That Donald Trump is a racist is a well-established fact (even Paul Ryan had to admit Trump had made the "textbook example of a racist comment" when Trump, last year, said that a judge's Mexican heritage made him unqualified to hear a case involving fraud at Trump University), but this was a new low. One would think that even if someone who sympathized with white supremacists managed to become president, they would keep those sympathies quiet. Trump is so far outside the bounds of normal that perhaps nothing should be considered shocking. Trump's attempt to blame both sides for the violence, though, highlights a problem plaguing modern political discourse. I'd describe it as the problem of false equivalency, or "both-sides-ism."
When there are two sides in a debate, it's easy to assume that the truth must be somewhere in the middle. Easy, and also intellectually lazy. Often the truth is nowhere near the middle. When you have a group of people marching in favor of white supremacy, and another group of people opposing them, there can never be a moral equivalency between those two groups, regardless of the exact details of how physical violence broke out. By waving Confederate and Nazi flags, white supremacists are implicitly calling for the violent subjugation of African-Americans and Jews. There is no such thing as a "peaceful" white supremacist demonstration.
The truth is not in the middle.
That's something that most people can see in this situation, but there are many other situations where the same principle applies. I've fallen into the both-sides-ism trap before. I remember in 2003 when massive protests occurred against the Bush administration's disastrous and immoral invasion of Iraq. One day, protesters blocked traffic at my school. I don't know for sure whether the war is justified, but on the other hand the protesters are kind of annoying, I thought. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. I cringe looking back on it, at what a naive idiot I was.
The both-sides-ism phenomenon is exemplified by the pervasive influence of the Fox News channel and its long-time "fair and balanced" slogan on our society.
It used to be that most Americans got their TV news from either NBC, CBS, or ABC, and everyone who consumed TV news was getting the same general information. There were large differences in political opinions, but most people mostly agreed on the basic facts of what was going on in the news. In the 1990s, media options began to diversify. Prominent right-wing media figures realized it would be greatly profitable if they could convince their consumers that all other media outlets were the "liberal media" and could not be trusted. And eventually we reached the point we're at today.
It's probably a safe assumption that very few if any readers of this blog entry are big Donald Trump fans. Thinking that Trump is a bad president, I'd contend, is something that does not require one to hold any particular set of political beliefs. Conservatives should abhor Trump just as much as liberals do. The man is utterly self-serving and incompetent at executing the duties of the presidency; even if you're a party-line Republican voter it shouldn't be hard to see that.
A national poll released by Suffolk University at the end of June revealed an incredibly striking phenomenon if one dug into the crosstabs: one of the questions asked was what source of TV news respondents considered most trustworthy. Of respondents who answered Fox News, Trump had an 89% approval rating. Of respondents who answered any other TV station, Trump had an 18% approval rating.
Saying that Donald Trump is doing a good job as president is a claim I'd consider to be on a similar level as saying that the sun revolves around the Earth. It's just not supportable. For a long time, many people have contended that Fox News is a dedicated propaganda outlet that convinces its viewers to believe falsehoods. The results of this survey are the best evidence I've seen to support this notion. There truly are two Americas. There's the America of Fox News viewers, and there's the America of everyone else. Only one of those two groups of people is inhabiting something that resembles reality.
And yet, even if political moderates (who largely disapprove of Trump) recognize that Fox News has a heavy right-wing bias, Fox News has still succeeded in poisoning the well when it comes to how those moderates view the political debate. Because people tend to think that the truth is in the middle. So they think there's the Fox News side, and there's the "liberal media" side, and the truth is in the middle.
The truth doesn't have to be in the middle. Whatever the biases of other mainstream media sources (biases, I might add, that can go in many directions), they aren't dedicated propaganda outlets. Fox News is.
Let me remind you again that 89% of Fox News viewers approve of the job Donald Trump is doing as president. It's hard to fathom of what sort of garbage would have to go into someone's mind for "Donald Trump = good president" to come out.
Furthermore, both-sides-ism has come to plague the non-Fox media - Trump was the most unqualified and scandal-ridden candidate in history, so mainstream media sources, not wanting to appear "biased," made Hillary Clinton's single (and utterly benign in comparison) scandal over her email servers the most covered story of the campaign, and thus helped Trump win.
Furthermore, both-sides-ism has come to plague the non-Fox media - Trump was the most unqualified and scandal-ridden candidate in history, so mainstream media sources, not wanting to appear "biased," made Hillary Clinton's single (and utterly benign in comparison) scandal over her email servers the most covered story of the campaign, and thus helped Trump win.
If there are two sides to a debate, and one side is the Fox News side, you're more likely to arrive at the correct outcome if you disregard the Fox News side than if you assume the truth is in the middle. This applies to almost every issue, not just the question of whether Donald Trump is doing a good job. (Is Black Lives Matter a "hate group"? No, it's not. Is human-caused climate change a problem? Yes, it is. Are tax cuts for the wealthy good economic stimulus? No, they aren't. These are all questions that have correct answers. The truth is not in the middle.)
This media polarization is going to continue to be a big problem going forward. Solving the problem is much trickier than identifying the problem. Hopefully having to suffer through the shame of having an unabashed racist in the Oval Office will at least help more people wake up to the problem. In the short term, to mitigate the damage we're going to have to keep pressure up on our other elected officials and we're going to have to turn out in massive numbers in the 2018 election.
Recognize the both-sides-ism trap when you or others may be falling into it. And don't stay silent in the face of hatred. None of us can afford that now.
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