The evils of partisanship in a world gone mad

These are frustrating times.

Social media and traditional media are hyper-partisan and this dedication to a political line has overwhelmed the few people who want to have sane discussions. Each side hardens its positions to exclude even the smallest deviation. We all lose when so many are more dedicated to their party than the truth.

The news media is insane. The New York Times, which has unapologetically given op-ed space to Adolf Hitler, Yasir Arafat, leaders of Hamas and the Taliban, caves under pressure from its own staff to distance itself from allowing an op-ed by a US Senator. The staff claimed, in an astonishing example of coordinated mindless tweets, that somehow this op-ed endangered black employees of the Times as well as blacks across the nation.

No one explained exactly how.

Two of the most respected medical journals, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet, published a study that claimed that hydroxychloroquine when given to patients as a treatment for COVID-19 killed more patients than it helped. Neither of them bothered to look at the data, which was debunked by the Internet and forced both of them to distance themselves from the study.

This would never have happened if Trump hadn’t mentioned the drug. So even science is partisan and political. (Another study, perhaps the first truly double blind random study of the drug, found no statistical benefit from hydroxychloroquine for patients who had been recently exposed to the virus. Another study on patients who were already sick is being done. But it is not as sexy as claiming that the drug is deadly, so reporting on this study is a fraction of the bogus one.)

In a similar vein, health authorities who had been warning about the dangers of not employing social distancing are suddenly supporting mass protests. All the things we heard about how social distancing was more important than keeping schools and houses of worship and shops open has been turned upside down.

Why? Partisanship. Their biases are more important than being consistent, ore important even than public health.

Forget Twitter or Facebook or other social media. They are awash with fake news on both sides, with the only thing in common seemingly being antisemitism.

But both sides also have some excellent points.

Racism exists and it is terrible. The fear that blacks have just living their lives are unfathomable to whites. Things are a hell of a lot better than in decades past but that it not good enough.

The police response to the recent riots has been, based on numerous videos, awful. Rather than making the Minneapolis murderers of George Floyd look like outliers, too many police departments across the nation appear to resort to brutality with little or no provocation. The videos I’ve seen have not indicated any racial tendencies – just violent ones.

This is not acceptable.

But the answer of “defunding the police” is idiotic. Police are necessary in any functioning society. Police departments need to be reformed, police need to be trained, procedures need to be created, violations need to be swiftly and comprehensively punished – but police are needed.

Similarly, there is clearly a major problem with incarceration in America. Way too many are put in jail for non-violent crimes, and the US has more prisoners per capita than any other nation. A disproportionate number of prisoners are black. This is not OK. But the answer of “release them all” is also idiotic. Reforms are needed in both the prison system and the courts but violent criminals must stay where they can’t hurt the innocent. This should be obvious but many people really advocate releasing all prisoners.

On the other hand, violence and arson and riots are not okay. People who spent their lives building businesses, already hit hard by the pandemic, don’t deserve to have their shops looted and trashed and graffitied. Bigger stores like Macy’s and Apple and Target don’t deserve to be looted either. Yet I’ve heard prominent people defend the smashing windows and burning stores.

Why? Partisanship. Partisanship makes people either accept the abuses on their side, or it forces them to stay quiet so as not to be ostracized. And both sides are now excellent at ostracization.

Since things are so polarized, the necessary conversations cannot occur. We can’t talk about racism or police brutality or prison reform without it being politicized. We cannot talk about freedom of speech or how to deal with violent protesters and looters without it being politicized. Everyone is so busy pointing fingers that there is no time or energy left to actually admit that the other side has some points. Moreover, even when that is conceded the extremists don’t allow compromise or civil discussion.

It doesn’t help matters that the president, the one person who in a normal world has a chance to bring both sides together, is the most divisive person on the planet. Even when he says something that makes sense, his detractors will automatically choose the opposite position. And he revels in that division, using the hate on both sides to gain politically.

I made a graphic that I labeled  a summary of Twitter in six words:

 

First comes the hate, then the pseudo-logic to justify the hate. One’s political opponents are responsible for everything bad that happens.

If Americans don’t drop the partisanship and the hate, the future of the country does not look promising.