RIP era of facts.
Did you know that Donald Trump has a counterpart in England?
His name is Boris Johnson. Both men like to play the immigrant card in politics.
Both men are dangerous demogogues. Both men are liars and bigots who know how to ovecome facts with a flood of falsehoods.
Toxic politics have gone global.
Trump and Johnson are both beating the devisive immigrant drum like rock stars. Both have outsized egos. So how did these two demogogues get to where they are now?
Simply by inventing the own versions of truth.
These two troublemakers are cooking up their own facts with fantastic fabrications to lure angry supporters into their camps. They are unscrupulous with a real contempt for the electorate that they are exploiting in this post-truth era.
So far, medias in both country's have failed to sufficiently hold them to account.
Trump and Johnson are products of a new system, pushing bigger and bigger lies and always finding there are zero repercussions for deceiving the electorate.
What's happened is there has been a "death of the belief in fact" for a number of reasons.
1) We increasingly self-sort ourselves into like-minded communities (whether physically or online, or both).
2) Despite all of the choices we have, people insist on visiting sites and watching shows that affirm views they already hold.
Chris Cillizza at The Independent, summerized the situation best:
"We are facing an "alternate reality," a virtual reality, where lies are accepted as truth and where conspiracy theories take root in the fertile soil of falsehoods."
With no accountability, we have spawned a new and dangerous form of politician. They can get away with saying anything they want, no matter how false it is.
I can't offer a solution, because I'm not sure there is one. All I can really hope for is there are enough people in the general population still sane enough to believe in facts.
America and England are being put to the test. Will Democracies win out? Stay tuned.
Time for me to walk on down the road...
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