Vivaldi - 2025-03-24 at 19

One of the unfortunate stories being written and rewritten lately is about how (wait for it), liberals/progressives/"the left" are in an information bubble because they've forsaken Twitter and canceled their subscriptions to the Washington Post. Supposedly, people like me are out of touch with the majority of voters in the country because I choose not to consume news that's controlled by people with a vested interest in the success of MAGA — meaning Elon Musk, the Murdoch family, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and their billionaire cohort. Many of the ostensibly centrist journalists who fret about the poor misinformed leftists are actually just peeved that the social media following they labored to build on Twitter over the past decade has deserted them. It's just not fair. Besides, it would be a lot of work to start over somewhere else.

Needless to say, I think these people are full of shit. MAGA has been running the country for less than 100 days and already ABC, CBS, and Meta have settled frivolous lawsuits initiated by the US president rather than stand their ground in the face of his threats. A good part of my upbringing occurred while my step-father worked as a journalist. I have long supported and admired the underpaid and overworked people who bring us the news, but that feeling is ebbing in the modern era. The industry hasn't handled the way the country has been reshaped. It's still in the habit of framing arguments as if both sides have merit, even when one of those sides is batshit crazy, racist, misogynistic and incoherent. The word "sanewashing" had to be invented to describe what once respected outlets like the New York Times does to present Donald Trump as if he weren't a crazy person. Even Fox News cuts away from his live speeches to keep from showing the nonsensical, incoherent imbecile that he truly is.

Until lately, most Americans were in agreement that the Civil Rights Movement was a well managed and courageous era in American history. A non-violent crusade of moral righteousness prevailed over hatred and bigotry and racial hatred, murder, and bombings. What's not often discussed is how much disapproval people like MLK faced in their time. When Kind was killed, he was among the most-disliked men in the country. The majority of white people did not agree with the tactics of the Freedom Riders and those conducting sit-ins at lunch counters. In hindsight, we can see that the majority were wrong. The minority were right. The same holds true today. The hateful MAGA policies of 2025 are wrong. The belief of the minority in justice, a social safety net and equal rights is as morally righteous as it has always been.

I do not need to understand in great detail why straight conservatives want to turn back the clock on the LGBT community. I don't need an explanation or justification for mean-spirited immigration enforcement that now includes deportation and incarceration without a hearing, straight into a third world prison cell. I do not need some fancy-pants journo to explain the country I've lived in for the last six decades to me FFS.

What people who accuse the left of being in a bubble fail to consider is that we live in the same damn country they do. We see the same things they see. We pay the same prices at the grocery store. We fill out applications for the same jobs. I live in a purple state with a Democratic governor and attorney general who I admire as they try to protect me from the fire hose of WTF in Washington. There are millions and millions of us, and we know exactly what is happening without having to watch Fox News or have the paid employees of the billionaires break it down for us. We know how our neighbors feel. We hear them. We just think they're wrong.

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