Donald Trump is not only waging a campaign against the United States’ establishment of elites, but also against what he calls “mainstream media.” According to him, it is a monolith of reporters, journalists and media overlords who control what Americans see and hear on television, all with a liberal bias. Likely due to this influence, Trump’s supporters have been seen shouting “Lügenpresse!”and “Jew-S-A!” directly targeting reporters in press boxes. The New York Times has even released a 3-D video clip of what I’m describing. It’s incredibly uncomfortable to say the least.
I'm also going to just leave this here... https://twitter.com/mbieseck/status/79542365877686...
Here’s the deal: I’m not here to stump for anyone. I’m merely going to point out an established thought experiment. It’s the “brain-in-a-jar” thought experiment, originally posited as Descartes’ dieu trompeur or “deceptive god.” There are fascinating similarities to the Trump’s attitude toward the media and the philosophical position taken by Descartes in the experiment.
The experiment, for those who have seen The Matrix, will sound familiar. The idea, generally, is that if an outside force is controlling all that we experience, we have no way of knowing what reality is. If the basic reliability of our senses cannot be trusted, then we cannot confide in anything which fronts as information. For Descartes, it was a deceptive god, evil genius or demon which kept one's mind from truth. For The Matrix, it was the machines enslaving humanity.
If you specialize that argument, it applies beautifully to the war on the “liberal media” waged by Trump, his campaign, and his supporters. The steady stream of rhetoric that “one cannot trust the media” shuts down the only method of acquiring information available to the everyday voter. If we can’t trust journalists, the people whom our society have delegated to relay information accurately, we have to trust the one who demonizes them. Therein lies the problem. Millions of people, as you read this article, are being indoctrinated to ignore what journalists tell them and believe solely what Trump opines. That, my friends, is dangerous territory.
Throwing Fox News into the mix does muddy the waters a bit, but even when one allows for a singular source and that source alone, it is not safe and allows for false narratives to crop up like weeds. When you ask for opinions on a big decision, you do not ask solely one person. In writing a scholarly essay, you do not merely consult one peer-reviewed journal article. In examining a presidential candidate, you do not glibly review only one cable news channel. Read press releases, platforms, and watch speeches. Yes, I mean the whole thing. They're hard for me to get through, too.
The methodology of Trump's rhetoric, which relies on demonizing the media, is simply not based in fact. Issues which used to be decided by numbers are now "up for debate" because Trump's candidacy has built an environment in which everything is "up for debate." Some things are simply not up for debate, and they are called facts.
What I recommend strongly, for those of us able to vote, is to inform yourself well. That means watching more than one news channel and reading more than one newspaper. Both MSNBCers and FOXers are guilty of this, I might add. Vote after research and only after. Don’t go it on gut feeling, whim, or popularity. If we voted for substance instead of style, perhaps we wouldn’t be in the mess we are right now.
