Thank reality, the fever in America last night showed signs of breaking. The Democrats won the House, and while the Republicans strengthening their hold on the Senate will present plenty of problems, this feels like a massive step forward, and a huge relief.
I am extremely hopeful the rhetoric is going to get turned way down now, or be far more ignored, or both. I, like many others I’m sure, have become sick of hanging on every word Trump says.
The man is an idiot. He won an election by the skin of his teeth, which he didn’t even want to win. He doesn’t know anything at all other than how to grab people by their aggrieved guts and pour them full of anger and hate. It has been exhausting reading the breathless headlines every day reporting the things he said as if they mattered.
They don’t. They aren’t real. And this election proved that real things to do with real policy matter. People said healthcare was their number 1 issue. Republicans didn’t have a leg to stand on there, though they lied all day long in the most blatant ways.
I’ve grown weary of headlines in this format: “Trump claims (something racist and/or absolutely false) without evidence.” As if that tacked-on without evidence means anything at all. Surely we all know now that simply by repeating his nonsense claims, you are spreading them wider to the world.
Would you go to a mad drunk on the street and start repeating everything they said with a loudspeaker, just because they said them confidently? Would it matter if you appended a weak-willed allegedly at the end of each claim?
No.
I’m hoping to see a shift here. If you must report on the stupid, fact-free things he says, do it in this format: “Trump lies again about (topic name).” You don’t repeat the lie. The headline is not whatever BS he spews. It’s that he’s lying. That is the story all day long. When you report on the Westboro Baptist church, you don’t repeat all their slogans for an audience of millions, you say: “Westboro Baptist church disrupted another funeral with hateful rhetoric.” In the article, sure, you break down their mad beliefs, but it’s not the lead. It’s not the most important thing.
Let’s start believing in reality again. Winning the House, and the way the Democratics won it – on policy issues and reality – is a great step in the right direction.
Phew, right?