americans on a quest for other guides and, on the other side of Mount MAGA, such guides have been found, and are reaping the rewards.
Today, those having fired the Sherpa media are ascending Mount MAGA with swagger, as deliciously displayed in the end-zone Trump-dance celebrations by NFL athletes. (Shout out here to the Babylon Bee’s headline from Tuesday alongside an image of Hitler posed as if doing the Trump dance, “Newly Unearthed Video Shows Hitler Did the Trump Dance”).
Opinions once whispered softly and only to pro-Trump friends, lest they be discovered and labeled racist, are now spoken openly, without fear. How could they be labeled as racist now, when Republican support among blacks, Hispanics and (drum roll, please) Native Americans has increased to highs previously unknown? Native Americans voted 65% for Trump, topping even white America’s 57%!
Conservatives are following the new paths to the summit of Mount MAGA with a plenteous supply of oxygen and abundant energy, knowing that the dart of the racist accusation has been forever been blunted.
Conservatives have always known themselves and the American people to be other than the race hustlers have sought to convince them they are, as in, for example, Project 1619 and “White Fragility.” Conservatives are ready at last to dismiss the alphabet paths of CRT and DEI – these the preferred routes of the Sherpa media to guide the disgusting racists of America to the pinnacle of racial truth.
Conservatives in the post-election euphoria of Trump’s landslide victory find themselves unburdened by what has been (thanks for the line that keeps on giving, Kamala), deliciously mocking our Sherpa media as they continue to guide along the old paths to their increasingly dwindling audiences.
