The local newspaper recently expressed some frustration with divisiveness and people talking past each other, and requested that readers write in, particularly regarding concrete reasons why they voted for one candidate or another. And I wouldn't normally bother, but something about the tone of it just got to me, particularly with how so much of mainstream media has, for years, consistently been bothsidesing everything and refusing to take a stand on anything, facts and consequences be damned.
I ended up toning down some of what I wanted to say and cutting out some relevant but perhaps overly verbose side rants, like noting how WaPo's billionaire owner decided to kiss up to fascism instead of allowing the actual writers to publish an endorsement of Kamala Harris, or how I wish she had been even half as much for they/them—which is a good thing to be!—as the opposing campaign claimed instead of remaining silent, or that most Democrats aren't even reliably progressive let alone leftist, or how the incoming Cabinet is composed of people who aside from general incompetence are openly hostile to the entire purpose of the departments they'll be in charge of, or...
...yeah, I think some editing was for the best. It's enough of a rant already without all that. Anyway, here's what I ended up sending them.
You asked for reader feedback, so I'll be comparatively blunt, and take the opportunity to vent a little while I'm at it.
It almost sounds to me like you're asking readers how you can better tell them what they want to hear. But that's entirely the wrong question to ask. You should be asking yourself what readers need to hear, no matter who it upsets or what side it seems to fall on, and what isn't fit to print.
You seem to take pride in regularly platforming, if not exactly a wide variety, then at least a variety of views, ranging from the far-right Heritage Foundation propaganda mill to the generally more moderate and grounded, but Bezos-owned and far from left-wing, Washington Post.
But that's precisely the problem. This is talking to someone who says it's bright and sunny and to someone else who says there's a torrential downpour, then putting them on equal footing and repeating what each is telling you. But whatever happened to looking out the window? Your job isn't to uncritically parrot them both, it's to report on the honest truth.
Misinformation is out of control. And while you may not be able to prevent it, you can still push back against it, or at the very least avoid promulgating it. Even on the opinion pages, people should be entitled to have their own opinions, but never their own facts.
No, violent crime rates are not at historic highs. Border crossings are not out of control. Haitians are not eating people's pets. A handful of transgender people quietly existing, unlike abortion bans, is no threat to women, or anyone else. The half-hearted attempts to hold Trump accountable for some of his misdeeds were not witch hunts, nor even meaningfully successful. Indeed, the most dangerous crimes we have to worry about are ones like his January 6th insurrection and similar stochastic terrorism inspired by the bigotry and lies that his party has built its foundation upon.
And as for the economy, the stock market is as high as it's ever been, for what that's worth. Inflation has stabilized. Prices were starting to drop—until the promise of destructive tariffs, anyway. It's practically a miracle that we came out of the worst pandemic in a century so relatively unscathed, despite the initial incompetent mismanagement and the widespread refusal to follow basic safety measures.
I voted for Harris because she was a competent though flawed candidate with actual plans, who isn't a convicted felon or lifelong grifter, has never tried to dismantle or overthrow the government, and didn't spend hundreds of millions of dollars demonizing people like me in lieu of offering anything of value. I would have liked to see her take a stronger stand for human rights, from protest to health care to freedom from genocide, but lukewarm and unreliable support or even sheer indifference beat open hostility any day.
So, yes, it's personal for me, but I also can't come up with a single valid reason to favor Trump, either as a person or as a politician, on any issue whatsoever, over Kamala Harris, or Joe Biden, or even Hillary Clinton. I could not fathom how anyone could support him 2016, much less in 2020, and still less today when he has visibly deteriorated and leaned ever further into fascism, without being either criminally malicious or catastrophically ignorant of who and what he is.
I would sooner have endorsed a pet rock. They, at least, never go out of their way to hurt people, and aren't nearly so vindictive or volatile, nor half as self-absorbed. Despite the campaign slogan, Trump has never been for anyone but Trump. Nor has he made any real attempt to pretend otherwise.
How can anyone not realize that, to the extent that he has any values at all, they consist entirely of self-aggrandizement with a side of unchecked megalomania, unfiltered nonsense, and unrestrained malevolence? And even when, on occasion, he claims a viewpoint that seems halfway reasonable, he's at least as likely as not to reverse himself the next day and deny he ever said otherwise.
How can anyone not notice that his party's positions, those that aren't simply sycophantically kissing up to him, often manage to be still worse, remorselessly pursuing petty yet costly culture war grievances, undermining the law and Constitution, attacking long-established freedoms and safeguards, obliterating precedent and tradition, and generating havoc for the average person, all with no regard for the real-life consequences of any of it?
Unless what you want are enforced hierarchies largely based on wealth, race, gender, and religious background, making mockeries of what the values of both America and Christianity are ostensibly supposed to be, and your own welfare be damned, there's nothing there to support.
You said it yourself, though—Americans hardly seem to share a common reality.
And so, as a news source, you are faced with a choice. You can either pander to the delusion and alienate those of us who want the truth, or respect the truth and alienate those who reject it. But you can't straddle that fence. Not indefinitely.
From where I sit, the choice is obvious. But I have no power here. And precious little hope for positive change.
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