We’re still stuck on all the apocalyptic commentary spouted in the lead up to the Supreme Court’s decision on the independent state legislature theory. The conservative court proved many pundits wrong by siding against the theory 6-3. It was a thorough rebuke of the fringe idea. It should also be a thorough rebuke of fringe punditry.

At the start of this piece, we referred to the commentary surrounding the case as “apocalyptic.” The choice of word was intentional, because the columnists and pundits who trade in this sort of hyperventilated nonsense behave like doomsday preachers. They predict armageddon based on signs no one else can see, and when armageddon doesn’t come, they say we got lucky… this time. They take no responsibility for being wrong — they don’t even acknowledge it. They just move on to the next manufactured crisis.

As we said yesterday, both parties suffer from this obsession with catastrophe. Conservative pundits regularly scream about President Biden destroying America. As far as we can tell, he’s a Democratic president pursuing a Democratic agenda. One is welcome to disagree with that agenda, but to act as if it was designed to ruin the country defies reason. What would the motivation for wrecking America be? We can’t think of one. We can, however, think of a motivation for fearmongering: ratings, attention, money, influence. 

Until we hold pundits of both sides accountable for their overblown and, frankly, unforgivable rhetoric, they will continue to drag us with them as they leapfrog from one manufactured crisis to the next. Maybe if they were right more often than they were wrong, they’d be worth listening to. But they aren’t. As we said yesterday, we deserve better. What’s more, we have better. One Daily Link’s index is full of websites and writers interested in honesty, not chaos. They might get something wrong or overreact on occasion, but that’s the exception, not the rule. Please give them a look. You and your blood pressure will be glad you did.