Grace, Now More than Ever

Getting older has been less about reconciling my current reality with my childhood dreams than with my adolescent nightmares. I dreamed of being an astronaut. I swore I’d never move to the suburbs and drive an SUV. I got over the first, but the shame is unblinking in the rearview of my CX-5 as I back out my Arlington driveway.  Most of these incremental erosions of my ideal self are tolerable, but not the latest.

I’ve come to realize that I, nay America, needs Nancy Grace, now more than ever. 

Grace, above, on Day 22 of an unspecified crusade

A former prosecutor, Grace played the role of CNN’s chief conquistador from 2005 to 2016 –exploring the furthest boundaries of what constituted news and discussion, in a self-righteous and ruthless tear that arguably did more harm than good. She wasn’t the first to yell over guests she ostensibly booked to be heard, but she was arguably the best.  

Nancy Grace is more of the heroine we deserve rather than the one we need. Whether chicken or egg, there’s a direct line between her approach and political dialogue today, where individual opinions are considered complete fact sets and defended with dogmatic fervor. We don’t need that Nancy Grace right now. 

We need the morbid page-a-day calendar Nancy Grace. The one who focused on stories long after the news cycle relegated them to the Year in Review pile, such as the story of Natalee Holloway, an American who disappeared in Aruba while on a 2005 high-school graduation trip. It seemed nightly Grace would direct her narrowed, fiery stare at the camera and bark that it had been “152 days without justice for Natalee Holloway.” 

Like so much of public outrage, it’s debatable whether her fixation on the case of a young, blonde, telegenic victim was more truth- or attention-seeking behavior, but Grace’s uninterruptible focus was remarkable.  Long after nightly news programs stopped pausing to silently scroll the names and pictures of soldiers who died in the War on Terror that day, Grace was still marking time and barking theories in her unique way.  The current of news stories scrolling in the ticker beneath her each night picked up speed, but she would not be moved. This was her story, and she was going to wring it until she squeezed out a conviction or blew out her flexor digitorums. 

News coverage today has all of Nancy Grace’s self-righteous outrage but none of the stick-to-itiveness that set her apart. Each story is the worst thing we’ve ever heard… until we hear the next. There’s no time to process, only pivot. On to the next sign of the apocalypse. On to the next tweet. 

This never-ending cycle, at once heart-breaking and neck-snapping, is also easily exploited. Somewhere in Oz, the Wizard wishes Dorothy was this distractible. We thought about what Trump’s comments at the Helsinki summit meant for what felt like an eternity. Six whole days passed (six!) before we were on to the next tweet, a terse and seemingly unprovoked capitalized warning to Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s President. 

Meanwhile, to borrow a phrase, it has been 114 days since ICE began separating children from their families at the border. Once the Trump Administration ambiguously announced they were stepping back from its “no tolerance policy,” we felt free to move onto the next story.  Problem solved. Until we were reminded that it indeed wasn’t solved when a federal judge ordered the families reunited within 30 days. A court order, that settles it. Again, we moved on satisfied. Until, once more the issue returned. The deadline came and went and still 750 children (750!) remained separated. Less than three days passed since then, but the story was barely mentioned 14 pages deep in Sunday’s New York Times, merely an aside serving to peg an evergreen story on immigrants to current events.   

Day 114 and hundreds of children are still separated from their families. 

Maybe this story is literally the worst story ever for you - not just another story to catch your eye as it scrolled by. Or maybe another issue, like racial injustice, lack of affordable housing, climate change, or economics looms larger. Whichever, addressing these and other large, difficult, and complex problems require us all to be much more Gracian. 

Separately, each issue seems impossible to solve. Taken together, they can drive a man to ask Alexa what “nihilism” means. Perhaps that’s why we are willfully distracted. We greet each newly tweeted issue with all the vigor of a day one at a new job after toiling at a dead end for what feels like years. 

But, what if we all ignored the stream of stories just as Nancy Grace did and find our own Holloway? It’s understandable to resist everything that’s not normal and let nothing slide, but is it effective? 

Maybe it’s time to delegate. Little is accomplished when we spread our scant energies across the news cycle like cold butter scraped across stale toast.  Rest assured: you’re not the only one outraged, or the only one who can affect change. What might not be within your focus will fall within another’s. That’s how society worked before technology allowed us to (think we) know everything instantly.  Back when dreams inspired us more than the weight of our failures tired us - when the mirror showed us future astronauts instead of resigned suburbanites.