Truth comes before reconciliation

As the first light of dawn broke over the primordial Blogosphere of the early 2000’s, one of my favorite reads was Bob Somerby’s Daily Howler. In that city-state period of the internet, independent writers were able to capture enormous audiences with blogs. In the absence of the Facebook share or the retweet, the currency of admiration was links, and the blogroll of a talented writer was a great reference for further reading. The Daily Howler was linked by most of the best blogs.

The Howler’s style was an agreeable blend of curmudgeonly sarcasm, acidic commentary on the habits of the political media. At the time, the previous Worst President Ever was in the process of fabricating a justification for an invasion of Iraq, assisted greatly by the credulous reporting of much of the mainstream media. Still stung by the realization of what could have been, Somerby returned again and again to the “war on Gore,” and how so many voters believed things about Gore that simply weren’t true. He also justly skewered the “both-sidesism” that pervades political commentary, and the infuriating tendency to report that some new fact “raises questions” without stating the questions or why they need to be answered.

I would love to believe that our leading media outlets have elevated themselves to a new standard of public service. There’s plenty of good examples of diligent, detailed, long-form articles during the Trump era that brought critical information to the public. They even (belatedly) shook off their aversion to calling lies lies, at least where Trump is concerned - though the NYT still prefers the flimsier “stated without evidence” or similar. I am encouraged that in this period where the entire Republican leadership has embraced denial of Biden’s growing margin of victory, most news organizations state the plain truth: Biden is president-elect, beyond any doubt, and will rightfully take power on January 20.

What is most disturbing is how many right-wing media continue to sell the lie that Biden's win is fraudulent, and will continue to do so in order to delegitimize the upcoming administration. The hermetically sealed Earth 2 of the conservative media bears little resemblance to our world, but tens of millions of people find its narratives more convincing. Any discussion of Democrats’ messaging difficulties, or of the gap between polling expectations and election results, is incomplete without acknowledging that there is now a large share of Americans that literally cannot acknowledge reality - and a significant fringe of those that are willing to kill in service of their preferred illusion.

We cannot possibly have a functioning democracy when the very facts we need in order to govern ourselves are in dispute. I will not be putting my energy over the next four years into any outreach to the so-called “heartland” voters that selected Trump to lead them deeper into their dangerous hall of mirrors. Trump voters are all adults. They own all responsibility for their consumption and perpetuation of falsehood and hatred. While their supreme leader continues his shit-flinging tantrum over his embarrassing defeat, let’s advocate for the fullest use of Biden’s presidential powers to strengthen democracy, help our country recover from the pandemic and its economic effects, and lead in the right direction on climate and racial justice. That’s to everyone’s benefit, whether they acknowledge it or not.