Today, the entire news, information, and social media ecosystem has become a manipulative thought machine. Whether outlets like liberal-leaning MSNBC or CNN, major party information outlets, NGOs, politicians, and our real enemies, foreign and domestic, they all deliberately put out false and misleading information to support their agendas and to confuse and disarm their detractors. How did we get here?
An essay in The Federalist contemplated just this issue, given the repeated “deer in the headlights look so-called journalists have when they are caught red-handed shading the truth or just making it up as they go along:
“The New York Times is telling people, ‘Do not believe your lying eyes; believe us, the people who spread the Russia collusion hoax, who spread conspiracy theories about Brett Kavanaugh. Believe us when we tell you that what you see on video from firsthand accounts isn’t real,’” said Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway during an appearance on Fox News’s Outnumbered.
“This is just weeks after they’ve all said, ‘Oh, we did such a bad job with Joe Biden, when we said that what you saw with your own eyes was a cheap fake.’ And what are they doing yet again but saying this is a cheap fake.”
The honest brokers of yore, trusted newscasters who read the news with minimal bias, are as dead as the dinosaurs. Now, we must survive in a world where everything must be questioned for its truth and veracity, and we have the burden of vetting every source of information.
We also live in a time of small lies versus big lies. Small lies are everywhere and hardly questioned, yet they “prepare the ground” for bigger untruths yet to be revealed, adding false credibility to those future whoppers. A good example of a small lie that significantly impacted many is the ongoing saga of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom CNBC described this way:
Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia was being returned to the United States to face criminal charges months after he was wrongfully deported to a prison in his native El Salvador.
Innumerable other news outlets use the same neutral language (e.g., “Maryland resident,” “Maryland man,” “Maryland family man”). More accurately, he is an illegal alien and an alleged human trafficker and wife-beater. The media’s refusal to acknowledge these facts reveals a pattern and practice of active subversion of the truth to further a specific agenda. This front-page story will ultimately unfold in a much less flattering manner for Mr. Garcia, but by then, it will be relegated to a footnote by many outlets, if mentioned at all. This is the current way many news and information outlets roll.
In Los Angeles, the police department reported on violent outbreaks in the city this way:
Today, demonstrations across the City of Los Angeles remained peaceful, and we commend all those who exercised their First Amendment rights responsibly.
Meanwhile, the police chief himself had a different take from his press department:
We are overwhelmed as far as the number of people engaging in this type of activity and the types of things that they’re doing. ... There’s no limit to what they’re doing to our officers.
A vast chasm opens before us, revealing the depth of deliberate manipulation employed by those we should be able to trust but can’t.
The problem is these purveyors of fiction don’t admit to their bias or their agenda, leaving the public without the knowledge, ability, and/or confidence to believe what they hear, read, or see. Therefore, the question arises: Is this free speech, or is it a form of fraudulent advertising, which perhaps should be regulated in some manner, i.e., a disclaimer to that effect?
There’s little doubt that we are already a highly fractured society. Legions of prognosticators will tell you why, with most wrong or just another group of those purveyors of fiction using the very harm they have caused as support for whatever next lie they want you to believe; the circular logic is endless.
But here’s the thing. Faith in our intrinsic beliefs has been challenged for a couple of generations. The constant picking away at our central tenets has been successful, especially with young people. Meanwhile, many of our more senior members of society are off the playing field with an “I’ve got better things to do” attitude.
It’s very difficult to push back against a swarm of small lies, especially when they lay the groundwork for the big lies. This incrementalism has no resolution in sight. Eventually, most of us check out in frustration. That’s what our ideological enemies count on.
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Author, Businessman, Thinker, and Strategist. Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow at www.1plus1equals2.com.