There’s something that always irritates me and of course it happens every day and no matter how hard I try, I can’t avoid it. This occurs on every news channel and every politically oriented podcast (even some that aren’t particularly politically oriented). You’ve heard this too, even if you never watch or listen to anything that is the slightest political. For me it’s when, especially in politically oriented media, a person uses the phrase all Americans, or all of America. I always question how this is known. Is there a poll? Well, sometimes there’ll be a mention of a poll but I’ve never seen one where 100% of American voters, either registered or likely, agree on anything. There’s always going to be a majority of sorts, but none at 100%.

Of course, polls are no better. Remember the 2016 election? A lot of local, state, and federal elections have not always gone theway pollsters predict. In a “perfect world, we’d havea pretty good idea about what our fellow citizens believed about any topic but even the media, who seem to be addicted to these, realize people will not always answer honestly, skewing a poll one way or another. That’s why there’a always a “plus or minus” percentage associated. Of course, that doesn’t alway account for all of the fraudulent answers. Even with all that, the media is intent on dragging the public through what is sometimes wishful thinking. On their part.

It really is up to us as consumers of news to be able to discern truth for wishful thinking. It happens on both sides, liberal and conservative. How many times do we see our favorite news channel pick a particular polling company that shows polling on an issue in favor of the audience the channel is seeking/trying to keep? Then, the next time we see a poll on the same issue, a different pollster is used because the one used in the past somehow didn’t have the outcome the news channel was seeking?

Ir you’re not understanding what i am getting at, it is that we are being manipulated to believe what we are told is right, based somewhat on our own opinions, but reinforced with unconformable data that does nothing to elucidate any issue or policy. “We are right, you are wrong”, is what is being sought. Look at the recent “protests” in Minnesota. Many people there knew for certain that the federal agents if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) were evil but could not tell you why. Some were under the impression that this federal agency were arresting people without a judicial warrant, going into schools arresting children, and arresting people who were not the criminals they were supposedly looking to remove from the streets. None of this was true but it was hard to fond this in the media, unless you were specifically watching conservative TV and even then, these were mainly apologists for the government, not people who could speak to any of these charges legitimately. It was true that people were being arrested that were not the criminals being sought, but these were illegals as well and if a policeman goes to arrest a rapist and comes across a burglar, does he let the burglar go? Of course not.

And this is where we are failed in attempting to get the truth from an industry that was at one time, dedicated to just that. Instead we hear jargon from paid politicos on various TV shows that effort to convince the ever shrinking audience that the other side is evil or stupid and so we look for what we believe is truth in other places.