This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
How did this happen? Yes, I mean Donald Trump. Many explanations have been put forth to help explain this constitutional crisis: Russian hacking, Hillary Clinton's email issue, the FBI's handling of this email issue, racism, etc. All had some impact. But I think a broader factor also led to our crisis.
Informational pollution in the form of talk radio, to some degree Fox News and, more recently, the internet set the stage. At the risk of sounding elitist, for over 30 years a large segment of undereducated people have been listening to half truths and hate speech. Driving around all day in service trucks or listening to shop radios that provided entertaining yet false news. Smart, good, hard-working people but they were getting all their news from biased sources and accepting simple answers.
When the internet, with alt-right web sites and fake news came along, there were many people ready to believe outrageous claims.
The government and Wall Street made mistakes and there were good reasons for criticism. But the bailout saved our economy, President Barack Obama was born in the U.S., the feds are not going to take away guns, ACA was not going to establish "death panels" and Clinton did not commit treason, etc.
The GOP played to the ultra conservative thinking, but they lost control of it. Now we have a "so-called" president using alternative facts.
As the Nazi Joseph Goebbels said: You repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it.
Ray McEvilly
Millcreek