Rein on All Fronts
By Charles Rein
March 2025

"Have you heard the latest blunder tRump made?!" my social media Democrat acquaintance messaged me.

(Now this isn't a political blog! It's a story about how our frustrations and emotions can blind us, figuratively speaking.)

"Can you explain?" I typed back.

"He's completely losing it!" She contined her rant, "I saw this Facebook post by digital creater Rachel Hurley, whom I follow. Hurley posted this." She pressed send and a red flashing siren emoji appeared.
🚨 BREAKING: Trump, visibly confused and rambling, forgot why he in the Oval Office-To swear in Tulsi Gabbard as DNI. Instead, he tried to leave without doing it, leaving even Newsmax stunned.

"Are you sure that's accurate?" I inquired, "Have you verified it with at least two other independent sources?"

"Well that's what SHE - RACHEL SAID!" she answered, unable to think outside her "Trump is bad" bubble.

I interrupted for clarification:
"Well, were you aware that two-thirds of digital content creators are publishing unverified information to millions of followers?"

"SAYS WHO???" she typed back in LARGE CAPS.

I sighed, wondering how we humans have made it this far. Should I send her the Newsweek fact check titled, Did Donald Trump Forget to Swear in Tulsi Gabbard?

While many of us think of fake news as a modern phenomena, brought about by social media, were you aware that Plato had revealed something as far back as 500 BCE? He acknowledged that human thinking was more easily shifted by using emotions than by reason. He actually described emotion and reason as two horses pulling us in opposite directions.

Fast forward to 2016. The term 'Post Truth' was declared the 2016 international word of the year by Oxford online dictionary...in which "objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals." That means feelings over facts.

Too many of us blindly follow social media personalities or digital content creators without questioning them. I think they're just creating division, but hey, that's just me. Liberals may follow political commentators like David Pakman or podcasters like Leeja Miller. Conservatives may listen to the tune of Jesse Waters or Laura Ingraham. Each of these pundits takes a grain of truth, but then like Play-Doh, they each twist and turn it in ways, in which it [no] longer resembles the truth.

A December 2016 Psychology Today, article wrote, "Peer review research shows that conservatives are generally more sensitive to threats. While this threat-bias can distort reality, fuel irrational fears, and make one more vulnerable to fear-mongering politicians" the article adds, "it could also promote hypervigilance, perhaps making one better prepared to handle an immediate threat."

In an op-ed by Kelly Sadler in The Washington Times, March 10, 2021 Sadler wrote: "There's a "challenge" at the southern border, not a "crisis." Migrant children are being held in "reception centers" not "cages." Instead of "border security," it's "border safety." I image today a politician caught in a lie would say he was "ethically challenged."

We see both sides are twisting words and definitions. But who defines those terms? Who describes what is or isn't misinformation? Who verifies the fact checkers? It may come down to each of us, perhaps temporarily stepping away from these echo chamber silos to calm down our own emotions and search for factual information; not just seeking validation of our opinions.

A few days later, my online acquaintance messaged me, "I can't find the video anymore. It's no longer there!"

I responded, "Maybe enough viewers commented that the video wasn't truly accurate and so it was taken down?"

I could imagine her voice whispering in a sarcastic tone, "Or maybe someone behind the scenes didn't allow it to stay up!"

As I got up, I thought,
"You can't convince everybody."

I sighed and logged off remembering a quote Steve Maraboli (author, athlete, speaker and veteran) had posted. It was an anonymous quote which he shared on his Facebook. "Know this. Some people will not hear you regardless of how often, how loudly, how truthfully, how lovingly or how profoundly you speak. Wish them well and move on."