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When the Republican Party rebranded as the party of fiscal responsibility, social conservatives believed the family values GOP was dead. The party would focus on tax reform and curbing government spending and would forget about issues like abortion and legalized gay marriage.

Today, GOP legislative priorities no longer indicate they are the party that once championed fiscal responsibility. Their tolerance of the president evinces they no longer are the Reagan party of family values. This begs the question, What does the modern Republican Party hope to accomplish? Although the preface may have put the cart before the horse, it is clear: The modern GOP seeks to stop American demographic change.

The language was once subtle. Small things, like memorializing the Confederate flag or refusing to condemn white supremacists, served as dog whistles suggesting the party may be prioritizing the goals of white America over other groups. But during the era of Trumpism and hyperpartisanship, this messaging has become far more overt.

Fox News hosts with powerful platforms slowly leaned into anti-diversity rhetoric. It began with Bill OReilly, who would casually make problematic comments like slaves who built the White House were treated well; that a black guest looked like a cocaine dealer or sharing his surprise upon witnessing that a black restaurant was not chaotic, but was well-mannered like an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb. His show, once the most popular program on cable, would embody a more subdued version of other resentment.

In his absence, the networks popular hosts have evolved his brand of racism with a new, more xenophobic bent. This new style is far more blunt and succinct.

Laura Ingraham rightfully faced pushback for airing a segment regarding how massive demographic change, through legal and illegal immigration, has perverted America. Tucker Carlson aired a segment begging the rhetorical question, how is diversity a strength? Sean Hannity has continually defended the President and his supporters, even when that requires defending the send her back chants about a American-born Muslim Congresswoman or silence on Charlottesville.

Fox News hosts are not the same thing as Republican operatives, but when they run in the same social circles, endorse the same values and appeal to the same audiences, it is safe to say they personify the attitudes of the new American right.

The White House employs a similar amount of troublesome personalities. Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant to the President, has been accused of being a Nazi sympathizer due to his sympathy for far-right European groups harboring similar views as the Nazi party and his fashion accessories that originate from a Hungarian subgroup of the Nazi party.

Despite circumstantial connections to Nazism, he is not the White Houses most controversial figure. Stephen Miller, senior adviser to the president who is responsible for crafting much of the administrations immigration policy, harbors views that are blatantly anti-immigrant. Numerous stories regarding Miller connect him to a white nationalist agenda and an alt-right ideology.

Or perhaps the most chauvinistic character in the White House is the Commander-in-Chief himself. The founder of birtherism, who launched his presidential campaign with colorful language on Mexicans, has a track record of demonstrating disdain for non-white Americans.

From allegedly characterizing Haiti and African nations as shithole countries to supporting the death penalty for the all-black Central Park Five, exonerated by DNA evidence, Trump has demonstrated a very robust social-dominance orientation.

But if the results are truly what matters and not rhetoric, as some of the Presidents allies proclaim, the argument only grows stronger. First the party attempted to mitigate illegal immigration based on bunk crime statistics.

Then Steven Miller and the rest of the administration worked tirelessly to dismantle the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA. Today, the administration strives to slow down legal immigration and prevent the very demographic change it so clearly fears.

And it is not just the administration. The partys systemic disenfranchisement, including racial gerrymandering, voter ID laws and voting to reject the reinstatement of key parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has specifically targeted minorities. One court even ruled that the North Carolina GOP gerrymandered maps targeted African Americans with surgical precision.

The consequence of a ruling party using more overt anti-immigrant rhetoric is that these ideas have been integrated into the political mainstream. A political environment in which Tucker Carlson feels secure criticizing American diversity is a toxic one. America has never fully engaged the melting pot ideal properly, however, it is probably time the founders dream was realized.

Please GOP, for the sake of the country, return to the party of fiscal responsibility.

Andrew is a sophomore in LAS.

[emailprotected]

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Opinion | GOP fights to preserve white America | II - Daily Illini

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For your everyday tweeting, Uber Eating, back-to-back meeting tech bro, the idea that rapid technological change could have its downsides is an inconvenient truth.

Thats why weve rounded up 18 books puncturing Silicon Valley utopianism. From the rise of Big Data to the fall of Theranos, these authors delve into the tech fairy tales weve been sold and uncover the underlying truth.

Arm yourself with the tools to take on Big Tech from this bestselling list of tech experts.

Mike Isaac, the award-winning New York Times technology reporter, digs deep into the history of Uber, the worlds best known -and most controversial -ride-hailing firm.

Praised for laying out the companys many woes without making a caricature of the companys eccentric ex-CEO Travis Kalanick, Isaac offers the essential guide to understanding how Uber became what it is today.

As the company continues to face down controversy around the world, this book puts the pedal to the metal in a way nothing else has before.

Find it here

Richard Seymours dark polemic on the digital age might be the most sobering on this list.

Hardly a day goes by without the President of the United States firing vitriol at his enemies via social media, as Seymour observes in what he assures his readers is a horror story come to life.

Seymour dedicates his book to the Luddites those that smashed machinery apart during the industrial revolution with his tongue firmly in his cheek.

Reading it might just make you want to do the same.

Find it here

Automating Inequality is an unsettling insight into the world of robotic decision-making, exploring how algorithms are already being used to make decisions about who should be paid, who should be surveilled and in some cases who should be born.

Eubanks, a professor of womens studies at the University of Albany, paints a compelling picture of inequality at large, intensified by the distancing of human beings from human affairs.

The unfiltered impact of new technology on issues like race, class and gender exemplifies how machines have yet to learn how to make decisions the way humans do.

Find it here

In Emily Changs shocking foray into the exploits of some of the worlds most unsavoury tech bros, drug-fuelled sex parties are the norm in the suburbs of Silicon Valley.

Rejected as salacious nonsense by Elon Musk who is himself alleged to have attended one such party Changs work exposes the Valleys notoriously male-dominated and sexist culture.

In the final chapter, Chang reveals: Writing this book has been like going on a trek through a minefield, with fresh mines being laid as I walked.

Dont miss it.

Find it here

Read the inside story of the startup that continues to make headlines around the world.

After founding Theranos, a healthtech company which claimed to have revolutionary blood-testing capabilities, Elizabeth Holmes set a series of calamitous events in motion.

John Carreyrou received universal acclaim for his forensic analysis, seeking sources from top to bottom within Theranos, the sham company that drew massive investments from the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Carlos Slim.

While it remains to be seen what will become of Holmes, Carreyrous hard-hitting investigation is now set for a Hollywood adaptation, directed by The Big Shorts Adam McKay and starring Jennifer Lawrence.

Find it here

Invisible Women exposes what author Criado Perez dubs the one-size-fits-men bias in design and technology, highlighting the endless number of mismatches in everyday life, from fitness monitors to items of clothing to car safety.

The winner of the Financial Times Best Business Book of 2019, Invisible Women is a compelling insight into the dangers of treating male bodies as the default in policymaking.

Find it here

Financial Times journalist Rana Foroohars deep-dive critique of the internets pioneers takes a forensic look at the biggest companies dominating our lives, including: Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Uber.

In examining each case study, Foroohar unpicks how the tech giants slowly but surely started to betray their founding principles, from Googles old mantra Dont be evil to Mark Zuckerbergs vision of creating communities around the world.

Like with so many on our list, Dont Be Evil might leave you feeling a little more nervous about the world we live in, but a lot more informed.

Find it here

Jamie Susskind confronts some of the most important questions of our time, effortlessly mapping his knowledge of political theory onto the latest developments from Silicon Valley, revealing a host of ethical quandaries and impracticalities.

Susskind doesnt hone in on any particular companies, instead abstracting their capabilities and what they might mean for all of us in our everyday lives or, as he calls it, the digital lifeworld.

For all its grand implications, Future Politics is an accessible read, peppered with self-deprecating humour and pop cultural references throughout, and will make you only more curious about the road ahead.

Find it here

Shoshana Zuboff, a professor of social psychology at Harvard Business School, has been using the term surveillance capitalism to describe the economic model of Big Tech since at least 2014, around five years before publishing this weighty tome.

She offers the reader a shocking insight into the business model that underpins the digital world, detailing in razor-sharp detail how the likes of Facebook and Google are using our data to advance their interests.

Zuboff effortlessly infuses what we already know with her trademark academic analysis, allowing us to grasp the big picture. The landmark book is a follow-up of sorts to her previous work, 1988s The Age of the Smart Machine, which was likewise considered definitive in its field.

Find it here

Jamie Bartletts manifesto for technological resistance, longlisted for the Orwell Prize, offers a comprehensive overview of the threats posed by the Internet to our very way of life.

Most recently heard hunting down the Missing Cryptoqueen for the BBC, Bartlett offers a sobering guide to the ways in which both individuals and institutions can stop Big Tech from taking over our culture, elections, economy and more.

Bartlett works at think-tank Demos, and previously presented a two-part BBC documentary series called The Secrets of Silicon Valley.

Find it here

While technically more a series of sociological experiments than tech expos, Bloodworths book dramatically reveals the everyday reality of those working in the UKs tech-driven gig economy.

Whether stacking shelves in an Amazon warehouse or seeking passengers as an Uber driver, Bloodworth steps into the lives of those doing Big Techs heavy lifting without seeing much of the reward.

Selected as The Times current affairs book of 2018 and longlisted for the Orwell Prize, Hired is an in-depth study of the conditions imposed on those benefiting least from the technological revolution.

Find it here

Christopher Wiley, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, lifts the lid on his time at the now-infamous political consultancy.

Revelations abound about the companys working culture, including the behaviour of former CEO Alexander Nix, while Wiley reveals bit by bit the kind of power he wielded while rifling through individuals personal data.

While the true impact of Cambridge Analyticas work in the US, UK and elsewhere around the world continues to be argued, Wileys insight gives you the best chance yet of making that assessment for yourself.

Find it here

Algorithms are everywhere, organising the unfathomably large quantities of data produced by each of us every day.

In We Are Data, John Cheney-Lippold spells out what the implications might be for our algorithmic identities in the digital age, and how they underpin everything from architecture to accountancy.

A professor of digital studies at the University of Michigan, Cheney-Lippold implores his readers to try to fully grasp the problems that lie ahead, so that we might have the best chance of reaching a solution.

Find it here

Stuart Russell already has one of the best-known books on artificial intelligence to his name, having authored Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach in 1995 with co-writer Peter Norvig.

Now, Russell returns to the question and doesnt hold anything back.

The University of California professor outlines the darker consequences of pushing the frontiers in artificial intelligence or, as he calls it, the most important question facing humanity.

Find it here

Writing with the pace of a thriller novel, Andy Greenberg tells the story of Russias infamous hacking group of the title.

Sandworm is the must-read guide to state-sponsored hacking, described by the LA Times as a comprehensive look at the technical, military and political stories of this new hidden war.

Find it here

With his 2018 book, journalist Corey Pein set out to learn how such an overhyped industry as tech could sustain itself as long as it has.

He slowly works the crowds at conferences, pitches his wacky ideas to investors and interviews a cast of ridiculous characters: cyborgs, tech bros, hackers and obedient employees all feature.

LWWWD is an incisive portrait of a self-obsessed industry hellbent on succeeding by whatever means necessary.

Find it here

Martin Moore has some big questions for Big Tech, breaking his book into three overarching themes: hackers, systems failure, and alternative futures.

From the rise of alt-right media outlets like Breitbart, through to the rise of what he dubs surveillance democracies, Moore maps a path from old Soviet disinformation campaigns through to those alleged to have played a part in the 2016 US Election.

A seriously engaging work that should be read by anyone curious about the impact of new technology on national security.

Find it here

One of the most unsettling and illuminating books about the internet ever written, so says the New York Times, New Dark Age reveals the dark clouds gathering over our dreams of a digital utopia.

Looking at the ways machines have already began besting their human competitors, such as the AI that defeated chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov, Bridle suggests a new path forward: centaur chess, a kind of team-up between humans partnered with computers.

The implications for a post- or transhuman world are to say the least mind-blowing.

Find it here

See more here:
Misinformation, hacking, and imploding startups: 18 books to read in 2020 that puncture Silicon Valley utopianism - Business Insider

Ten years ago Dutch band De Staat shared a communal house in Nijmegen, the left-wing Dutch town affectionally known as "Havana-On-The-Waal", with each band member receiving a monthly stipend of 200 from the government to encourage their music.

They were weird, producing angular, jerky blues rock that didn't so much reflect the sum of their influences as much as make them sound like a band who didn't listen to other bands at all.

A decade on, things have changed. They're still getting money from the government (in 2016 the band were awarded a 236,000 four-year subsidy from the country's Performing Arts Fund), but the music has moved on.

Traces of the blues have all but vanished, and while the angularity remains, a typical De Staat song truly sounds like music reinvented. Much of it is almost childlike, with nagging four-to-the-floor rhythms confounded by a bass that accents the upbeats, giving everything a lollopping momentum, as if the music is powered by marching Oompa Loompas, soundtracking a demented circus parade.

They're a serious draw in The Netherlands. Back in March this writer and 6000 fans have crammed into AFAS Live in Amsterdam for a performance that felt like a victory parade with a coronation attached. Holding it all together was frontman Torre Florim, with a staccato, stream of consciousness delivery that took in everything from teeth-whitening and Photoshop to alt-right meme Pepe the Frog across a brilliant, bewildering couple of hours.

From the techno screeches that announced the arrival of set opener Me Time to the closing KITTY KITTY later voted rock video of the year which flipped from a gabber-influenced backdrop to a transcendent middle section that sounded like Topographic Oceans-era Yes (then back again) the set was a cartwheeling, discombobulating adventure.

There were three guitars on stage, but they didn't sound like guitars. Phoenix started with violent blasts of Hans Zimmer-style orchestration, Florim atop a platform, multiple spotlights gilding his skull, before the beams softened and the song took a tender turn. The maddening Pikachu was delivered almost as a rap battle. Fake It Till You Make It featured bhangra rhythms and wildly over-clocked auto-tune.

It was bedlam with a seizure-inducing lightshow, and all the songs we've mentioned were purloined from this year's Bubble Gum album, the consolidation of a dozen year's worth of experimenting. They've refined their craft to the point where a De Staat song sounds like no one else, with those jerking, toddler-friendly rhythms backboning songs as likely to sweep in influences from hip hop and dance music as they are from prog rock.

If you're looking for tradition you won't find it, but if you're willing to open your ears to something that's simultaneously simpler and more left field than you're used to, Bubble Gum might be for you. There's something peculiarly primal about it.

Late in the year, De Staat played at The Garage in London, a venue less than a 10th of the size of their Amsterdam show. Up close it's a different experience, and the slick, machine-drilled choreography is more apparent. But with the dazzling light show still in place and a crowd going nuts delighted to be able to witness the band at such close quarters it was another evening of vivid, kaleidoscopic delirium, with Bubble Gum at its heart.

Bubble Gum is available now via Caroline International.

See the original post:
The albums we loved this year: De Staat - Bubble Gum - Louder

As the year comes to a close, here are a dozen of the top stories the media majorly messed up:

The media ripped apart a 16-year-old student seen in a video smirking at a Native American activist on the National Mall during a school trip with Covington Catholic High School to Washington D.C. for the March for Life.

The release of added context however, reveals that Nick Sandmann, a junior at the school who is depicted in the viral image was being harassed along with his peers by members of the Black Hebrew Israelites (BHI).

That didnt stop the media however, from vilifying Sandmann who has since launched legal challenges to media outlets who falsely reported the story.

Television star of the popular series Empire was offered a plethora of sympathetic media coverage throughout February after suffering from an alleged racist and homophobic Jan. 29 attack.

It was later revealed however that Smollett faked the crime and faced 16 charges for lying to police. The Chicago Cook County prosecutors office however, dropped the charges while maintaining it did exonerate him.

As Jonathan Tobin points out for The Federalist, the episode illustrates the societal double-standard that its okay to lie if its in the name of left-wing social justice.

In perhaps one of the medias most magnificent mistakes this year, special counsel Robert Mueller unveiled his findings from a two-year unlimited resource investigation completely exonerating President Donald Trump of being a Russian agent after years of the medias peddling of the Russia hoax.

Mueller found not one person from the Trump campaign, let alone Trump himself, colluded with the Russian government in 2016 to defeat Hillary Clinton. Muellers report also acquitted Trump of any obstruction of justice charges for firing one of the most corrupt directors of the FBI, James Comey.

He has no idea that hes going down, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough declared on Morning Joe as a result of the report.

The White House Correspondents Dinner in April this year opted to forgo a comedian this year to instead just attack Trump openly, complaining that the president might start rounding up journalists and putting them in jail.

Read The Federalists single editorial position on Washingtons NerdProm here.

While the #MeToo era has brought down powerful men for alleged inappropriate conduct in recent years, the media exposed its double-standard when it comes to men they want to protect.

Former Vice President Joe Biden sparked criticism this year for his interactions with young girls earning the Democratic frontrunner the nickname Creepy Uncle Joe.

While the media will eviscerate any man the progressive movement attempts to bring down with allegations of sexual harassment, most notably Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, the media when to bat to defend Biden who has been leading the Democratic primary field ever since.

Antifa, a left-wing movement to counter the fascist alt-right by conducting acts of domestic terrorism has been defended by the media as principled individuals united in their common valor to resist the anti-Trump forces threatening to destroy the country.

Exactly how Antifa is pursuing their mission? By destroying the country. Throughout the year the left-wing militant group has interrupted events and viciously attacked journalists covering their hate resulting in one reporter suffering a brain injury.

It says it right in the name. Antifa, which means anti-fascism, which is what they were there fighting. Listen, no organization is perfect, there is some violence, CNNs Don Lemon said.

They have taken a principled stand to stand against white supremacists and white nationalists wherever they may show up, said a guest on MSNBC.

While America celebrated one of human civilizations greatest accomplishments of world history by landing a man on the moon in 1969, the media condemned the event as a mostly white male dominated event Ok.

In a viral moment caught on a phone camera, a man began berating CNNs Chris Cuomo and called the primetime anchor Fredo.

Dont f***ing insult me like that Its like I call you punk b***h, you like that? Cuomo scolded.

While Cuomo took great offense to the word as an Italian slur, the word is actually a reference to a character in The Godfather.

Cuomo even once referred to himself as Fredo in a radio interview.

Its a true tragedy, really. A 16-year-old climate activist on the autism spectrum kicked off a campaign to save the world from climate change, sailing across the Atlantic and lecturing the world at the United Nations of its imminent threat to humanity.

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, Thunberg declared to world leaders.

Whats sad is the lefts puppeteering of Thunberg as their principle activist to prop up their efforts to enact radical climate legislation, using Thunberg as their flag-bearer to avoid criticism of their proposals labeling anyone who might dare question her demands as bigoted and cruel.

Time Magazine even picked Thunberg as their person of the year. The Federalist has chosen the Hong Kong protestor instead.

While Grabien lists media coverage condemning a violent meme video shown at a Trump resort as Octobers most mortifying moment, media reaction to the video wasnt entirely unjustified given the nature of the video depicting Trump of murdering his opponents and members of the press. Instead, the medias coverage of the presidents successful war on ISIS is far more worthy of condemnation.

After Trump announced the successful execution of the worlds most dangerous terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Washington Post published an astonishing obituary for the ISIS leader, branding the dead anti-American warmonger as an austere religious scholar in the headline.

Further, the Post spent the first half of the article chronicling al-Baghdadis rise in academia, waiting until the 40th paragraph to mention al-Baghdadi was also a serial rapist.

While the Post ultimately reframed story on the same day, the Posts glaring mistake is illustrative of the wider media coverage on Trumps battle with ISIS.

A leaked recording obtained by Project Veritas shows ABC anchor Amy Robach complaining that the network refused to run with her story on Jeffrey Epstein before the revelations surfaced of the hedge fund managers vast sex trafficking network.

Ive had the story for three yearsWe would not put it on the air. Um, first of all, I was told, whos Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story, Robach said. It was unbelievable what we had, Clinton, we had everything. Now its all coming out and its like these new revelations and I freaking had it.

ABC has since declared war on the whistleblower who leaked the recording instead of coming down on the executives who buried the story.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department inspector general released a long-anticipated report on the FBIs FISA abuses of four warrants used to conduct surveillance on the Trump campaign.

One of the major revelations to emerge from the report was the confirmation that the sources from the discredited Steele Dossier were relied upon to re-issue the warrants from the FISA courts to continue its deep-state operations. FBI officials knew as early as January of 2017 that the sources were providing junk intelligence and did not include that information in their warrant applications.

The media however, spent years defending the credibility of the Steele Dossier in peddling the Russia hoax.

More:
12 Stories The Media Got Horribly Wrong In 2019 - The Federalist

Donald J. Trump has become the third President in the history of our nation to be impeached by the House of Representatives for high crimes and misdemeanors against the people of the United States. This moment comes as a surprise to absolutely no one. Democrats have been keeping a tally of the immoral and illegal dealings of this President since his first day in office, vowing to defend the constitution the very moment the President had crossed the line from immoral to unconstitutional. Republicans have known since the Democrats won the House of Representatives that impeachment was likely- they too have watched the President act in unethical ways time and time again and knew that as soon as he crossed a line, the Democrats would proceed forward with an impeachment investigation.

Yesterday, as I watched the eight hours of debates on the House floor over the articles of impeachment being presented, I began to be reminded of a truth that we all know, but so easily forget: our country is irreconcilably divided. We literally live in (at least) two fundamentally different realities. As each Republican stepped up and claimed that this impeachment was nothing more than a witch-hunt and was based on made up charges, I wondered how anyone could interpret the facts this way. As Democrats testified time and time again, the President has admitted wrongdoing. He had, in fact, used his power to attempt to coerce a foreign government into helping him win the 2020 election. Yet the two sides seemed unable to convince each other of their perspective. They didnt seem interested in trying.

Then I logged on to Twitter. I saw my feed filled with my liberal friends rejoicing over the impeachment vote- and I joined them. But my curiosity led me to head over to President Trumps feed and follow some of his fans- and they were tweeting with palpable fury that this entire hearing was a sham, proclaiming that there was no evidence of wrongdoing, and this was nothing more than the Democrats trying to remove Trump out of fear that he was going to win the 2020 election. They posted news stories and opinion pieces from sources I have honestly never heard of and claimed that the mainstream media that I was reading that offered evidence of Trumps wrongdoing was fake news and political propaganda. Nothing I could say would convince any of these Trump supporters, because all of the evidence I could provide was written off as fake. Nothing they could say could convince me, because the evidence and arguments they put forward seemed to me to bewellfake.

This is where we are at as a country. We are literally living in two realities. We cant even determine the basis for what reality even is. This isnt exaggeration. When we cannot agree on what is real, when be believe that the other side is producing fake information to deceive us, and that the motives of the other are truly nefarious and evil, how can we possibly move forward? How can we possibly have a generative future together? I dont mean to sound alarmist, but historically circumstances like these usually lead to war- literally fighting to determine who is the most powerful, and therefore, gets to determine what is right and true. And the fury that I saw last night, in the red face of President Trump at his rally and between both Democrats and Republicans on Twitter make it seem that we really, truly, are at war. Not over political positions, not over who should occupy the White House. Were at war to determine what is fundamentally real.

From where I sit, it seems to me that there is only one potential path to bring us back from the brink of actual war with each other: all of us must put the common good and public service before party allegiance. Those of us on both sides who have not bought into conspiracy theories and complete caricatures of our political others must come to the table together and hash out what is actually, factually true. This would require the sacrifice of party allegiance for all of us, and the ability to truly see things as they are. I have to believe that most Republicans know that Democrats never had a secret plot to seek to remove the President just because they didnt think they could win an election. I have to believe that most Democrats know that many Republicans are deeply disturbed by the Presidents behavior and somewhere deep down would like to hold him accountable (and have said as much). If both sides would truly put public service first, instead of maintaining power, then perhaps we can walk the country back from the edge of yet another civil war.

And I should make another fact clear: While I do think both Democrats and Republicans hold some degree of culpability in creating this divisive moment, it is clear that the bulk of the confusion going around in this moment has stemmed from Republican leaders legitimizing alt-right conspiracy theories. When the President of the United States regularly retweets stories that he knows are false but paint a favorable narrative of him, when Senators give interviews to conspiracy theory sites like Breitbart or One American News, they are legitimizing the disregard for truth and reality. Sure, doing so is politically expedient for them. It absolutely helps them win elections. But it also is eroding millions of Americans ability to distinguish what is real and what is true- and this is not something that can easily be undone.

I am naturally an optimistic person, and I want to end this reflection with hope- but the truth is, I am not hopeful. I believe that the love of power and influence is going to outweigh the desire to do what is right. I really do believe that millions of conservative Americans are going to buy into truly outlandish, fake news and become filled with uncontainable rage that is going to manifest somehow in the future. I really do believe that millions of progressive Americans are going to continue to grow to believe that most conservatives lack a moral foundation and should not be given a hearing or consideration. And if we continue to grow in these two polar opposite directions, the only result will be the fundamental erosion of our democracy. No election will solve this problem- whoever the next President will be will face threats of impeachment and a complete partisan stalemate that will make it nearly impossible to govern.

Nothing short of a miracle can change the direction our country is heading. Nothing short of a true political revolution, that called our leaders away from party and back to a posture of service. Nothing short of a return to honesty in the public square, rather than whatever theories garner support for our party will save us from this era of division.I truly hope that this will some day become our reality. But as for today, I am not very hopeful. I believe we may truly be witnessing the end of the American experiment. And until we awaken to the truth of this harrowing reality, I have little faith that anything will change in our country.

Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.

What is truth? retorted Pilate.

John 18:37-38

More here:
What Is Truth?: Witnessing The End of the American Experiment - Patheos