The blame certainly goes in a lot of directions - the insurgents; the politicians and media heads who validated, incited, and encouraged them; the enablers who continued to support the narcissistic President who spent most of his time on self adulation. Hearing “We love you...you are very special” from the President AFTER they invaded and desecrated the Capitol, and terrorized our country’s representatives, is a clear message of support of their actions. He needs to be held accountable for sedition, along with the others in positions of power who chimed in. Backtracking now is a desperate act of self preservation. It’s too late.
The insurgents may have bought into conspiracies and lies, but they are not innocent victims. They found their hero who spoke to them and told them what they have wanted to hear. “He says out loud what we are thinking” was heard over and over by many supporters. And we know how ugly, racist, bigoted, and cruel those thoughts were now that we’ve seen it all play out in words and actions led by the POTUS.
I think there is another group that has been poisoned by the spreading of false information. Most are lifelong Republicans who have slipped down into the Trump sewer with blinders on, while seeing an alternate reality explained on Fox News or the internet (eg Breitbart). The numbers of people who voted for Trump seems to indicate that. I hope we can bring them back from fantasy to reality and value truth-seeking. I don’t know if we need real time fact checking or something else to at least bring most of us to a common understanding of truth. We certainly should hold politicians to a standard of communicating truth to their constituents. There should be a penalty for spreading verifiable lies. Information is shared in a much different way than it was a generation or so ago when we all watched and trusted Walter Cronkite and read our fact-checked newspapers. I wonder: How can we protect our country from this sort of thing in the future? It's as important as protecting our people from foreign adversary attack, I think.
You said a mouthful. I think a lot about how a lack of media literacy and critical thinking and a buttload of happy hours spent in echo chambers all helped move us toward accepting a flawed candidate like Trump. If he was saying what a lot of people were thinking, then a lot of people are racist buffoons. The idea of bringing back trust is a challenge. Once trust is broken (in institutions like the government, the press, etc. et al and on and on and on), how do we restore it. Some of these chuckleheads are too far gone and bye, boi, but is there hope for some of them? I am not the person to bridge the gap. I don't want to be the bridge across the gap, but someone or something is going to have to at least get us in the same room. Or ZIP code. Did the violence bring us a little closer? It certainly shook loose a few objectors (though sure, that was for the cameras, but so was their objection).
I'd love to hear some great ideas, or even flawed ones.
The blame certainly goes in a lot of directions - the insurgents; the politicians and media heads who validated, incited, and encouraged them; the enablers who continued to support the narcissistic President who spent most of his time on self adulation. Hearing “We love you...you are very special” from the President AFTER they invaded and desecrated the Capitol, and terrorized our country’s representatives, is a clear message of support of their actions. He needs to be held accountable for sedition, along with the others in positions of power who chimed in. Backtracking now is a desperate act of self preservation. It’s too late.
The insurgents may have bought into conspiracies and lies, but they are not innocent victims. They found their hero who spoke to them and told them what they have wanted to hear. “He says out loud what we are thinking” was heard over and over by many supporters. And we know how ugly, racist, bigoted, and cruel those thoughts were now that we’ve seen it all play out in words and actions led by the POTUS.
I think there is another group that has been poisoned by the spreading of false information. Most are lifelong Republicans who have slipped down into the Trump sewer with blinders on, while seeing an alternate reality explained on Fox News or the internet (eg Breitbart). The numbers of people who voted for Trump seems to indicate that. I hope we can bring them back from fantasy to reality and value truth-seeking. I don’t know if we need real time fact checking or something else to at least bring most of us to a common understanding of truth. We certainly should hold politicians to a standard of communicating truth to their constituents. There should be a penalty for spreading verifiable lies. Information is shared in a much different way than it was a generation or so ago when we all watched and trusted Walter Cronkite and read our fact-checked newspapers. I wonder: How can we protect our country from this sort of thing in the future? It's as important as protecting our people from foreign adversary attack, I think.
You said a mouthful. I think a lot about how a lack of media literacy and critical thinking and a buttload of happy hours spent in echo chambers all helped move us toward accepting a flawed candidate like Trump. If he was saying what a lot of people were thinking, then a lot of people are racist buffoons. The idea of bringing back trust is a challenge. Once trust is broken (in institutions like the government, the press, etc. et al and on and on and on), how do we restore it. Some of these chuckleheads are too far gone and bye, boi, but is there hope for some of them? I am not the person to bridge the gap. I don't want to be the bridge across the gap, but someone or something is going to have to at least get us in the same room. Or ZIP code. Did the violence bring us a little closer? It certainly shook loose a few objectors (though sure, that was for the cameras, but so was their objection).
I'd love to hear some great ideas, or even flawed ones.