There are two polar opposite reasons the political divide continues to grow. The contradicting principles make it very difficult to reach common ground when thinking about political events, or having a discussion with someone of a different party or belief system.
1. We are smarter and have more information
I wrote a post a few days ago about Donald Trump and Authoritarianism. It was a rather scathing synopsis of his governing tendencies and the atmosphere of our country and his supporters. I read a post today from @caitlinjohnstone about liberals authoritarianism. Reading the post, I couldn't get over how completely opposite we were and how each of us used similar arguments and accusations against the other side. I went back and reread my post https://steemit.com/politics/@diezeldiddy/playbook-from-stalin-a-page-from-hitler-and-a-dash-of-mussolini-trumps-crusade-against-the-media-and-justice-department
I couldn't help realize how ridiculous her opinion of my post would be if she read it, in the same way I thought aspects and parallels she drew were completely ridiculous. I try to keep myself cohesive in political posts, but I fall into the trap of my own beliefs, many a time.
This is were the access to information and the internet has turbo charged these political discussions. There is "evidence" to support any belief system you have, or any point you want to make. There are ways to construe facts, statistics, and what individuals say to mold any argument point you want to form. It is truly difficult to comprehend the information out there, and we have been getting better and better at crafting it. The difficult part in this, is that true facts and events are politicized to death and get lost in this wash of manipulation during argument. Simple truths and facts get discarded by the other side because they brush it off as the other sides talking points.
If you don't revile one of these two men, I envy you
Let's look at two recent examples, each from major news networks. Each reinforces already held beliefs for millions of Americans without challenging train of thought.
Let's first look at my buddy Sean Hannity where he recently tried to explain the stock market dip.
He first blames Obama, even though he has praised Trump the last year about the stock market. Trump also completely takes credit for the stock market since the day he took office. He blames Obama for quantitative easing. Of which, is something that we can be critical of Obama for. Many economists are divided on whether the practice helped rebound the economy or simply bandaged the problem. Did Trump shift economic policy in the last year? Nope, he still is doing quantitative easing like Obama, so it is Obama's fault for that and not Trumps, but Trump gets credit for all the gains, and Obama the losses. Also notice how Sean Hannity likes to throw quantitative easing and phony cheap money in as his evidence for the argument, and treats it like evidence, but doesn't explain how it is evidence. This is something that happens all the time. Something is presented as evidence and the viewer is then lead to conclusions based on their own preconceived notions.
And, this isn't only a tactic use by right wing media outlets, but also by the left. And although it is glossed over with more intellectualism, the strategy is still the same. Give the audience what they want to hear, give some reason for it, and let them fill in the blanks.
Let's look at an example from the other aisle,
Now in this clip Rachel Maddows proudly proclaims she found the trust fund set up to help pay legal bills for members of the white house during the Russia investigation. Members that have not been charged and are found not to have committed a crime. She trumpets this like it is a big discovery and that they have unearthed another slippery scheme in the Trump administration. She tries to draw parallels and get the audience to conclude that because staff will get help with legal bills, they will lie under oath to Robert Mueller.
First off, no one in Trumps staff is going to lie to the special council under oath with how much information he has gathered, and how he aggressively prosecuted those who committed crimes, including lying to the F.B.I. Getting legal fees covered is no such bribe to prison time.
Second, so what? Any president and team of lawyers would want to assure staff that they won't have to worry about legal costs in an investigation, especially if said staff did not do anything wrong. These legal bills can rack up into the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. How could people in the west wing do their jobs, if they had to worry about lawyer payment and managing the investigation for themselves. This trust is a no-brainier and the there are shady dealings in the Trump administration, but this isn't one of them, It's treated like one though.
But many news outlets give people what they want to hear, not what they need to hear.
In the end, I have to remind myself constantly, that I am never 100% right in regards to what is the truth about everything and we can't be naive to think our point of view is right on any issue. With this thinking, we will never be able to bridge this gap that has continued to widen in our political discussion.
This comes to my second point
We are ignorant of what we know and that which we don't
Self awareness is a trait usually possessed by those who do not go out of their way to share their opinion, which can make it ironic and defeating that those who share their opinion the most, often have the most influence in the end. This is a problem because without this awareness we, and I many a time, have shielded ourselves from a different opinions and facts. We become ignorant, in that the information we already know is the truth and contradicting information is not the truth. It is illogical because with that reasoning, how could we truly learn anything?
This only compounds our current situation. Because, as we think we get smarter and smarter with the plethora of information we receive reinforcing our currently held beliefs, the more we fall to our own hubris and into a cynical cycle that threatens to dissolve cognitive reasoning with outside opinions and information.
Let's keep reminding ourselves of this steemit and try to keep the open and engaging dialogue I have seen so much of on this platform.
This post definitely hit me. We have so much information that at this point it's over saturated to the degree that any claim can be backed up with "evidence". Sometimes I wonder about the future of the internet regarding information and truth. What will be the next step in the way we communicate with each other? Will we ever be able to know "the truth" about anything?
That's very true, where do we go from here? The future will be a war of info. Thanks for reading, glad you enjoyed it!
Esta buena la informacion
Thanks!