When Barack Obama was elected President of the United States
, there was a visceral scary reaction from his political opposition. Call it a reverb attack.
When sites like Breitbart and InfoWars began to gain in
popularity following the Tea Party uprising – yes, it was an uprising – they did so by using a
combination of angered rhetoric and fear mongering with semi-plausible ties that
bound the entire world in a socialist takeover conspiracy theory. The ‘alt-right’
as we now call them took some real facts, mashed them up with some fuzzy facts,
then washed them together with ‘sources’ to paint a bleak picture. They scared the hell out of conservatives that we had somehow elected a robot, communist, fascist who wanted to let Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda into our nation.
Rightfully, we labelled them as ‘right wing nut jobs’ intent
on destroying us through our own fears. Today we run the risk of the same fate in
our important progressive movement.
There is little doubt that Donald J. Trump has some strong, significant
ties to Russia; especially to their interference in the 2016 election. There is,
after all, a reason that the FBI and other intelligence agencies and committees
are investigating those links. Despite those investigations and the
protestations of ‘fake media’ surrounding the coverage of the so called KremlinGate,
we run the risk of derailing our movement permanently.
There are a lot of very good people doing some legwork on
the actual links – and there are some who run with the story in a fashion that
can make the entire story seem fake. Let me be more specific; some of the
stories emanating from now popular progressive movement writers has crossed an
invisible line into nebulous truths.
The thing is, if we get too revved up chasing our own tails
into the dark wormhole of Russian Conspiracy theories, we run the risk of de-legitimizing the actual problems. We are an impatient bunch. We feel we have
been ‘screwed over’ (I prefer to say let down) by an electoral college system
that twice allowed the loser of the popular vote to be elected President. We
want answers and our patience is waning.
So when we see some of those answers in these dark
conspiracy theories; theories which purport Donald Trump became a Russian Asset
in 1987, and that all of his moves since have been orchestrated; when we start
hearing that the entire Republican Party is being investigated under a RICO
case; that everyone we dislike as a politician is caught up in this intricately
plotted, embedded conspiracy against a nation by Russia, it seems like a
GodSend. “Finally,” we say to ourselves. “The truth is finally going to be out
there!”
Except much of it is not the truth. Donald Trump has indeed
been traveling to Russia since the late 80’s, but he was hardly a Russian dupe
as far back as then. This is not ‘No Way Out’ and Trump is not Kevin Costner.
Last November, I reported on paid abortions and Russian
prostitutes; a dossier of compromising information which Donald Trump was desperate
to keep from going public. I had multiple sources confirm the details (and in
one case the numbers). While digging up the dirt on that article, I had heard
from various sources many of the other wild and seemingly contrived
conspiracies. I chose to not report them because they were not verifiable. One
source is not a story; it’s a rumor. I try to not peddle in rumors.
There is much being made about Louise Mensch and Claude Taylor and their reporting separately and together on the growing concern that is the Trump campaign ties to Russia. It is their experience that helps us understand how quickly we sink into a rabbit hole of de-legitimized news with our fears.
Both have been spot on with some reports - and like all those who share news based on what sources tell them, are also subject to being wrong. And both sides of their stories – those who want them to be true and those who do not believe they are true – pounce upon whichever reality suits their needs. And both sides are de-legitimizing their work. Sometimes, they get some information from a trusted source; and the source is wrong. It happens.
I can give you an example. In my 'other' life as a writer, I cover football and recruiting for a small website. It pays, though not much, and I have developed a lot of sources over the course of the last seven years. in December multiple trusted sources all told me the same piece of news - that Chip Kelly was going to return to Oregon as their head coach. Instinct told me that there was something wrong with this information, so I chose to not report it as fact, but as something I had heard, but could not confirm. It sounded like misinformation to me. It was being put out by the university as true in order to keep us from getting the legitimate information; it was how they protected their search and contract negotiations.
My instincts told me that this was untrue; fortunately, that instinct was correct. That was just over the hiring of a football coach. What does that tell me? There is a lot of information, including disinformation, being reported regarding the ties of Trump and his staff to Russia. Some of it will be very true; some of it purposely false information given out to people eager to get the truth.
We must fight our desire to believe that our political enemy is somehow evil in all cases. We must take our emotion out of our search for the truth. I believe that Donald Trump was the absolute worst choice America could have made for President, but that does not give me license to believe everything I see.
We consider ourselves to be intellectually above the 'alt-right' and their associated ridiculous conspiracy theories. So why on earth do we fall prey to the same pitfalls? We must as a progressive movement be suspect of information which seems too good to be true. If it fits the desired narrative of our worst fears too easily, we must be more critical of the information. Becoming self-aware means we take a look beyond the words; we seek out confirmation and do not just sit back and take the words at face-value.
Claude Taylor and Louise Mensch are doing a tremendous service to our cause by putting what they hear to 'virtual paper' for us to read. But we cannot, we must not, take those words as the only arbiter of knowledge and truth. They become a starting point. We must always remain critical thinkers if we are to continue moving this nation forward with knowledge and intellect rather than fear.
0 comments:
Post a Comment