I design software systems. A thing I've learned in my years of experience is to keep things simple. I like to tell people, "if it's too difficult, you're doing it wrong".
In many situations, things that seem confusing don't pass the "logic test". These are things that go on behind the scenes in my brain to determine if something on the news make sense. It saves me a lot of time researching articles to see if they are true or false. With the enormous popularity of both Twitter and Facebook, my "logic test" gets a lot of work! I wish there's a way I could teach people the trick.
I'm convinced there are quite a number of people who post on Facebook just to piss other people off. It's like a game. There are quite a number of people who post increasingly outrageous stories hoping to get "flagged". It's like a challenge to get a post flagged by Facebook. There are quite a number of people who post increasingly risque pictures in an attempt to get thrown into Facebook jail. There are a large number of people who are staunch Democrats. There are a large number of people who are staunch Republicans. There are, of course, people who are combinations of the above. And, let's not forget the lurkers.
All of these people are my friends. There are only a few lines I have that you can't cross. One is talking about my family. One is being obviously racist. I say obviously because I've seen people be accidentally racist, but that's not what this is about.
President Trump did not do a bad job as president. He wasn't my favorite. In fact, after last week, I'd say he is my least favorite. But, he kept us out of wars. The economy was doing gang busters. My taxes went noticeably down (I'm not sure if that means I'm rich or not). He could have easily won the re-election if he could have done one "simple" thing: kept his mouth shut. I got so tired of the news blasting him that I started following him on Twitter. I was startled to discover that following him on Twitter is worse. He comes across as a pathetic, whiny, egotistical, six year old. It made no logical sense.
When I first started following him, I thought, "he's doing this because he doesn't want to be president". I fully expected him to resign and let Pence take over. It was the only logical explanation. As I saw his angry mob grow and grow, and some of my friends even left Facebook, I questioned my logic. There must be something I don't fully understand. I tried to put myself in their shoes. Only thing I can think of is there are a large number of Americans who truly hate the government. Trump also hates the government. Since he continued to hate the government as President, he is now their hero.
Andrew Yang (one of the Democrats who somehow lost to Joe) said (and I might be paraphrasing), "We don't need to get rid of Trump, we need to fix what got Trump elected." Hatred of the government got Trump elected. I don't see Joe fixing this. I hope he does. But, I'm afraid it will be similar to hoping Obama fixed healthcare and instead making it worse (I'm not a fan of being forced to buy insurance when the insurance industry it likely largely what's wrong with healthcare).
Simple solution to fixing millions of Americans hatred of the government? Remove the party system. Make it illegal. Let up to 10 people run for President. Heck, let up to 20 people run for President. Don't put a limit. Each state can vote for their candidate. The 10 candidates with the most votes have a run off. Do ranked voting (look it up). Don't do ranked voting. The states can still vote for their candidate, but not along party lines. Fix donations. Don't allow any more than $10 to be donated by any one tax id number. It's all simple.
As long as we have two sides there will be division in the government and people will hate the government. If you hate about half of something you still hate it.
Remember what George Washington said so long ago in his farewell address:
"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."
President Washington, we almost got there this year. Wish us luck that we can fix it.
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