2017: The Year We Wished Was Fake News

And so 2017 nears its end.  A year of fear, loathing and partisanship that caused protests, investigations, resignations and the truth depends on which side you're on.  A year of pullouts from climate change and trade agreements, plus travel bans on immigrants from certain countries, making America great only to those who could afford it.  Hurricanes in the southeast and wildfires in the west just added to the misery.  The specter of nuclear war, something we thought we'd never see again, reared its ugly head.  But hey, the economy's booming!

The catalyst for all this, of course, is President Donald Trump.  His inability to leave well enough alone shows in his tweets and public statements, whether it's about Hillary Clinton, the media, the legacy of his predecessor Barack Obama, the NFL, or whatever Fox News considers important.

Recently, Trump shook up the Middle East with his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and to move the American embassy there, which makes a major terrorist attack on this country all the more possible.  And the one victory in Congress the President can claim this year is the new tax law, which would not only give rich Americans a bigger cut, but also send the federal deficit over a trillion dollars.

Trump might also think Obamacare is dead with the repeal of the individual mandate (included in the tax bill), which says that you either get health insurance or you face paying a penalty.  For younger people who thought nothing bad would ever happen to them, it was an easy choice--unless they got sick or had an accident.  So this was one part of the Affordable Care Act that was worth losing.  But dead?  Look at the number of folks who signed up for insurance during the enrollment period, which got no promotion whatsoever.

If there's one thing that will continue to dog Trump in the new year, it's the ongoing investigation into Russia's alleged hacking of the 2016 presidential election and whether the Current Occupant had anything to do with it.  As this enters a critical phase, the President is tweeting his displeasure over its handling by special prosecutor Robert Mueller and the FBI.  There is the feeling that, as we get closer to the truth, Mueller might fly too close to the sun and Trump finds an excuse to either fire him, or pardon those who are either already under indictment or are about to spill the beans.

Trump also stands accused of sexual harassment in words and deeds, but he's likely to fare better than the other guys who lost their careers since Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein got their comeuppance from women who suffered in silence for years and couldn't take it any more.  Some examples:  Christopher Plummer is getting rave reviews in the film "All The Money In the World" as the emergency replacement for Kevin Spacey, who also lost his role on TV's "House of Cards".  Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" was replaced on radio by "Live From Here" with Chris Thile.  Minnesota's Lieutenant Governor Tina Smith will replace Al Franken as the state's U.S. Senator.  And still no word on who's replacing Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose on morning TV.

The biggest trend in TV is the rise of streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu, caused by people who didn't want to pay extra for channels they don't watch.  Now that net neutrality is history (pending court decisions), it will be interesting to see if those same people come crawling back to cable once streaming becomes less convenient and more expensive.

Because of streaming, whether you watch or listen to it, a number of media companies had the urge to merge in 2017.  There's the AT&T-Time Warner combo, of course, though the Trump administration is doing all it can to derail the deal because the news channel they hate--CNN--is involved.  Disney is buying up most of the assets in Fox, except for its broadcast network, TV stations, and news and sports channels.  Sinclair Broadcasting, which already owns more TV stations than anybody else, wants to add Tribune's to its portfolio, meaning that iconic stations like WGN in Chicago, WPIX in New York and KTLA in Los Angeles will soon be spouting the Trump/GOP line on its newscasts.  And CBS is getting out of the radio business after 90 years, selling its local stations to Entercom.

Those who did not make it past 2017 include . . . Dorothy Mengering, Lola Albright, Chuck Barris, Barbara Hale, Heather Menzies, Dick Enberg, Jim Nabors, Rance Howard, David Cassidy, Della Reese, Mel Tillis, Liz Smith, Fats Domino, Robert Guillaume, Y.A.Tittle, Tom Petty, Monty Hall, Hugh Hefner, Harry Dean Stanton, Jay Thomas, Jerry Lewis, Dick Gregory, Glen Campbell, Sam Shepard, June Foray, Martin Landau, Stephen Furst, Adam West, Frank Deford, Gregg Allman, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Roger Moore, Roger Ailes, Chris Cornell, Powers Boothe, Jonathan Demme, Erin Moran, John Geils, Don Rickles, Jimmy Breslin, Chuck Berry, Joni Sledge, Robert Osbourne, Joseph Wapner, Bill Paxton, Norma McCorvey, Al Jaurreau, Richard Hatch, John Hurt, Mary Tyler Moore, Eugene Cernan, William Peter Blatty, Chester Bennington, Malcolm Young, Ann Wedgeworth, Bernie Casey, Don Williams, Walter Becker, Glenne Headly, Cuba Gooding Sr., Mike Conners, Miguel Ferrer, Roger Erickson, Bill Diehl, Johnny Canton, Chuck Lilligren, Ray Christensen, Johnny Bower, Dick Orkin and Rose Marie.

Who or what will survive 2018?  Stay tuned.