Communicating about Politics
With today’s polarization, how we do it is important
After public pressure and the Facebook whistleblower coming forward last year, social media has come under scrutiny for the massive amount of disinformation shared on the platform. That’s good, but I think it’s also important to help Americans determine reliable sources of information.
The culture wars are heating up in anticipation of this fall’s midterm elections. As usual, Republicans are a couple steps ahead of Democrats on “messaging”, having successfully convinced an alarming number of regular Americans that reading a book about two moms or dads is equivalent to teaching them about sex. They don’t really think first graders are being taught about sex, it’s just an attempt to distract from beneficial Democratic legislation like the Infrastructure Law and the Affordable Insulin Now Act.
Even so, I’m optimistic about the future. Trump and his henchmen are out of the White House and laws are being passed to do things like fix dangerous bridges, mitigate climate change, and quit forcing poor children to drink water containing lead.
Still, it’s discouraging to see so many people buying into harmful misinformation. COVID was an eye-opener in terms of how dangerous fake news can be. It was truly frightening to see so many people die because they believed a lie and…
