Unity

These last couple of days have been a crazy one in the news.  The story of the unverified report regarding Trump and the Russia situation is sounding like a really bad reality TV show.  I can't even imagine where the story will end. 

The following link to the New York Times article "The Real Story About Fake News is Partisanship" by Amanda Taub seems to me to be the underlying issue in our country today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/upshot/the-real-story-about-fake-news-is-partisanship.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

Hopefully you will take the time to read this article.  If you have exceeded your limit of free articles and don't take a subscription to the newspaper, try your local library.  I read it on-line through my local library's database service.

The article starts by stating that "Partisan bias now operates more like racism than mere political disagreement, academic research on the subject shows. And this widespread prejudice could have serious consequences for American democracy."  This is a powerful statement and Ms. Taub supports it well.  She discusses how people tend to believe those who are from the same party (tribe) more than they believe those from the opposite tribe.  It's worth taking the time to read this.

After this last election season, I'm not sure anyone could argue against the statement that this country is a house divided.  It continues to play out in the daily news.  Our country is in desperate need of some unity.  Normally this comes from our President.  And as much as I don't want to contribute to the divisive problem, I don't believe that President-Elect Trump is capable of providing this.  He simply lacks this ability.  It just seems to me that rather than being combative on every story or perceived slight, he would be so much farther ahead by stopping the blame game.  Rather than the Twitter scream, about the unverified Russian report, of "FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!" wouldn't the issue die down faster if he had simply said he had seen the alleged report, there was no truth to it and he would not be discussing it further?  

Extreme reactions to news stories are just driving all of us citizens further and further apart. The constant blame against the media for anything we disagree with is going to have dire effects on the state of our country.  This is something we should all be worried about.  Leaving our country to our children in such a divided state is just wrong.  Please people, do not ignore dissenting opinions or news.  It's imperative for the future health of our democracy that we break this cycle.