Avoiding the echo chamber

It's real easy to only get your news from those who think like you. That's a huge mistake that will cause you to be ill prepared when reality proves to be very different than your prejudices.

Many liberals were blindsided when Trump won. They never saw it coming. Reporters interviewed people who thought like them. Very few liberal media people ever made it to the dying mill towns and rural areas that went so heavily for Trump. Liberals were shocked when Trump was able to squeak out a victory in the Electoral College.

Conservative media is currently making a similar mistake to the one the liberals made. They are in an echo chamber of their own. There's a narrative of Trump being unfairly attacked and any evidence against him is fake news.

The reality is that Trump is in trouble. His problems are serious. There may actually be something to the whole Russia thing after all. Time will tell if it is serious or not. Trump's behavior does not instill confidence. Why does he continue to fear his tax records becoming public? Every other modern presidential candidate made theirs public. His questioning of lawyers on if he can pardon himself and family members is unsettling. Why would an innocent man need a pardon?

If it comes out that Trump is or has been involved in criminal activities, a lot of conservatives are going to be caught off guard. That's an entirely possible outcome. On the other hand, liberals believe in their hearts that something criminal is going on. However, it could just be that Trump is hiding things that are personally embarrassing, but not criminal. The man is certainly vain enough to fight hard to prevent something like that from coming out. Personally, I'm going to wait, with as much patience as possible, for the Mueller report to come out.

Sifting through the news can be tough. Listening to people you don't agree with takes patience, an open mind, and plenty of work. It's not fun at all. It's much more comfortable to surround yourself with only those who think like you do. Unfortunately, that's a good way to get surprised by events. You don't have to believe in the bus to get run over by it.

It helps if you separate facts from commentary. I'm getting to the point now where I will believe only the things that can plainly be seen. If you ask me what color a house is, I'm going to say something like, well, it looks to be a yellow house -on the two sides that I can see. I won't assume the whole house is yellow.

-Sixbears