By: D. DiFrancesco - April 24, 2015
Although this was not the post that I had initially intended, I felt that some venting was in order on my part to maintain my sanity.
The divide in United States politics is as deep and as wide as I have ever seen it in my lifetime. This has been primarily fueled by the partisan media in this country over the last number of years. The saddest part about this is that previously reasonable, intelligent and logical people have bought into the inflammatory rhetoric being spewed by these news outlets without taking a moment to fact check what they are reporting as news.
Today, much to my chagrin, I was within earshot of a conversation initiated by one person to multiple people in my workplace. And yes, the conversation was, as you can guess, about politics.
First of all, didn’t our mothers tell us that you never discuss religion or politics, and most importantly never at work? I know that mine did, but obviously my workplace chose to be the exception to that rule. Unfortunately political discussions occur on a regular basis in the office and even more unfortunate is that many times I am caught up in the middle of them as my co-workers and the owners of the business know that I am “progressive/liberal” leaning. Being in the minority I take their good hearted ribbing lightly, but today was just too much.
A former company owner who has been retired for a number of years stopped by the office today to say hello. I have seen this individual around from time to time, but never had the “pleasure” of working for him. This person, we will call him Bob for the sake of anonymity, wandered back into the section of the office where I work and was speaking to my office mates as they both worked for him at one time. Almost from the moment he came in he began spewing the most uninformed, unsubstantiated and frankly hateful gibberish about President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Democrats, liberals, progressives and virtually anyone who is not a card carrying Republican.
Now, although I label myself a progressive, I don’t believe that anyone regardless of party should get a free pass if, and only if they are legally proven to have done wrong, have blatantly lied or are thieves. I realize that politics is about differing opinions, but the things he spoke of such as the President trying to circumvent the law to stay in office for a third term, Hillary Clinton saying that she is a communist and that there are liberal abortionist out in “there” that want to kill children as old as two years under abortion law (yes I realize that this is not abortion but murder), well, you just can’t (or maybe you can) make this stuff up. There were other things said, but these were the highlights.
What makes a presumably intelligent man think this way? I frankly don’t know, but what I do know is that he is not alone in his delusion. There are many others out there, at both ends of the political spectrum that believe with all their hearts that these extremist views are fact. I find the brainwashing to be quite fascinating and at the same time disturbing.
For the sake of this country and the world, I wish that people would take the time to research things instead of taking them at face value and preaching them like gospel. I realize these are trying times for each of us and this nation, but an informed citizenry is the key to healing this divide through truth instead of rumor.
I would be interested in hearing if anybody else has experience this regardless of your political beliefs.
Thank you all for reading.
