May 8, 2025 Editor, The News-Gazette: “All politics is local.” Not anymore. Not if you have been reading these pages over the past 30 years, that’s 1,560 editions with over 11,000 letters to the editor.
That’s a lot of opinion. And it has changed. Local issues and concerns no longer shape national political outcomes as former U. S. House of Representatives Speaker Tip O’Neill famously said. For starters, Tip lived in another century. News no longer respects political boundaries. We live in a digital age with a phone in every pocket. We no longer say, “If it didn’t happen in Rockbridge, it didn’t happen.” Rather, we drift out of our local comfort zone and plant our feet on ground that is less solid.
My unscientific survey shows a decided trend away from local issues to those mad happenings on that quicksand I just mentioned. Some even attempt to follow the hourly news from Washington on tariffs. And, of course, there are all those love letters about that man in the White House. Or maybe they are simply attempts to control one’s blood pressure.
Yep, anger seems to drive the process. A reader generally feels better after a letter is submitted for publication. However, I’m not sure this is the best way to address the important issues of the day. But we do it anyway.
And now we do it more with national issues than local. Is this such a good move? I don’t know. But I do know that everything must change in order for everything to remain the same. We elect a new pope in order to maintain those things and ideas that do not die.
If none of this makes any sense, I would like to offer a simple prescription for lasting pleasure. Every Wednesday when this newspaper comes out, turn first to the obituary page. If you don’t find your name or your mug shot you know it will be another good week in paradise. The letters to the editor can wait. DAVID REYNOLDS Rockbridge County
