During the fall of 2019, I was still a supporter of then President Trump. I had enthusiastically voted for him in 2016, and was excited by many of the things he talked about – it was thrilling to hear my viewpoint broadcast unfiltered to the masses, and there wasn’t anything the news media could do about it. Unfiltered and without any care to whether what he said was “politically correct”, it felt like a dream come true. I was so thrilled when he won the election, and laughed in derision at seeing liberals marching through the streets, with groups of people crying in despair. I was all in for Trump, and excited about his plans to Make America Great Again. I mostly downplayed the concerns that I heard in some corners of the internet – about his lack of experience, etc. I knew that presidents don’t necessarily have to be experts and that like business leaders, they know that in order to succeed they need to surround themselves with people who actually are experts. By surrounding themselves with people that they can trust they can effectively make wise and informed decisions. Besides, I figured he’d probably have the chance to add some conservative justices to the supreme court bench, and I knew that there was no chance I’d support any justices that Hilary Clinton might nominate. I typically enjoy consuming news – at the time I tried to more or less alternate between CNN and Fox news for my diet of news. For me, that reflects a change, because at earlier points in my life I tended to focus exclusively on sources like Fox News, only rarely making excursions elsewhere. I would usually do this when things I would read on Fox News would make me so mad or incredulous, I’d have to see how it was being reported elsewhere. I would wonder “how can people not care that the liberals want to do this or that? Don’t people care about this country?”. Often, the referenced articles wouldn’t have analogs on CNN, so I just assumed that CNN must be biased against the conservative viewpoint.
Trump’s first impeachment
By fall of 2019 I had started to read about undertones of an impeachment, and had heard about a phone call during which something inappropriate was allegedly done. I remember coming home from work one day and my wife wanting to know what I had heard about all this (she knows that I am a news enthusiast, and often asks me for “Reader’s Digest” versions of certain topics which she hasn’t had time to look into). I recall having to relay, with some sheepishness, that Trump had used his position of President of the United States, to withhold aid from Ukraine, and tried to leverage his power to get President Zelensky to bring about a prosecution of Joe Biden, Trump’s political foe. I felt embarrassed – this was someone who I supported, and he took the power and position that our country lent to him and used it to attempt to strongarm a country that needed our help. As an American, I was embarrassed, and as a believer, I was mortified. This was wrong, and there was no excuse for it. Interestingly, while I felt it was wrong, and felt impeachment would be a correct and good remedy if the allegations were true, it didn’t change my political affinity towards him; I would probably have no qualms about voting for him again in 2020.
I remember when the transcript summary finally came out. I figured this would put to rest whether there was any weight behind the allegations. As I read the transcript, my heart sank – what President Trump said, along with the fact that he had recently blocked aid from going to Ukraine in the period leading up to the phone call made it clear to me that he was in the wrong. I mentioned that this didn’t change my political affinity at the time. However, it did start to affect me in various ways which I don’t think I was aware of at the time. For one, my ability to honestly admit to myself that Trump had committed wrongdoing, was significant. It was born from my faith and walk as a believer, and the idea that acting with integrity matters, and covering up the truth is not acceptable. I mentioned that during this time, I consumed Fox News as well as CNN. Fox news articles during this time period (9/20/19 – 9/27/19) consistently and vigorously downplayed and minimized the situation. The big headlines on Fox News during this timeframe ranged from “This is going nowhere”, “Rudy warns Dems Ukraine-whistleblower story about to backfire on ex-veep”, “SEAN HANNITY: Breathless media mob parrots WaPo Trump story”, to “Source under scrutiny”. Those are all primary headlines from different days that week for Fox News. When the phone call transcript finally came out, underneath the giant “This is going nowhere” headline, from 9/26/19, there was a small link underneath it to a separate article, “Read the full transcript of Trump’s Ukraine call”. In contrast, the CNN articles during this time featured headlines such as : “The President’s pushback on the whistleblower makes no sense”, “White House considers releasing transcripts”, “Trump put hold on military aid before call with Ukrainian President”, “House launches impeachment inquiry”
Seeing the way that Fox News went out of its way to defend Trump rather than taking any of the allegations seriously served to erode my trust in them. You can see from the headlines that they try to deny the situation and shift blame to the accuser, rather than presenting the available information. It was clear that they had no interest in informing their readers of the facts, or of finding out whether or not the story was true. That demonstrated to me that for them, their preferred narrative and protection of their ideals were the most important concerns rather than informing people of the known facts around the situation.
I think it’s important to continually question and verify the things we believe. It’s even more important to be willing to admit when we’re wrong and to change course. There will always be room for different perspectives of a given topic, provided that the parties do so in good faith. I would argue that one element of arguing in good faith would be to consider other perspectives – but it must be done by you — it’s fine if you read/watch Fox New’s perspective on a situation or hear what they say someone has said – but once you do, you need to find the reporting from a different source – importantly, one that will not agree with your narrative. You cannot just take a summary – you need to verify that summary makes sense in light of the facts. For instance, say you become angry after being told what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said about something. Go find out what she said both before and after the excerpt that you care about. Context is king, and I can’t count how many times after finding out the context of public figures’ statements that I realized that I was upset for nothing. Also, I encourage you to use the tool that I’ve used above – it’s called WebArchive and it lets you go back in time to see what websites looked like on different dates. You will see multiple times associated with a date – this represents when people have requested that WebArchive records what was there at the time. Find an event that you know something about – then compare how different new sources decided to portray, or not portray something. The unfortunate thing that I’ve learned is that sites like Fox News, and many other sources from which conservatives gather their information do not argue in good faith. The case above is one example of it. But I continually see bad faith argumentation in the way that certain people are portrayed as villains. Next time you hear something that Nancy Pelosi has supposedly said that makes you mad, look it up from a different source – preferably from what you might consider a liberal source. Then check a more neutral source. I’m confident that if you do this, you will notice what I noticed – which is that your initial shock or anger at some reported content will dissipate. You will feel a little resentful or humbled, because you will realize that those with a differing opinion likely have at least one good point which you know is probably correct. You will also realize that what you initially read wasn’t 100% accurate. Most importantly, you will realize that just because something comes from a liberal source doesn’t mean that it can be discounted wholesale. I realize that you will now be asking whether I practice what I preach. My honest answer is: sometimes. Unfortunately, the conservative movement as it stands today makes this a waste of time, which is why I don’t do it very much anymore. I don’t believe in enlightened centrism; this only works when both sides agree to argue in good faith. What I’ve found is that the conservative mindset at large is uninterested in determining whether it is actually correct or in need of reform – rather it proceeds from the notion that it is already correct and any calls for change or introspection are to be resisted. The idea that “both sides” are not the same is a hard one to accept, and offensive to some, I’m sure. If you’re unfamiliar with this concept, I encourage you to do some reading on it. There are a lot of great discussions regarding enlightened centrism on the web. My summary of it is that just because there exists multiple opinions about an idea doesn’t mean that they are all equally valid, e.g., flat earth theory, confederate views on slavery, white supremecy, etc. Some ideas inherently have merit, and some are outrightly abhorrent. I believe that if a person is committed to arguing in good faith, it puts them in a position to speak more honestly because of the implicit goal to find the best, wisest, and most reasonable outcome. I do think that there is value to be found by engagement with conservative ideas; however, to do that, they must come to the table and agree to participate in reality over rhetoric. I hope and pray for the day when that can happen.
Merely Xtian 