I’ve had enough of the rising incivility in this country. I’m also fed up with blatant lies, gross exaggerations, speculation, and conspiracy theories being given an equal footing with actual scientific evidence, logic, and historical facts. After watching an interview with Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter defend his refusal to ban Alex Jones and his decision to hold leaders like Trump to a lesser civility standard than general users, I picked up my phone and deleted the Twitter app.To be honest, I rarely posted anything to Twitter and only followed a few people like Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. But to read the comments to their postings was painful. People have always had the potential for brutality, but the culture of incivility that has been unleashed by this self-serving and immoral president is unbearable and should serve as a warning to every decent American. What is worse than incivility is incivility coupled with baseless claims and misinformation.
In the age of Trump, too many people have willingly suspended their common sense and ability to scrutinize claims for their motive and veracity. They have become intellectually lazy, allowing themselves to be overtaken by a cult of personality. Do his supporter even realize that they are blindly believing, repeating, and acting on lies, outrageous conspiracy theories, and innuendos that misrepresent the reality but somehow feeds their darkest insecurities. The incivility is rapidly getting out of hand and I don’t want to be a part of it. I want to turn it on its head. I stopped watching C-Span Washington Journal for the same reason. People call in and base their comments on an important topic utilizing the most ridiculous lies that they got from any number of unreliable sources, including the president. Too many people are saying that they trust this president because he is a smart businessman and that they believe everything he says is the truth. There is no examination of his motives or need for evidence when blind trust is at work. The C-Span call in platform wasn’t designed for the age of false equivalencies. The facilitator isn’t allowed to correct the caller or misinformation, only to ask about their source.
It likely isn’t enough to delete Twitter or turn off C-Span, but it is a start. We have to convince others to do it as well. I’ll be writing emails to the major media outlets to let them know how I feel about these issues. The powers behind media like Fox News, Twitter, MSNBC and even Facebook are in it for the money. And for them to make money, they need an audience. There are more pundits and opinions than actual news. Commentary is quickly being passed around as news. The beauty of our consumer driven economy is that we are the consumers. We can influence what we are presented with by making our preferences known. Our greatest job right now is to convince our family and friends to do the same. Our toughest task is to encourage our friends and family members who have been sucked into this vortex of lies, speculation, baseless claims, and conspiracy theories to open their eyes and to honestly examine their sources for their motives and veracity.
This president wants to stifle the news and replace it with his own voice, so that his is the only voice we hear. The news must get its own act together. Under the control of money making corporations, the news media will only change when we become smart consumers of the news, demanding less commentary, less speculation and more facts, historical context and evidence. Otherwise our nation will be lost to the propaganda machine that is swiftly taking over our airways.
Obama era Cyber Security Regulations & Veteran’s Financial Loans Protections have been quietly ended by Exec. Order (this week). Alex Jones told a Judge during his child custody hearing that his show is “free speech theater” based on ratings. 45 is stripping away Security Clearances to deliberately handicap those who might need to refresh their memory of specific events/actions prior to potential testimony. There is no law, only selected allowable adjustments. Much of the above has not made the news. I fact-check, vote, write letters, can’t afford to be a consumer anymore. I’m frustrated, angry & sad. But stop? Never. You give me different perspectives. Don’t stop.