Fake News, The Right, and Healing Polarisation

Thinking of the mid-term elections which took place in the United States this week, I decided to devote a blog piece to one of the most infuriating parts of living as a politically minded individual in the 21st century. The free-for-all on information which has made "news" a dirty word for some people. In today's interconnected and codependent world, we seem more insulated than ever. More cosy in our bubbles of perception than ever, happy to go on believing whatever we want to believe.
Can we really trust anything that's written these days? Where should one get their information? How does opinion shift under a climate of distrust? And how do the crafty and the powerful navigate the information age to achieve their PR goals? I'm going to try my best at providing some answers.

I'll start with my personal experiences as a British citizen. In the last few big votes, I have been dumbfounded as to how so many people could vote so heavily against their own interests. Why are the moderate, rational, progressives on such a long losing streak? How much shit do people need to be put through by neo-liberal abuses of our rights to finally turn around and say: "enough of this, we want a government that represents everyone, not just your rich friends." Each generation, we vow to ourselves that we won't get fooled again but we keep electing leaders who gamble with our livelihoods and our economy for their own gain, financially, politically or otherwise. David Cameron was the UK's prize gambler, risking disunion over and over with referenda and pushing the people further and further with austerity cuts to public services. Then came Brexit. Cameron's luck ran out on 23rd June 2016 when the public, sick of an establishment that seemed not to care about them, came out in protest and voted against the Prime Minister. I want to take a moment to highlight that after all this, David Cameron is now flirting with the possibility of making a grand return to British politics. Given all the troubles his leadership has brought upon the country, Owen Jones commented that this move is 'another example of an Establishment dripping with entitlement'.

                           

Song by The Who

Donald Trump, the orange at the bottom of your Christmas stocking that you didn't want. Since before he was even elected, Trump has been at war with the mainstream media. Journalists, on the whole, are not bad people. For most journalists, the stamp of integrity is still the Holy Grail that they all aspire toward and so the majority of professionals in journalism are very cautious about printing anything that could be proven to be false. This is where Trump and journalists categorically differ. Trump is a living breathing brand who will say anything to promote himself and the sacred image of Trump the successful, Trump the wealthy, Trump the astute. For this reason, the President of the United States has no qualms about telling lies, fabricating figures and misleading his audiences; even if some of the things he claims can be disproven with a quick google (or ecosia) search. Trump is confident in the knowledge that no matter what he says or does, his core of supporters will go on denouncing the denouncers, admiring his audacity in sticking it to the "PC liberal elite".

These problems relating to the Right run much deeper than the current leaders at the top. For the last couple of years I have been referring to Donald Trump and his policies as the Frankenstein's Monster of the 21st Century Republican Party. The GOP struggle to control him but his presidency is a product of the kind of politics that the Republican party has thrived on since Barack Obama first won in 2008. Today's Republicans pander to the homophobic, the evangelical, the xenophobic, the uneducated, and those who don't believe in science. Meanwhile, Republicans support laws that will prevent the most vulnerable members of society from voting. Donald Trump's so called shocking comments on countless issues lay out plainly the strategy Republicans have been resorting to for years now: tapping into people's social resentments and bigotry can do wonders at the polls. Barack Obama would agree with me here. At Illinois University this September, the former President said that “It did not start with Donald Trump [...] He is a symptom, not the cause. He is just capitalizing on resentments that (Republican) politicians have been fanning for years.” A segment from the TV show Newsroom on the Tea Party illustrates perfectly how far the noble "grand old party" has fallen in recent years.

The voice of the Republican who refuses to degrade himself and forsake their values for cheap, short term electoral gains - Will McAvoy - A fictional character...unfortunately...

Let's talk about compromise, a regular occurrence under any effective democratic system. Democrats are shown to be more willing to compromise in government and are considerably more likely to view the ability to compromise as a virtue when evaluating their representatives. In a 2014 Pew survey, 64 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of Republicans agreed with the statement, "I like elected officials who "make compromises with people they disagree with" rather than elected officials who "stick to their positions." In a 2015 survey conducted for Al Jazeera America, when asked "What causes more problems in the federal government?" 71 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans chose "elected officials who are not willing to compromise" as opposed to "elected officials who are not willing to stand up for their principles."

Never ever compromise, fight for every inch. These are the mottoes of the GOP's leadership and you would think, given the Democrat party's more reasonable approach on most issues, that this would reflect well on them and make the Republicans look very bad indeed. Unfortunately not, the mainstream media in the US is caught in a position where they can't be seen to favour one party over another, they will lose viable contacts and potentially a chunk of their audience. So when negotiations break down over the latest piece of legislation, CNN, MSNBC and the like will inevitably report that neither side is budging, neither side is making any concessions and so your senators and representatives are failing to get anything done. It's a risky game Republicans are playing but it's one that has been paying off so far.

Nowadays, you don't need to own your own news network or real estate empire or political office in order to create a platform and speak to the entire world. Even a humble personal blogger like myself has a voice. This is a wonderful thing and its thanks, in part, to social media. Our social channels allow us to find an audience of friends, family and like-minded individuals faster and more efficiently than ever before. I believe the ideals that brought about websites like Twitter and Facebook are truly admirable, bringing people together can enable us to be closer to those we love and grant us some perspective with those we don't, offering us more opportunities to empathise. The double edged sword is that it's free. If you're not paying for the product, you are the product. Through social media, powerful groups and individuals can access the feeds of their target audience and gradually shift opinion by firing off bombardments of click-bait headlines which favour their chosen narrative.

                                    

Just to add to our woes, it appears an entire industry for fake news exists, cranking out new stories like some nefarious factory. A study carried out by Trend Micro reports that producing fake news is remarkably cheap, at least for a company or public figure with enough money and enough cause to want to propagate their own narrative. The cost of discrediting a journalist, for example, costs around $50,000. First, a fake news story is created to contradict the target's reporting, then the article is promoted through social media; likes, retweets, up-votes, and comments. This involves having bots target the journalist's Twitter account and inundating them with negative comments. While there are other factors at play, the fake news industry gives some explanation to the fact that across all age groups, right wing politics is on the rise around the world. The Right using scare tactics and scapegoating to unite people toward their political figureheads is nothing new but we are seeing a resurgence in the effectiveness of these dirty political tactics due to the ease at which misinformation can be spread.

It's not all doom and gloom though, not only are there decent journalists still out there, there are researchers who are looking into the gaps between public opinion and the facts. The 2016 Index of Ignorance, produced by Ipsos MORI, includes information from 27,250 interviews of people aged 16 to 64 from countries all over the world. Using the collected data, they were able to create a list of countries ranked by ignorance. The leading countries on this list are also some of the world's leading economies. I still believe that science and factual evidence wins the day eventually, you can only go on denying the plain truth for so long. In the case of climate change however, our time to heed the warnings of our scientists and researchers is running out. The IPCC report says that we have 12 years to cut carbon emissions by 45% before the effects of global climate change become catastrophic.

I'm going to be honest with you, my reader. I might write a lot of political stuff and follow the news and watch my fair share of satire for fun but sometimes, I get really sick of politics. It's relentless, it's tedious and it's sometimes very frustrating. I know that I make my friends and family uncomfortable when I try to talk politics with them. Maybe my fervor intimidates them or maybe they just don't think I'm worth the effort of debating. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, I'm not setting out to make people feel inferior or immoral or stupid; I genuinely believe that open discussion paves the way to a better society. That's why the over-arching title of my blog series is "Let's Discuss Everything!" Nevertheless, election time with all of its numerous arenas for disagreement and denouncement can make my head spin. When I'm all out of brain energy and the perpetual political pandemonium carries on, I can't help but frown and wonder: Are we born to argue? Will we ever be able to agree? Does a middle way exist?

                             

It's very confusing, all of it. Issues relating to identity politics among many others seem to be polarised, you are either with one camp or the other. A lot of these issues however, are not at all binary, oftentimes the ideal solution lays somewhere in-between. The average person doesn't always have time to conduct their own research, look at all of the pros and cons and develop a nuanced position on every issue that is being debated. I have a suggestion to make though, for those of you who find it very difficult to make sense of these conflicting narratives that the right and the left are presenting. Once a week, read an article or watch a video or broadcast that has been produced by the opposite side of where you normally consume your news. I'll be the first to admit that it's bloody frustrating to watch the folks on Rebel Media blaming all the world's problems on minorities and dissidents or Piers Morgan launch a tirade of abuse at one of his guests on Good Morning Britain. However, we have to understand the mindset of those on the other side of the aisle if we are to make any sort of progress. The vast majority of people on the right can actually be debated with openly, they have their views for valid reasons and likely share many of the values you or I have.

I would finish with a word of warning, don't get too comfortable. The more comfortable you are watching or reading the news, the more likely it is that you're simply being told what you, on some level, want to hear. The truth can be uncomfortable, it often is. This sacrifice of our peace of mind that we make in order to get a clearer picture of everything that's going on is like the choice Neo has to make in The Matrix. "You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe." The alternative is the perpetual discomfort I feel every day, doubting my point of view, checking myself for dogma and bias. It's the harder path but I believe if enough people take it, if enough people exercise their critical thinking muscles: We can make political polarisation a thing of the past, and maybe we can make modern democracy work after all.


Jack ♥️

"Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more." - Morpheus