When the country faces very real problems that are basically insurmountable, politicians focus on OPTICS instead. Ted Cruz introduces a term limits amendment every year in the Senate. It has zero chance of passage, he does it for optics. Biden shuts down the XL pipeline project to "cure climate change". The two topics are unrelated of course, but the optics sound good. He stops new leases for fracking on Federal lands, sounds great, but 90% of fracking is on nonFederal land, so in reality it affected very little (and companies have leases 2-3-4 years out anyway). Congress passes some massive give away as the economy is recovering, optics, probably with an undesirable end result. Folks want "common sense gun controls", who wouldn't? Optics, the vast majority of gun crime is committed with handguns. The vast majority of sales at gun shows are by FFLs and have BG checks. Children in cages at the border? Optics. Substance behind the story, but the photo passed around to blame one guy was optics.
The media abet this because the salacious gets clicks. "We" allow it because of confirmation bias and a lack of checking further into headlines.
