As the space of time between the immediate moment and the point of decision draws near, it becomes obvious that we're in a pressurized vessel of some kind, it's just not clear if it's the kind that makes you comfortable in inhospitable environments, like an airplane or a submarine, or the kind that explodes your eyeballs out of your head when either the pressure builds past the point of human tolerance or the walls fail. I guess that last part is also potentially like an airplane or a submarine.
It's a real struggle to stay informed without getting too informed, if you follow. I don't just mean getting steeped in the muddy shitwater of outright lies able to flow into the tributaries of the information superhighway unregulated, I mean spending any time at all hooked up to any source of "news" anymore. This is not both-sidesing in any way; the info spring that doesn't just parrot what's been funneled into it from the Kremlin by the all-important public servant Guy With Red Face Except For Sunglasses Tan-Line on facebook or whatever is clearly a preferred source. The problem is that there aren't any information environments that aren't tainted by people and their goddamned feelings entirely. The downside to everyone having an outlet, everyone having a voice, is that they insist on continuing to use all of it.
It probably won't surprise you to know that I follow people like Chris Hayes or Jamelle Bouie or Michael Harriot on social media, nor will you fall over in your chair to learn that these days I'm most often finding the voices I'm seeking on Bluesky. For the uninitiated, Bluesky is basically twitter, but before Musk put his stink on it. Like 15 years before that, when it barely had 10 million users. It's become a life-raft for lefties and/or those who would prefer not to get back in touch with their stalkers, anyone fleeing New Coke twitter.
So it's not just "here is what's happening," in presenter-voice or analyst-voice, it's a pretty steady drip from a big rusty bucket of left-wing anxiety vomit. These are people whose thoughts and writing I respect, but I honestly can barely take it. I'm rubbed pretty raw already, but for some reason the very reasonable pointing out that "the polls aren't actually bad for Harris" or "the media covering Trump like he's normal is insane" is just making me more likely to recoil from all touch. I suppose it makes sense, like if you knew you had head lice, it wouldn't really help your situation to have people you respected point out what a bummer it is and/or diagnose for you over and over again how it came about. You've been told enough not to swap hats with people you meet on the bus, you don't need to hear it again and again.
I'll be avoiding a lot of media between now and Election Day. I was going to say "since I've already voted," but what does that matter if I knew how I was going to vote like four years ago? The idea that I've gone to these sources to help me decide between Trump and [Not Trump] would be an insult to everyone's intelligence, mostly my own. There are limits even to my own depths of self-delusion. I guess what I want from my news sources (just people now, I guess) is some kind of comfort. Like one person needs to say "don't worry, it'll be Harris, no problem, we'll know by 8 pm Pacific time that Tuesday night" and that would be all I needed.
But then I was a grown-ass adult in 2016 and people told me that about Hillary for an entire summer and look how that turned out? Overall, skepticism is the right approach to protect against overconfidence and/or susceptibility to outright bullshit, but vigilance is an active thing and I'm so, so sleepy. I'm 50 and I'm starting to understand why old people are more likely to fall for this stuff. Who has this kind of energy?
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment