The level of fake news has risen to greater heights recently. Pouring gasoline on the protest fires, the alt-right just faked up a bunch of left-wing propaganda pretending to be Antifa and got caught…but still influenced people in the process! It’s getting ridiculous and I wonder how the youth of America are handling the fact that they must mistrust much of what they read.
The kids of this country love social media and the ones just turning voting age are the future. They like TikTok, for example, which I personally can’t get any enjoyment from after trying and trying. You could say social media is their TV. Given this dynamic, they seem to be most politically influenced by Twitter and Facebook posts…which is sad. Because social media is clearly getting worse and Mark Zuckerberg is doing nothing to help the situation. Thankfully, Jack Dorsey has guts so there’s a small ray of hope there.
In my blog post over three years ago, I mused: 2017: The Year of Truth? Having been disgusted with the high level of Orwellian rhetorical inventions, I had hopes that the likes of fake news and alternative facts would fade as people would see the clear hypocrisy of it all. They haven’t…nothing has changed and it’s getting even worse.
In these trying times, truth is getting relegated to a far-off island just like traditional conservative principles like paying down the debt and family values…all gone over the last few years. And George Will is not happy about it. But he’s been around a long time and can see things clearly. Can the voters this fall?
My hope back in 2017 did not come true. We are still living in the era of extreme lying. But our new hope can be based on the chance that people are getting used to it all. US citizens have been exposed to outrageous levels of misinformation during the Covid-19 crisis and the recent misrepresentative campaign of the alt right mentioned at the start.
Lying has become the new standard so hopefully voters are now savvier, especially those young, first time voters. They may be getting fed up with it all enough to see through the smoke screen and want to change things at the ballot box. With so many stresses of the current plague and riots in the streets, I don’t want to worry about these recent new efforts to screw up the election too. So, I’m keeping calm and believing in our constitution and the citizens of the US. Perhaps they can show me, after all of this, that 2020 is the real Year of Truth.
Got thoughts on misinformation campaigns, share them with us.
– Mark Salow, Sr. Consultant
