I am sure I speak for others when I say this presidential election is unnerving.
Many are in the “us versus them” mode, making it very hard to reason. And, to make matters worse, people seem to only talk with those they agree with, and get news from sources that give them the side they subscribe to. They coalesce around hatred of what they consider to be the evil candidate, be it Trump or Clinton. I call it Reptilian Tribalism.
And then we add Facebook to the mix.
I consider myself well informed about national politics, getting my news from a wide variety of sources. Many of the people I know locally are Trump supporters, libertarians, or more traditional conservatives. I, on the other hand, am a relatively liberal Clinton supporter.
As you might imagine, I see a lot of anti-Hillary posts on Facebook. My approach has been to research and focus my comments to these posts on the accuracy of their facts. I take my position as a person that has a lot of friends “across the divide” seriously, knowing that I am not typical in this manner.
This is where it gets unnerving to me. There are some Trump supporters that are re-posting content that is clearly factually incorrect. And, they do it regularly.
If I try to point out the factual inaccuracies or post fact checking pieces, they either attack me, attack the fact checking source, attack Hillary, attack liberals in general, change the subject, or post a reply that makes no logical sense. What they do not do is try to reconcile what they had posted with the information I provide to them.
In one of the more recent examples, I attempted to get my friend, who had posted an anti-Hillary tirade, to consider a piece fact-checking the reports of Hillary Clinton mistreating those on her secret service detail.
Rather than responding to the content of what I sent, he posted another long list of accusations about Clinton (some of which were false) ending with, “There’s all that, plus she is a squealing, abrasive bitch who is going to lose in November.”
I replied that I would not bother responding to the content because it was clear my friend was not interested in having a rational discussion. Which was followed on with childish remarks by a local business owner calling me names, and saying that I must have been brainwashed by liberal professors because I went to Emory.
Frankly, the lack of decorum is hard to take. But, it is not as unnerving to me as the ignorance that comes from thinking in Reptilian Tribal mode, where facts are only accepted if they support your case. Where the other side is evil. Where “us versus them” is applied to many divides: political, racial, economic. Where there is no putting yourself in the shoes of the other. Where rational thought is not part of the picture.
It makes one understand how fascism could take root.
Ed Outlaw
Peachtree City, Ga.
