When the Republicans finally get around to selecting a new speaker, maybe the winner should take the oath of office using a copy of The Lord of The Flies instead of the Bible. Seems to me a book about squabbling children would be most appropriate. #uspolitics
@Jgmeadows It really needs to be emphasized that the #Speaker is elected by the whole house, not just the majority party.
Folks misunderstanding that is a large reason why we're in this mess in the first place.
@volkris @Jgmeadows do you still believe in Santa Claus? Everything is so partisan in the US.
@SaanichGuy @volkris We're at a point where everywhere is poisoned by partisanship.
@Jgmeadows I really think the real problem comes down to lack of reliable information, we have people being told sets of facts that are drastically different, and people don't have a good way of reconciling the stories that they are being sold by the ones who are supposed to be telling us all the truth.
If we can't agree on whether water runs uphill or downhill, how can we even start to address all of the more complicated questions that arise from that.
So I think it's not so much that everything is poisoned by partisanship, but that partisanship is growing to fill the vacuum as people struggle to deal with these disagreements of fact.
IMO that's the core problem, and if we had a way to address it, a lot of other problems would fade.
@Jgmeadows meh, I guess, but the problem is that the misinformation and disinformation is coming from sources that are not supposed to be political in the first place.
When you have major newspapers misreporting information on a daily basis, that can't be excused as just common partisanship. That is a much deeper problem.
And that's what we're facing right now.
@volkris @SaanichGuy Every media source is biased one way or another, to one degree or another. Sadly we don't see a lot of media literacy or critical thinking.
@Jgmeadows just to be clear, I'm referring to reporting that can't be excused by meer bias. I'm talking about major journalistic outlets misreporting everything from results of elections through results of scientific studies.
Just really inexcusable reporting.
In fact, one of the big ways I experienced this is when I start pointing out to scientific friends that the journalist misreported on a paper in my field, and then my friends start noticing journalists misreport papers in their own fields, and then they start noticing more and more misreporting after that.
This goes beyond just media source bias. This isn't a reporter, having a different idea about whether the temperature outside is a bit warm or a bit cool. This is literally misreporting a yes for a no, the number of votes cast, whether an indictment has been handed down, serious factual inaccuracies.
In this environment where different people are told substantially different factual claims, it's really obvious that stuff like political intrigue is going to step up to fill the vacuum.
So yeah, this is an ax I grind. It's a good bit of why I'm on here in fact, just to vent about the state of factual reporting in the world today.
@volkris @SaanichGuy Misinformation and disinformation are key weapons in promoting extreme partisanship.