In the Land of Ostriches

Who needs newspapers when the president-elect can tweet directly to millions of Twitter followers news that is uncorrupted by the professional media?

Trump’s latest unfiltered fabrication came Sunday, when he announced that he had “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”

That’s a big if. But the man didn’t just pull the number out of thin air. “News sources” have been “reporting” since Election Day that three million “illegal aliens” cast fraudulent votes for Hillary Clinton.

Snopes didn’t find a shred of evidence to support the claim, whose source it traced solely to “a pair of tweets by someone named Gregg Phillips, whose Twitter profile identifies him as the founder of VoteStand.”

In fact, the only person I’ve found who tried to vote twice was Terri Lynn Rote of Iowa. She feared her first vote for Trump would get changed to Hillary Clinton, so she tried again because “the polls are rigged.” Wherever did she get that idea?

Meanwhile, the U.S Intelligence Community has determined that Russia was heavily involved in the campaign, spreading fake news in an effort to undermine our faith in the political process.

Another word for fake news is propaganda – and whether or not Vladimir Putin affected the election, the disinformation techniques favored by totalitarian governments have now infected our public discourse, including from Donald Trump’s Twitter account.

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“The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history,” George Orwell

I don’t care for whom you voted, that should disturb you.

James G. Blaine

About James G. Blaine

Most of us undervalue what seem our tiny contributions to our communities and the world. As a result, we feel powerless, even victimized. But, like the butterfly effect in science, the lives we lead with our families, in our communities, and at work – all the so-called little things we do – collectively change the world. As I grow older, my ambition grows more modest but not less important: to participate fully and to contribute what I can. That’s my goal with this blog.