By Timothy Loftus, Editor & Publisher | Sergeant Bluff Advocate
(SBA) - How convenient — it’s always the other guy’s fault.
Their ideas. Their policies. Their party. Their leadership. According to our elected officials — and the media echo chambers that support them — the country would be just fine if only “those people” would get out of the way. You know who I’m talking about. Them. The other team. The other guy. The other dumb Americans.
Welcome to the political blame game — America’s most reliable bipartisan tradition. And the main reason we can’t seem to get a single damn thing done.
Turn on any cable news channel, any day of the week. MSNBC, FOX News, CNN — take your pick. It doesn’t matter what the issue is, immigration, inflation, climate, education, you name it — the story isn’t about solving the problem. It’s about who caused the problem. And how morally bankrupt, corrupt, or downright stupid the “other side” must be.
It’s not even about facts anymore. It’s about assigning blame with surgical precision, making sure the outrage is properly directed and the viewers properly outraged. Because here’s the dirty little secret, outrage pays. It keeps people glued to the screen. It makes them click, share, yell, vote — and donate. And in today’s political ecosystem, that’s the currency of power.
Solutions? Those are boring. Those require hard work. They require compromise, and give-and-take, and (God forbid) admitting the other side might occasionally have a decent idea. That doesn’t sell ad time. That doesn’t energize the base. That doesn’t get a 30-second soundbite played on repeat.
So instead, we get theater. Every day.
Congress holds hearings not to create legislation, but to create viral clips. Candidates run on platforms of who they’ll oppose, not what they’ll build. Pundits don’t inform, they inflame. And when the dust settles after every new scandal or tweetstorm or culture war flare-up, the average American still sits in the same place they were before, stuck.
Stuck with high healthcare costs. Stuck with unaffordable housing. Stuck with broken infrastructure, a changing climate, underfunded schools, and a tax system that seems to reward everyone but the people doing the actual work.
But don’t worry — someone’s definitely going to get blamed for it.
Take immigration. Republicans say Democrats want open borders. Democrats say Republicans want to lock kids in cages. Meanwhile, year after year, Congress refuses to pass meaningful immigration reform — not because it’s impossible, but because it’s inconvenient. Why fix the issue when you can use it as a weapon every election cycle?
Or look at the debt ceiling debacles. Every year now we flirt with economic disaster. Not because we can’t pay our bills, but because politicians want to attach blame for spending to the other side — while conveniently forgetting they both rack up debt when they’re in charge. It's like two arsonists arguing over whose match started the fire, all while the building burns.
And what about education? One side screams about indoctrination in public schools, the other decries censorship and book bans. Meanwhile, teachers are underpaid, classrooms are under-resourced, and students are falling behind. But hey — at least someone got in a good zinger on social media, right?
The truth is, Washington has become a place where accountability goes to die. Where the only thing more common than finger-pointing is fundraising emails blaming the other side for everything wrong in America.
And the media? They’re not just complicit — they’re enablers. Every time a senator blames a problem on “liberal woke culture” or “MAGA extremists,” some talking head is there to amplify it, analyze it, and turn it into a weeklong outrage cycle. Not because they care about the issue — but because they care about ratings. Rage is the product, and business is booming.
We used to elect representatives. Now we elect celebrities, influencers, and culture war avatars. People more concerned with going viral than going to committee meetings. People who see public office not as a duty, but as a platform. And when governing gets in the way of brand-building, well, governing can wait.
Of course, blaming the politicians and the media is easy too. (I know — I’m doing it right now.) But let’s be honest with ourselves, we’re part of the problem. We reward the drama. We share the clips. We cheer when our side lands a punch, even if the issue stays unsolved. We tune in for the yelling and tune out for the nuance.
We’ve become addicted to the game — the endless back-and-forth, the dueling headlines, the sense that every election is life-or-death and every opponent is the enemy. But government isn’t a sport. And our lives aren’t a scoreboard.
So what happens next?
Well, if we keep playing the blame game, we’ll keep losing. Not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans. Because while the parties throw punches, the clock keeps ticking. The roads still crumble. The planet still warms. The middle class still shrinks. And faith in democracy — real, functional democracy — continues to erode.
It doesn’t have to be this way. It really doesn’t. But it will stay this way until we demand more.
Until we stop rewarding the politicians who yell the loudest and start supporting the ones who listen the longest. Until we turn off the outrage and tune in to ideas. Until we start asking not just who’s to blame, but who’s willing to fix it.
We need leaders, not blamers. Builders, not breakers. And above all, we need citizens who don’t fall for the script that every problem is someone else’s fault.
Because at the end of the day, we’re all in this together. Red states, blue states, and every shade in between. I think there are now even purple states.
Blaming each other won’t build a better country — only working together and reaching across the isle will.
