This is the conclusion. It’s generally best to follow the advice given to Alice and the White Rabbit in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: “Begin at the beginning, go on to the end, and then stop.” But if you must read out of order, here are all the links:
- Part 1: There are no Yankees here.
- Part 2: Creating the Conditions for Mainstream Conspiracy Theories.
- Part 3: The Perils of Legal Punditry.
- Part 4: Social Media Makes it Worse
- Part 5: Get the Fighters Fighting and Keep Them Fighting
- Part 6: Invented Narratives and the Outrage Industry
- Part 7: The Outrage Machine Strikes Again: The 14th Amendment Section 3 Debacle
- Conclusion: What To Expect Going Forward
Conclusion: What to Expect Going Forward
The situation is getting worse
Because the MSNBC commentators dig in when they find they are wrong, the misinformation they spread becomes more entrenched. At this point, the Garland hecklers and the “there are no real consequences” people are so far beyond the realm of reality that I fear there is no reaching them.
This is the cycle on social media:
- The partisan pundits spread misinformation
- Nonlawyers amplify the misinformation, adding more hype and hysteria
- The hype and hysteria (aided by bots and troublemakers) is reflected back to the partisan pundits, encouraging them to elaborate on the narratives they have invented.
As the echo chamber becomes more unhinged from facts, sensible and reasonable people will distance themselves. The echo chamber will tighten and become more unhinged.
The solution is to educate a new generation to understand how social media and political pundits manipulate their viewers. Professors of communication and rhetoric are currently doing this at the college level.
The solution is not to try to debunk each lie. Because the commentators dig in when they are wrong, the task of debunking lies becomes a sisyphean task. The solution is to put raincoats on the population.
Untruths build on Untruths
The first untruth told in what I’ve been calling the cable-news-shows left-leaning-social-media echo chamber was that “accountability” and “consequences” for Trump and his minions would come through the criminal justice system. (For how I answered this, please see this criminal law FAQ page.)
This led to another untruth, which was that indictments would bring accountability. It’s hard to believe it now, but for almost 2 years, big names on social media and regular cable talk shows guests were telling people indictments means accountability and consequences.
(I said this was not true: Indictments are the start of a long harrowing process. Courts and juries don’t always get things right. Not all guilty people can be charged and not all guilty people who are charged are convicted.)
Another untruth was that Garland was “slow walking” the investigation for a year.
If you believe those things–and if you are prone to conspiracy thinking–literally anything that goes wrong during the stage of pretrial motions and the trial itself is Merrick Garland’s fault for “slow-walking” the investigation. This is happening in the spring of 2024.
Trump complained that he didn’t get discovery until too close to the trial. The conspiracy theorists erupts with: “It’s Merrick Garland’s fault!”
The Supreme Court schedules oral arguments for April instead of March. Instead of looking for mundane explanations, the conspiracy theorists erupt with: “It’s all Merrick Garland’s fault.” (If you’re like me, it will take you a few minutes to figure out how that could be Merrick Garland’s fault. The answer: If he hadn’t “slow-walked” the investigation for a year, the month difference wouldn’t have mattered.)
If Trump does something bad, it’s Merrick Garland’s fault for not having him in prison already.
You get the idea.
A lie told a hundred times becomes the truth
Initially a number of social media users and liberal cable news viewers were skeptical about the claims that Merrick Garland is the Bad Guy responsible for everything, but after hearing the 101th reason for Merrick Garland being responsible for whatever bad thing happened, they say, “Okay, at first I defended him. But now I’m finished.” And they jump on the band wagon.
Why Merrick Garland?
Because the rules of ethics prevent him from responding. Because he is deliberately not being partisan and that is enraging partisans. Someone in my mentions thinks there is some anti-semitism at the root. My theory was appearance: he looks weak and timid and “owlish” and (without realizing it) even good people are prone to a little bit of strongman worship. (Then it occurred to me that these two things might be related. The Garland haters love Jack Smith. If you compare their appearance, one looks tough and the other looks like a law librarians. Put another way, one looks husky and muscular and the other looks like a meek Jewish law librarian. I choose to go with the subtle strongman worshp instead of anti-semitism.
The two men actually behave the same way. They are cryptic in front of the camera. They don’t offer public justifications. They speak through the indictments. They keep their heads down and ignore the chatter.
The Promise of Magic Bullets
Much of the rage comes from promising a magic bullet (Mueller will haul Trump off to jail and we will be rid of the problem) and then redirecting rage when the promised magic bullet doesn’t arrive like this: “The reason Trump wasn’t immediately hauled off to prison is because the prosecutors are corrupt or incompetent or fearful!”
There are no magic bullets. Democracy is hard work. Maintaining a democracy is constant work. There will always be anti-democratic forces working against democracy.
For more on that, see The Democratic Opposition and The Perennial Problem of Demagogues.
But What About Fox?
When I posted a link to this series on social media, at least a dozen people commented with some form of:
Doesn’t Fox do the same thing or worse? Why aren’t you talking about them? Aren’t you dishing up some bothsidesism?
“But what about fox” is an example of Whataboutism, a propaganda technique made famous in the former Soviet Union. No matter what criticism was leveled against the Soviet Union, the response was “But what about lynchings in the American South?”
Whataboutism essentially says, “What about them? They did it too,” or “what they did was worse.” The fact that one person has engaged in wrongdoing does not give license for others to engage in the same wrongdoing. “Fox is worse,” doesn’t excuse others.
The illustrator of my recent graphic book on disinformation illustrated this point:
The frequent use of “whataboutism” in Soviet Russia became a joke:
One person, evidently distressed by evidence that her favorite pundits were misleading her, even said, “Didn’t Fox start the outrage industry?” Even if that were true (both networks were founded at about the same time in response to the same changing market conditions) “he started it” also does not absolve a person of wrongdoing.
Concluding Thoughts
As I said earlier, there is nothing wrong with outrage based on facts. Democratic voters are properly outraged by the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and that outrage has driven Democrats to the polls in large numbers.
But outrage based on misinformation and conspiracy theories is bad for democracy and bad for the victims of the rage peddlers.
For years I was perplexed by what I was seeing on Twitter. At first, I thought the problem was social media algorithms. It wasn’t until I began reading books by scholars who specialize in political communications that the light bulbs started coming on. I came to understand that the victims of the rage machine, in addition to being manipulated and misinformed, are fueling a lucrative industry.
Many of these pundits are having a great time. They are riding high. Everything that they say is headline-worthy. It is the ultimate ego rush. One bragged to me in private about how many followers he has (close to a million.) A million followers! Imagine that!
Lawyers are not accustomed to being public heros and hailed as the fount of wisdom and knowledge. Remember all of those lawyer jokes?
Prosecutors who would probably not have been invited to be on Merrick Garland’s team were on TV persuading millions of people that Merrick Garland was doing it all wrong. The athlete on the bench probably thinks he knows better than the coach. And maybe he does. But why assume he does?
Some pundits are making bank. I haven’t done the math, but I assume a former prosecutor getting hundreds of thousands of hits on a podcast or YouTube video and TV appearances is making more money than he or she made as a line prosecutor. The work is certainly better. He doesn’t have to deal with his bosses telling him he’s wrong. And he has tens of thousands of adoring fans.
A person spreading rage-inducing simplifications has an easy task. It’s easy to say, “Garland slow-walked the investigation for a year.” Consider how much work went into researching and writing this DOJ Investigation FAQ page.
The solution to the Firehose of Falsehood is not to try to debunk each lie. Debunking each lie wears out the fact-checkers and they can never keep up. It’s like trying to put out a forest fire with a squirt gun.
Because the solution to a Firehose of Falsehood is to put raincoats on the population, I write nonfiction books on the law and American constitutional history for young readers. They are the future and the future is theirs.
Writing books about the law for young readers is a good use of my time. Debunking the next wave of left-wing conspiracy theories circulating in a relatively small echo chamber is not.
Stay out of rabbit holes. Stay off ledges. Be like the heroes of the past. Be like Thurgood Marshall and Susan B. Anthony. Great leaders have a dream and act on that dream. They don’t pull people into a rabbit hole of speculation and fear-peddling. (Dr. King probably had a few nightmares as well, but he talked about his dreams.)
What to Expect Going Forward (and a few resources)
From now until the election: The outrage and panic will be over polls, reports of voter suppression, and threats of violence. If liberal cable news shows also start talking about the threat of authoritarianism and a second term, this is good: It means they decided to redirect the rage of their viewers against the other side. (This is better than continuing to stir up anger against members of Biden’s cabinet in an election year. Ignore any speculation and predictions and focus on what (if anything) you can do to help with the election. Click here for my To-do list.
We are in an election year, so the focus will change from attacking Garland to attacking Trump
This will put all anti-Trump people on the same side again. The agent provocateurs will build trust among Trump supporters by attacking Trump. Then if Biden wins and they return to attacking someone in the Biden administration (because they have to attack) they will have built the trust to do it effectively.
As long as the Trump trials are going on, there will be rage and anger directed against the criminal justice system. If you choose to remain in the Outrage Industry, keep my Criminal Law FAQ page handy.
If you extract yourself from the outrage industry, and you have friends there, and they start telling you things like, “Rich white guys are never held accountable” you can click open this FAQ page and help them see that they are being fed rage-inducing simplifications by people they look to as legal authorities and that their fear is fueling a lucrative industry.
If Trump wins and the extremists come to power (unlikely) the panic will be nonstop. It won’t be good for the country, but it will be good for CNN. Panic doesn’t help. Even in an actual airline emergency, a cool head can save lives. For more, see No Time to Panic.
Democracy isn’t all or nothing. There is a thing called “competitive authoritarianism.” For more on that, and how to save a dying democracy, see this post.
In the event of a Trump presidency, don’t help the rage merchants profit. Get involved with local politics. The Tea Party came to power from nothing because they understood that all politics are local.
If Biden wins again . . .
You will see rage directed against the Biden administration for not moving quickly enough or solving all of our nation’s problems. It took years for Roosevelt to get his New Deal legislation past a hostile Supreme Court. The rage machine will say, “It has been 3 months!” and even “It has been one year!”
After all, the talk show hosts will need something to talk about and the day-to-day grinding work of democracy is not thrilling. For how progress is made in complex democracies, see this post about Thurgood Marshall and this post about Susan B. Anthony.
I am basing these predictions on what I have seen happen repeatedly over the past 6 years.
Talk Shows and Punditry is Not News
When you turn on the TV or log into your social media account and see a bunch of people talking about the news, you are not watching the news. You are watching commentary, speculation, and spin.
You are being entertained, not informed.
If you feel you need legal “explainers” to understand what is happening in the news, I suggest it is because partisan pundits are confusing you. You cannot learn about criminal law and how the legal system works from partisan pundits carrying on a conversation on a cable news show or from scrolling through their social media feeds.
As I explained in the last section, not everything on a cable news show is wrong.
This is from Part 2:
Sensible, fact-based opinions are placed alongside the rage-inducing material. The problem is sorting out which is which. I suggest that non-lawyers are not able to sort out which statements from legal pundits are incorrect and which are not. Because emotionally-laden incorrect opinions are placed alongside unhinged opinions, it seems to me that nonlawyers are left more confused than before the watched the program.
At the end of this post, I will offer some book recommendations for people interested in learning more about the legal system and criminal justice.
Well, Teri? Can democracy work in America?
I don’t know because I don’t know the answer to these three questions:
- Do enough people want democracy with all of its flaws and frustrations?
- Can enough people who want democracy hold on to facts (and reject baseless conspiracies)?
- Will enough people who want democracy do the actual work required of citizens in a democracy
Maintaining a democracy is never easy. Here are just a few of the perils facing any democracy:
- Democracy always contains the seeds of its own demise. At any time, a majority of voters can elect officials who promise to dismantle democratic institutions.
- Democracy is in constant danger of tipping toward oligarchy if groups within the democracy give in to the temptation to consolidate power and pass laws that benefit themselves. When one group or an individual accumulates too much wealth or power, democracy itself is threatened.
- Liberal democracies—defined as rule of law governments in which the majority is held in check by constitutional checks and limitations—guarantee individual freedoms, but unscrupulous people can exploit those freedoms for personal gain.
- Democracy is messy and always uncertain. Spreading around power and creating systems of checks and balances designed to prevent any one person from accumulating too much power naturally leads to gridlock, which can be frustrating and discouraging. Thus the appeal of a demagogue or strongman who promises to cut through the rules and get things done is perennial.
Here’s the thing to remember about democracy in America: We’ve never had a truly representational multicultural and multi-racial democracy.
During the past few decades, we have been moving toward one and this has triggered a powerful backlash. What we are seeing in the Republican Party is the backlash.
We are currently experiencing an information disruption. Another such disruption was the invention of the printing press. New technology, like the Internet, can move us forward in new ways. It can also create a crisis of information: People are suddenly bombarded with. more information than they can process.
Communications and rhetoric professors in universities are trying to train a new generation about how to access and evaluate information in the new age of the Internet and fragmented media audience. They are doing heroic work.
Here are a few good books that illustrate how our laws have developed:
Simple Justice by Richard Kluger purports to be a history of Brown v. Board of Education, the case that desegregated schools in America, but in fact, it is a history of the struggle of Black Americans to achieve equal rights. It also provides an excellent account of how our laws can change. A must-read for anyone interested in racial equality and the legal system.
Make No Law by Anthony Lewis offers an in-depth look at New York Times v. Sullivan and a landmark First Amendment case. After you read it, you will cringe when you hear people asking why the liars are not all put in prison.
I’m putting one of mine on here. A history of women’s rights in America, how they evolved, and how the legal system can be used as a vehicle for change.
Reading history helps put the current era into perspective. People who are familiar with the era of slavery and racial segregation are less likely to look at today’s right wing extremists and say, “OMG nothing like this has ever happened before in America.”
I am recommending Heather Cox Richardson’s history books because she makes lots of interesting points including this one: We have had two oligarchies: The era of slavery and the era of robber barons. We are now tipping toward a third. This perspective is vital because people tend to think “OMG nothing like this has ever happened before,” which leads to panic and despair. History offers perspective on our current politics and teaches ways forward.
Obviously, there are a lot more, but those should get you started.
Thank you for sticking with me to the end. If you have friends or relatives still stuck in the Outrage Industry, I hope this series will offer you tools for helping them emerge. Constant fear and panic is not emotionally healthy for anyone.
Subscribe and I’ll promise to write about something more interesting than the latest panic in the Outrage Chamber:
Well done, Teri Kanfield! I, for one, plan to “put on a raincoat” as you said and monitor who and what I watch. I do look at Politifact to check what pundits say on ‘Twitter’ MSNBC, etc. My one worry is that not enough people understand we have a “representative Democracy”… at least that’s what I’v been taught. So, citizens should pay particular attention to the down ballot of Senators, House members, State senators, State assemblypeople … heck … right down to dog catcher. And.. we also live in a ‘flick a switch, change your life’ mentality. So if things don’t resolve quickly enough, people tend to become outraged. But, I’ve written enough. Thank you again for your research and insight.
Thank you so much for everything you do. I do have one question. I subscribe to a variety of print media and numerous news letters. I try hard to read news from organizations and writers that lean both left and right. Sometimes I will watch an actual congressional hearing and then watch the news. I’ve come to the conclusion that all news is slanted to a certain extent. Any reporter will have their own take on what happened as will I. I agree with what you said regarding identifying news vs opinion but often a simple statement of fact does not contain the nuance of a given situation. He said x is fact but it’s missing the how he said it. I was wondering if you could recommend news sources that you trust. Also, I believe debate is important in a democracy and that I think entails listening to opinions as to why someone wants a certain policy etc. I would also like to read well thought out opinions, any suggestions? And thanks again.
All news is slanted, yes, because all language is slanted. Right now I depend on the Washington Post. I get the weekly Trump Trials roundup, and I find that it is balanced and accurate without much spin.
Again,normal slant is different from the kind of spin and hype I’m talking about.
I have always found Media Bias Fact Check to be helpful in seeking out “least biased options” and for clarifying a news outlet’s bias and trustworthiness.
Thank you so much for this Sharing it everywhere.
Regarding social nedia platforms, Spoutible, launched by 7 people total volunteering their time, including the originator, Chris Bouzy who developed BotSentinel, has no algorithm at all, no bots, no trolls, no hate. It takes awhile to get used to not having dopamine/noradrenaline hits every 2 minutes. At first it feels “boring.” Then, it’s calming. It has been a great place to remember that most people are sane and unique and basically considerate.
Thank you.
Hi Teri I hope you’re well. I am responding to your mastodon comment.
I’ll Open by saying that, going through your six-part series now even if I don’t comprehend everything it shocks me how MSNBC too, is a rage inducer. The three major news outlets are or at least have a significant amount of rage-inducing partisanship and the distortions about Garland I never realized… I never realized how we are being made it to like authoritarianism and I didn’t even think he was being perceived as weak or feminized. I didn’t even catch it.
I watch or follow a combination of: my local TV news, MSNBC, YouTubers who give the news or debate others heatedly, and acquaintances that I listen to about the current events going on, in Twitter Spaces. I’m trying to use Mastodon, Blue Sky, and other places more, but I do admit that I have a Twitter addiction that I’m trying to cut down on or bisect ha ha all in all I am on my phone about four hours a day as I have it.
I’m glad that I Took my time with your whole series because geez I realize now that a lot of the people that I follow on Twitter or YouTube kind of fit that MSNBC mold they kind of fit the US versus them mentality. Even my political pollster nerd online ‘friends’ whom I stay on the platform for mainly may be rage inducers themselves.
I came to you on Mastodon after I now question myself if I’m using my platform on Twitter wisely or how good the idea of it still is. [ You find people & retweet them and try to see if you can find the right good information and put out bad information in the replies.]
In my own mind, I thought I was doing what you used to do or sometimes still do, putting out fires. I thought I was giving good information, and fighting misinformation but now your response is making me reflect.
I know that I’m not very smart which is why I retweet people I feel are smarter political betters or who are liberal or left that I feel care about democracy are trying to talk about the good things Biden has done for example because I feel like Biden has not gotten enough credit.
I thought I was addressing you calmly if not a little bit sadly. But the response makes me think that I’m projecting some kind of fear-based emotion or to me if I’m open… they still feel a little bit like facts. “We have to do whatever we can with this election to prevent Republicans from coming to Power because they will install a dictatorship that will look similar if not the same as Russia. (probably true ) and once they win we better pack it up because the GOP will rule us for the rest of our lives” (I’m 30 as I write to you, and I no longer believe that one but I used to. The GOP is still a big democracy threat but I don’t know if they’ll rule for the rest of my life )
or the trials don’t matter because people don’t care about the threat of Trump like my Family and real-life friends do. ‘Every day irregular voters care about the economy, and the economy appears to be in the crapper food-wise due to rising food prices, even though it’s actually good, so maybe that one military strategist I follow that says that Trump has a 97% chance of winning because most countries at the state of authoritarianism in their Electorate can’t turn their way around’…. On some bad days. she feels right’
I know it’s not, they both might be partially true but I can’t afford for the whole thing to be true. I don’t wanna give up I don’t want to give up the fight for democracy not just for me not for my niece or nephew I don’t. They need the same rights and privileges I have as a disabled Black person. They deserve a chance for Shawn at least the democracy I grew up with. So I won’t, but man does it make you doubt doubt that just persists
And I just wanna give you one final compliment. The part about keeping them fighting is very very relatable, I connected with it, part of the motivation for ending my Twitter addiction is that I feel despair from seeing the liberals and left split over [recent big foreign policy event] and seeing them fight and dunk on one other when instead of policing each other we should keep the focus on Republicans. People I thought knew better are finally dunking and making fun of young progressives/ event supporters due to how intense and brutal it is right now. I fight the emotion because again I believe what I said above, but it is a fight sometimes. We both need to be united to vote for Dems but that’s neither here nor there.
I apologize for this being too long I hope it’s not too long-winded and I hope you have a nice day and you had a nice Thanksgiving! Thank you very much
I have hope! I am going to step into action. Thank you!
Thanks for this series. But I’m disheartened that the final recommendations are just basically to be a good person in a bad world (e.g. the horrible US health care system vs “Eat right! Keep fit! Get enough sleep! Don’t stress! See your doctor!”). That isn’t bad advice at all, but I don’t think it goes very far against the structural problems.
“When you consume news, make sure you distinguish facts from opinion and spin.” yet how does one know beforehand which is which? It’s utterly impossible to do this for all the issues, since each person is facing the collective might of a cadre of professional paid liars.
I don’t want to be too critical. It’s simply I see these sort of things frequently, but this can lead to lecturing ordinary people on how they are failing their civic duty to be properly informed and engaged. Which I fear just makes things worse.
I’m afraid you’ve missed the point.
I’d suggest working through the books I gave you. Start with Simple Justice. Then Free to Be RBG. Then read both of the Heather Cox Richardson books I gave you.
What you need is a better understanding of how citizens can bring about change. After you read those 4 books, come back and re-read your comment. You’ll see your own errors. You’ll also see how “be a good person” is an insult to the men and women who have dedicated their lives to improving yours.
Being a good person is helping elderly women across the street. When I volunteer hundreds of hours each year doing voter protection legal work, I’m not merely being a good person. I’m doing the work that needs to be done because there are dangers from the people who don’t want a democracy.
As far as distinguishing fact from opinion: That’s what people should be learning in high school and college critical thinking classes. One task is to educate the next generation better. To that end, I write books for middle school and high school readers that I hope are engaging.
It has been a long time since I taught college English so I can’t think of any books off hand to help you distinguish fact from opinion. “Trump testified today and said XX” is a fact. “Trump really screwed up during his testimony,” is an opinion.
Agree with everyone above, Terri. A great series. On this conclusion, I want to make a few comments ask some questions of clarification:
1. I completely recognize that we as a nation have been moving toward a truly representational, mult-cultural and multi-racially democracy one and this has triggered a powerful backlash. My question is: Has any democratic nation had such a democracy? I think not. So, along with strengthening our democracy we need to also, as Karen Stenner pointed out in her 2020 essay on authoritarians and their “deep need for oneness and sameness” (https://hopenothate.org.uk/2020/11/01/authoritarianism/), provide them the assistance they require to live in peace and comfort with the rest of us.
2. There was reporting today in the New York Times that Trump leads Biden in five out of six swing states (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/05/us/politics/biden-trump-2024-poll.html). “Black voters are now registering 22 percent support in these states for Mr. Trump, a level unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times . . . Voters under 30 favor Mr. Biden by only a single percentage point . . . (He has a) margin of three points over Mr. Trump on the more amorphous handling of ‘democracy'”. This is insane. These swing state voters do not understand what will happen to their minority rights, their freedom of speech, and holding police accountable for killing unarmed African Americans under a Trump Administration.
Somebody must start getting this across to them. They will determine the outcome.
(3. This is just between us, as I suspect many readers don’t know who Ann Landers is: My aunt created Ann Landers in 1943; she died in 1955.)
Every person I know who reads polls says do not pay one bit of attention to polls a year out. People are not paying attention yet and the polls have been off in every election so far. Remember it was supposed to be a huge red wave in 2022 and it wasn’t?
Yes, I am worried about the election. That’s why I’ll be volunteering as a voter protection lawyer. It’s my small part.
Hi Teri – I was pointed in your direction by the late Al Giordano, who I really miss. Thank you so much for everything you do. Really top tier, superb work.
Thanks for telling me that.
What a herculean task you undertook to lay out the history of what’s happening in Democracy today. I really appreciate it, and I have a lot to think about. Nothing is as simple as we think. When we fail to think about solutions in a multifaceted way, the consequences are dire, as when the invasive Cane toad was unwittingly introduced into Australia to control pests in the sugar cane industry.
It would be a shame for anyone to miss any of the SIX (not 5) parts of this wonderful series, so perhaps the last part should be renamed “Part 6: Conclusion – How to Hold on to Facts”
I guess I could just leave off “conclusion” and call it Part 6, How to Hold on to Facts. Right?
“Begin at the beginning, go on to the end, and then stop.”
It’s not over. (Also, just got back from AU and haven’t started this yet…)
Thank you, Teri. Great series.
Many thanks for this series. In the UK we have been experiencing many of the same efforts to disrupt our politics and society with misinformation for many years. There has been a great deal of interaction between right wing thinkers/politicians and their counterparts in the USA of that same period that has born poisonous fruit for our representative democracy e.g. leaving the European Union.
In the COVID inquiry that has recently begun with the aim of understanding what we (the UK) did wrong during the pandemic and what we did that was successful, some interesting testimony has been recorded that is relevant to your posts. We heard the term “dead cat” used in official correspondence – I believe that this was a tactic encouraged by Bannon to our Turning Point acolytes in the Conservative Party and it’s particularly pernicious to our Democracy.
A “dead cat” is a fabricated or partially true story that is released to client journalists (journalists kept close by the government with the promise of juicy exclusives in return for favourable coverage) with the aim of deliberately distracting the populace from either more damaging information or even to distract from important votes in the legislature. This was something we always suspected was happening – especially in Boris Johnson’s premiership – and now we have it confirmed in the inquiry.
To relate this to your series of blogs, right-wing activists across the globe favour authoritarianism and because they are willing to subvert democracies to achieve their aims they have an armoury of plays that they can call on at any given time – and as you say in this digital information age they can amplify their voices so much more efficiently.
Finally, thank you for highlighting the impact that 24 hour news channels have had on our lives and the algorithmic hellscape social media has had on families and our democracies. I’ve been off Twitter since Musk got involved but to be honest I wished I had left it long before – having said that I may not have found your voice and that would be too much to bear!
I like to think that some skills can be taught, for immunizing oneself to the quick-reaction and/or the Rage response to what one sees and hears via media. (Not just Social Media. Not just clearly-biased Media. Not dismissing the pro-Profit motive, as practiced by such outlets as the major networks—ABC; CBS; CNN; MSNBC; NBC—as a “bias,” which of course it is.)
I have somehow, over the last 15 years of the century, post-2008 election, managed to find a personal “off” switch, in regards to knee-jerk reactions to whatever I encounter. Regardless of whether it supports or dismisses my own views.
In my personal circle, I focus on spreading that message: that anything we see or hear now requires that we override the automatic “But that’s outrageous!” switch. Take some breaths. Wait for the verification. Only then is it worth your while, to put the new information into perspective.
(The recent bombing of a hospital in Gaza, initially blamed on Israel, and then re-evaluated for the evidence linking the bombing to a misfiring rocket by a pro-Palestinian group. This reported “evidence” of the nature and source of the damage was then extended, by the point that the evidence itself pointed to a different cause of damage. The whole world has not likely accepted the correction; those of us most-focused on getting our information right Have accepted it.)
I don’t know how to teach this (and looked to the series for an eye toward something that might help). When we ask a great deal, of thought and effort, from those disinclined to enjoy the benefits of such efforts, our results are far from being as great as we’d like.
At least, the thoughtful, in tone, and cogent, in information, that you regularly provide, makes a positive contribution to moving all of us closer to views that can permit Compromise. “Compromise” is the essential ingredient in a working Democracy.
For the Nth time, thank you again for the substantial contributions you make to saving our democracy.
Regards,
(($; -)}™
Gozo
In resisting the rush to outrage/OMG!, I always go back to the story a few years ago of a tv news story in San Francisco. In July 2013, there had been a crash of an Asiana Air flight at SFO and a noon anchor went on air to report the story right away. She read the “names” of the pilots off the tele-prompter, which were racist and offensive (and fake). Pressure to get the “scoop” first – and not check the facts, ended up with a lot of folks losing their jobs and loss of credibility of the news station. First to report is usually filled with wrong info. They had egg on their faces in a lot of ways.
I’ll take in a headline when an event first occurs (volcano erupts; plane crashes; bomb hits;) but I’m not going to accept any first details. There’s time to parse the details and it takes that time to gather more information. There’s no prize for “knowing all the reported info” right away.
I don’t disagree with you about twitter. On the other hand I probably wouldn’t be reading and following you if not for twitter. I follow 220 there are probably a dozen that I have seprate tabs set up in case I miss seeing their tweets as I scroll through twitter. I am sure some of the accounts I follow are no longer active or haven’t tweeted in a long time. A lot of the people I follow I was well aware of them. But others I found through some one retweeing what some one had to say. I think the the thing to do is probably not to read all the comments. You are always going to see comments of people who have no idea as to what they are talking about. I would say the same thing is true of tick tock. I have found some interesting people to follow. A few lawyers, a guy in the gas and oil busines who actually knows what he is talking about. I follow some you humor tick tocks. One of my favorited is of a rescue dog. He was on the verge of being euthanized. This woman with diabtes trained the dog to detect when her sugar level is low. That she did it on her own is amazing. That is one smart dog.
I don’t doubt that Twitter did a lot of good. In my comparison of the social media sites, I talk about the good that Twitter has done.
Here, I am talking about the damage.
I figured out how to get reliable information from Twitter (I limit myself to short lists and I remove anyone who starts offering garbage) and I learned about the misinformation from comments I received and questions.
Thank you Teri for your 5 part series. I will share for those who love to learn. Your good clear voice will help others keep to the path our founders and constitution set forth for us to expand and grow the ideals of our form of government. You give us hope and courage to stay the course for American Democracy’s future.
Thank you, Teri. As with all your past work, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this series. I came away with better and more nuanced understandings of things I thought I understood well. I routinely share your work with friends and have not in the past experienced the pushback I did with these posts. I’ll keep trying, creating little cracks that will, as Leonard Cohen said, let the light in.
Thank you Teri, as always. I always learn so much and walk away grounded.
My thought on psychopathology-I see pathology and strategy interconnected with the motivating factors bidirectional. Certainly we see this this in Hitler and other historical people. If science drove policy, we would start at the beginning of life and support the development of secure attachment and I think science would demonstrate that we would have fewer Trumps to deal with.
Thanks for your work Teri. Rage is a horrible filter.
Thank you, Teri. Your clear headed and ration writing is so needed to help us all unplug from the social media addiction and focus on the important facts surrounding us. We have many difficult days ahead.
I truly enjoyed reading your series, it gave our family some great discussion. I am now more aware of how we can be manipulated by the media. I have always enjoyed reading history alongside the current affairs of the day because in the end things have been getting better, and folks have always thought this is the end, and it never is. That being said, we are in a time of real inflection and we are witnessing something that is amazing, scary, horrible and truly engaging. Not many people knew that Abraham Lincoln would go down as one of the greatest leaders of all time. The country was at a breaking point! It is fascinating to see Joe Biden and wonder if we are watching a leader who will be remembered 500+ years from now, as a historical figure who shaped world history in wonderfully profound ways.
My daughter is a 3L in Law school and working on first amendment issues; she got so interested in saving democracy because of trump. She and many young people are motivated to save democracy, because they see what is happening in other countries. We just never know what is going to happen but we can’t give up hope. When we have hope we keep working because we know that change is going to come and we will all be better in the long run.
Many thanks for this series. Learned a great deal.
Nice wrap up on this series. It overlaps a number of other pieces you’ve written in the last couple of years, but it also nicely consolidates the threats we face because of the changes in how we as a society get our information.
I agree with you on preferring print media. I too read my news rather than watch it.
And thank you for the book recommendations. I’ve read a few of them already, and they are important references.
Thankful. Just extremely thankful for all your hard work in putting together this series. It’s something that gives you the chance to see the whole picture from above the fray. So, so very important in my opinion. Like the saying goes, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.”
Now to just contemplate and understand all of this information. A sincere thank you!
Thank you ever so much again for taking the time to do this series. It gives me hope and stops me from disengaging. I agree completely that we all need to do something to help ensure that democracy succeeds. In my personal experience, I became a local poll worker for the last two years. My neighbor just told me she wanted to put her money where her mouth is and she signed up to be a poll worker. Just imagine the impact everyone can have if they do one of the items off your list of to-do’s.
Thanks for all this, ma’am.
I recently deactivated my Twitter account due to the constant stream of people swallowing and vomiting forth propaganda and calls for violence without a second thought–many of whom were people I had trusted up until that point. People whose sense of morality seems to equate good and evil with whoever is relatively weaker or stronger in terms of power dynamics. People who were buying into the whole “Our Team Over All” b-s.
And beyond that, people who smugly said that this is all humanity can hope to achieve, and that peace is not an option.
I will not accept that.
Great piece Teri!
All Thanks. Full stop.