An Observation

It constantly infuriates me that the election of Donald Trump has fundamentally changed the conversations we having about this country.

Specifically, we talk about things that simply aren't true as though they are.

The political media is seemingly convinced that Trump is legitimately representing some version of the United States they don't see, trapped in their little bubbles, and they're giving credence to his "American carnage" portrait based on nothing but his word and the fact that lots of people outside urban media centers voted for him.

But Trump has simply invented a version of the U.S. that is drawn from bigots' fever dreams about what the U.S. will become if a strongman doesn't take charge of shit.

And I've not seen anyone in the political press meaningfully try to tease that out, at all—the treating of conservatives' dystopian nightmares as an accurate representation of the country, or parts of it, now. It's all just presented as "different perspectives."

This is wrong. There is reality, and there are lies based on fear.

And no one should treat the latter as the former.