I don’t know how much, if anything, I can add to the political discourse anymore, largely because it seems there really is not much political discourse anymore.
We used to complain about governments, politicians, corporations, and others, “spinning” the truth. We called the people who did that, the “communications” people, “spin doctors.”
It was the job of the spin doctors to take the agreed upon facts and present them either favourably or unfavourably toward the particular ideology or benefit of the party or company or individual.
For example, if there was a bad turnout for a presidential inauguration, the press secretary for the incoming president might blame the weather, or the economy, or maybe say the new administration was too focused on the job of running the country to be concerned about the turnout for the inauguration.
He might even come out and honestly acknowledge it indicates division and uncertainly and that the new president’s primary priority is to address those issues.
What he did not do, however, was berate the media for reporting the facts and present “alternative facts.” There is no longer any pretense of spinning, only an outright denial of reality.
The old world operated on the premise that there was a more or less agreed upon reality, that we all saw the world as it was, but had different interpretations of the reasons for that reality and how to go about improving it.
For example, it may be equally reasonable to think that the solution to the current opioid overdose crisis is legalization and harm reduction or alternatively more law enforcement, but it is not reasonable to say that only one person a day is dying or that the number is 100, when the best evidence is that it is six or seven people die daily.
And if we disagree about the solution it does not make the other person the enemy or unpatriotic or treasonous. It does not mean the other person should be locked up.
We must get over this extremism. We also need to address the victimization complex.
Last week I was watching a political panel on TV debate Trudeau’s latest PR stumble of answering an English question in French at an event in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.
John Ibbitson, a journalist whom I greatly admire despite his conservative leanings, said something along the lines of ‘imagine the outrage if Trudeau had answered a French question in English in Saskatchewan.’ I was taken aback because, while it is the type of victim mentality I have come to expect on social media, it is not the kind of thing that I would expect from Ibbitson.
In the first place, making an argument about something that has not happened is sketchy at best. Secondly, it is utter nonsense that French gets preferential treatment in the media. Ibbitson was on a show precisely to talk about the outrage over that Trudeau gaffe. His very presence on the show contradicts his point. There is no double standard here.
A good friend of mine made a similar comparison regarding Stephen Harper. Trudeau gets a much easier ride, he said. Not true. The coverage of the PM’s island holiday with the Aga Khan is a prime example. That story has received unrelenting coverage and criticism.
But the victim complex is not just a right wing phenomenon. Lefties in the United States are complaining that Trump got elected because the media never called him out on his lies. My recollection is a little different. That’s pretty much all they did throughout the election. Fact-checking candidates was never more prominent than in 2016.
We need to stop imagining some perceived unfairness coming from the mainstream media. If there is a bias, it is a reality bias.
There is a lot of unfairness going around, however. A good example is the Facebook meme about the television audience for the Trump inauguration. The numbers were, in fact, poor compared to previous inaugurations, but TV viewing numbers have been in drastic decline in recent years. One study shows them down by 10 per cent in the last year alone. I loathe Trump just as much as anybody, but it’s not fair to use television numbers to make a point about his unpopularity. I got hammered for pointing that out. No, it was a boycott and it worked, I was told.
Again, I don’t know if this adds anything to the discourse. In today’s tribal world, chances are if you are reading this, you already agree with me.
