We live in unprecedented times. That is the most scribbled sentence since the first human started scribbling on cave walls.
While that first scribbler was undoubtedly correct, the validity of subsequent reprints is spotty. That hasn't mattered because the first one learned there's no better way to sell something than to convince your marks--we mean constituents--that this time it's different.
Or the end is near. There's always an audience for the end is near. Which would be sold as unprecedented, too. Just don't tell the dinosaurs.
But I digress.
We live in unprecedented times. I say that because unprecedented is easily the most overused word in the American Media vocabulary today. And I'm not just talking about a certain 37 count federal indictment.
Did you hear about the late frosts in the northeast killing the apple orchards? Unprecedented. Meat told us of the wildfires in Canada last week. Unprecedented (the wildfires not Meat rambling). Did you watch the NBA finals? Unprecedented performance. How about the Stanley Cup? A whole hat trick of unprecedented.
Maybe you read in the news last week about unprecedented increases in global warming. Or that there was an unprecedented increase in food insecurity. And certainly don't forget the unprecedented divide among Americans (as long as you ignore anything that happened before 1876).
While I'm not sure how unprecedented any of these things really are, what I'm sure is unprecedented is the number of talking heads and opinionators declaring something has never happened before. The proclaiming of unprecedented is unprecedented.
That, my friends, is unprecedented squared.
I've never lived in a time when nothing ever happened before but that is where unprecedented squared puts us. It's unprecedented.
People at higher salary grades than I might wonder why we seem to be so determined to make everything that happens a first timer when in 99.9 percent of the cases a little googling will reveal it isn't. I don't need a dictionary to tell me something is not unprecedented if there is a precedent.
Maybe in a virtual reality world it doesn't matter.
Speaking of, a person who occupied the Oval Office for 4 years was just indicted on 37 counts. The unprecedented claim is being tossed around and it is true no other former White House resident has been indicted criminally. But people are missing the unprecedented thing we really should be paying attention to.
The never before is that a large enough swath of the American public would fall for such a self serving conman brazen enough to incite the storming of the capital and stupid enough to show nuclear secrets to Kid Rock. No matter how many flags he wraps himself up in or BudLight bottles he breaks, Kid doesn't have that kind of clearance.
Even he knew that was messed up.
The never before is that a major political party from nearly top to bottom would stand beside a man who would tear down nearly every American Institution and sell his country out for nothing but his own gain.
We live in unprecedented times. But at least we can still say no one who ever won the popular vote for president has ever been indicted for a crime.