I'll be straight up: as I've mentioned before, I've been fairly disengaged from national politics of late. I've been vaguely aware that President Trump did not concede the election and was fighting results in multiple states in court, but I haven't put any effort into obtaining that information. More recently I heard of the attack on the Capitol Building, but not because I was paying attention, mostly because people at work were talking about it the next day.
I think I've also mentioned before that I'm not a big social user at this point. I jump on Facebook and Twitter every two or three days to check my notifications (and it turns out, when you use them as little as I do, there usually aren't many notifications). I don't usually scroll, and, if I do, I don't scroll more than one or two screens without getting bored.
The two above have combined for a rather interesting experience this morning. My son is staying with his Grandma this weekend, so my time is rather open. My dogs wake every day by 6:30am whether I want them to or not, and getting back to sleep after taking the dogs out in the snow proves to be rather difficult. My wife doesn't find getting back to sleep after being awakened by rowdy dogs as difficult as I do, so she was able to stay in bed. That has left me with hours of free time and no real good idea of how to spend it.
I tried reading a bit, but I wasn't into it. I played Words With Friends until I played all the games it was my turn, and I only made it to 7:05. I did some dishes, but unloading and reloading a dishwasher takes less than 10 minutes. I've still likely got hours till the wife gets out of bed, and I don't know what to do with myself, so like any respectable adult, I turn to social media.
Man, was that a trip today.
I've got a fairly diverse group of "friends" on Facebook. My political views are certainly libertarian, but I know people from high school and college who are socialist, republican, alt right, democrat, etc. I've also got a lot of fairly apolitical friends. This is where things got really interesting.
I didn't interact with any content. I was just lurking. As I scrolled, I saw posts about how the attack on the Capitol was staged. Right below that were posts about impeaching Trump. Below that, posts about a new puppy. Then, Biden is not the real president. Then, Trump is trying to start a civil war. Then, troops sent to the capitol for the inauguration (both pro sending and anti-sending). Then a baby picture. Then a post about going hiking in the snow today.
I flipped over to Twitter, which was essentially the same thing, but also multiple complaints about Facebook going on a banning spree.
There's like, three realities happening simultaneously, and only one of them jives with what I see in meat space in my area. First reality: Biden stole this election by massive fraud of some kind (statistics like states have counted more mail in or absentee ballots then they sent out) and that the attack on the Capitol was just a plan to get Trump to concede and that it was actually carried out by Antifa. Second reality: Trump is literal Hitler trying to stage a coup to become supreme leader of America. His supporters are all white supremacist Nazi thugs who listened to their dear leader tell them to fight the power then stormed the Capitol and tried to hold lawmakers hostage, or maybe even execute them. Third reality: none of this really matters. Life is going on despite all the drama happening in Washington, and some people are capable of being happy and not worrying about whether this is the start of a civil war.
I can tell you, though I've been fairly disengaged so my opinion might be biased, that most of the real people I know in meat space are in reality three, or at least closer to that reality than either of the first two.
It certainly seems like politicians and media figures are trying to push a narrative that the country is on the brink of collapse. What I don't understand is why. Even people I know that have real disagreements on politics don't grab their guns and go into pitched battle with one another.
Is this even real? Like, are we actually on the brink of civil war, and small town western PA just doesn't give a crap? Or is the whole brinksmanship just a play to get people to tune in at a time when literally everyone in the country just wants to tune out and move on with our lives because the last year has been literal hell and we just want to be happy? What is real anymore?
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