Information Warfare

 It seemingly has become a way of life in America. False news and disinformation are everywhere. The recent election demonstrated the effectiveness of the false news agencies in convincing Americans that we, as a country and a society, are bottom barrel and trash. 

If a majority believe it, it must be true--right? Not so. It remains not true, but the following information does demonstrate how disinformation affected the election outcome.

There is data from a Reuters/Ipsos poll in October that shows just how damaging the information gap is. People who are in possession of truthful, accurate information voted overwhelmingly for Harris. In other words, if you believed violent crime in major American cities was at an all-time high—which is not true—you were far more likely to vote Republican. Voters who knew that inflation had declined over the last year and was close to historic averages were +53 Democratic votes. Perhaps most disturbingly, people who did not have truthful information about undocumented people crossing the southern border were more likely to vote Republican.

(Civil Discourse)

If Americans were making decisions based upon disinformation then who won the election? Well, that does not change, but America will change. 

I am a bit frightened because our president-elect has stated that he will fulfill every promise he made. 

We can't afford them. And I thought Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?

Figure 1 summarizes Trump’s campaign promises and their corresponding revenue estimates (collected by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget).

(Forbes)

And so it begins. The sad thing is that the people who elected him will be the ones who may suffer most. BTW, I heard him say something like that in a campaign speech.

Almost every economic policy Trump proposes would, at best, do little for the middle and working classes and, at worst, outright harm them. To take one example, among the random suggestions Trump has made is to make car insurance interest tax deductible. But that would only benefit you if you already itemize your deductions, and only 10% of taxpayers itemize, most of whom are wealthier. The rest of us take the standard deduction, which was significantly increased in that 2017 tax cut Trump wants to extend.  (MSNBC)

Well, the ride into misty future has already begun.

-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL