You know what’s crazy? I’ll Tell you what’s crazy™
Information versus Affirmation.
Are you getting news that is unadulterated? Or is your news source a Russian Hooker working a back alley winking at you, enticing you to spend a few minutes on the dark side?
I was wondering about information versus affirmation the other day while toggling between CNN and FOX News.
Red versus Blue. Conservatives versus Liberals. Left versus Right. Snowflakes versus Hitler Youth.
Where does it end? Will it end before this great nation implodes like a submarine that has sunk below its crush depth?
Now the integrity of the media is called into question every day? Not your local news. A bus wreck on elm street doesn’t care whether the bus driver was a liberal.
But the political spectrum is a front lawn full of crab grass and manure. It’s ugly and stinks.
Information versus Affirmation?
Do you get your news from a source that is pure? Or do you get your news from a source that is tainted? Is it possible to find a pure source anymore?
It’s like putting your glass under the spigot of a water fountain and hoping the crystal clear liquid is unfiltered and pure. You can swish the water around in your mouth and allow your own taste buds to tell you what it tastes like and when to swallow.
But purity is sometimes impossible because the standards of what is pure is determined by the people who put the water in pipe in the first place. What was the source of that water? How polluted was the pond from which it began? How diluted was the product before it reached your glass? Was a 10 micron filter used? or a 1000 micron filter?
It makes a difference.
The politically charged landscape of the United States is everywhere you look.
It’s in your emails, it’s on your twitter feed, it’s on your facebook posts, it’s on your news.
It’s apparent that this nation either likes Trump or hates Trump.
Tuesday he addresses Congress and is called Presidential by many.
By Saturday he’s tweeting that Obama wire tapped him during the elections, and his presidential IQ is lampooned like carnival roadies drinking hooch behind the big top.
Most people wouldn’t walk up to you and spit in your face.
But it feels like that sometimes when you open your Facebook page.
I just wanted to know what my family was up to, not feel soiled, angry and any less American.
Half this country voted red. Half this country voted blue.
Blue is angry. Blue is seething.
Red is calmer, not as quick to don a black hood and throw a brick through a star bucks window. But that could be changing too.
While blue is sure it’s broken, Red is also quietly wondering, can this work?
Imagine if half your car wanted you to fail. Imagine if four of your eight cylinders wanted to clog with grease and swamp chum so that the engine sputtered, even shut down. If your own car wants you to be on the side of the interstate with your thumb out looking for a tow truck driver, can that be a good car to drive? Does anyone sell half a car? half an engine?
Can you imagine if only half the keys on your keyboard typed effectively, fluidly.
In this American polarized system, today’s Shakespeare might look like this: AERVE WEDRWERD WREFED!
That was typed with only my left hand. I think it says, You are not my President, but I’ll get back to you on that.
I know people who have stopped talking. I know people who have shut down Facebook feeds. I know people who only get their information from one source.
If you watch CNN you like this flavor. If you watch Fox you like another flavor. It’s the difference between chocolate and vanilla. Both are ice cream, and both will soil your sleeve if you stare at it and argue and let it melt all over your hand.
Watching one network exclusively over the other is called affirmation. The talking heads of perpetual verbosity vomit a flavor that is more agreeable with your news palette. But that doesn’t make it right.
I often watch both networks simultaneously. It’s like watching the tide roll in at the same time it rolls out.
But if you look hard enough, and swim to the side to avoid the rip tide, you can find a sense of purity in between.
Information versus affirmation. If you are Red, you don’t want to hear that the man you voted for is insane, his policies ridiculous, his cabinet a bunch of Russian spies. So you turn on a channel that caters to your slice of the political pie.
If you are Blue, you don’t want to hear a newscast that says Trump is doing a good job in his first 35 days. You don’t want to hear that he is not a typical politician and this is just Trump being Trump. You cheer when bricks break glass.
Affirmation means you hear the message that allows you to live a normal life without self destructing. You still need to go to work and raise your family and live your life. Affirmation allows you to know that you are not alone and your voted counted for at least something.
But can half a nation function?
Misery loves company and success likes a pat on the back.
But at the end of the day, even though it would appear that the Red party has all the power, the blue party has been pouring a lot of sugar in the gas tank. Sadly, the Red party is not only unlocking the gas cap, all too often they are buying the sugar.
Half a car? Half a country?
Is our thumb out? Are we standing on the side of the road waiting for a tow truck whose engine only has four cylinders?
Life’s Crazy™