The search for truth is the most crucial problem in America today. Trump has a base of 35-40% support, over 90% among Republicans. The GOP has gone all-in on this cult of personality in return for tax cuts, deregulation, and conservative court appointments with the long game of overturning Roe v Wade.
By PD ScullinWednesday August 29, 2018 06:40 PM EDT
PD Scullin is a self-described Atlanta humorist, smart ass, novelist, and ex-adman. Check out PD’s blog The Lint Screen.
PD Scullin: The search for truth is the most crucial problem in America today. Trump has a base of 35-40% support, over 90% among Republicans. The GOP has gone all-in on this cult of personality in return for tax cuts, deregulation, and conservative court appointments with the long game of overturning Roe v Wade.
Trump and the GOP have their own state TV with Fox News amplifying and supporting whatever fearless leader says. Fox has excellent ratings –– apparently, many of them are Trump’s 35-40% supporters. There are also echo chambers with Breitbart, InfoWars, Drudge, Rush, and other conservative radio pundits. Trump fabricates whatever reality he wants, and any media that does not support him is “fake news.”
In Trump world, the enemies of the people are immigrants, the news media that does not support him wholeheartedly, athletes who kneel in protest during the national anthem, the European Union, perceived unfair trade practices, and whatever else strikes his fancy and might strengthen his base’s insatiable desire to hate and be victims. Trump trades in fearmongering, we are always on the brink of disaster, and HE is the only one who can save us.
The country’s biggest problem is a basic one –– allowing a strongman to determine truth and operate above the rule of law. Democracy or tyranny? That is the question.
The most critical problem facing Atlanta is transportation. MARTA must be expanded, we must alleviate traffic congestion. Other issues that need to be addressed are homelessness and political corruption.
PD Scullin: Solving the issue of truth is difficult when each person can self-select the narrative they want. The internet is a buffet line that allows any of us to gorge and construct our own cocoon of reality. The best antidote to that is honest, aggressive journalism. It is not enough to report Trump’s misstatements –– explain why it’s wrong and what the facts are. Journalism today is needed more than ever. Unfortunately, news budgets have shrunk, and most journalists are too stretched to do their jobs effectively.
There is also an inherent problem: All media loves Trump because he is the eternal car wreck that grabs attention and eyeballs … which drive up media advertising revenues. Consider the madness of any random 24-hour news cycle during the Trump presidency. It’s mind-numbing. A constant state of crisis and outrage is great for ratings, though.
PD Scullin: Grassroots activism is terrific and will be essential for change. It is too easy to live a digital life, raging through Facebook posts and nasty Tweets. But “likes” and Retweets are not going to change anything. With public protest, we instantly see we are part of a community of passionate and concerned citizens. Protest has always been the catalyst for change in America. Until we forfeit our rights, it is still a country of the people, by the people, for the people –– and people need to get off their asses and get involved or suffer the consequences. This especially includes voting. If you don’t vote, you don’t have the right to bitch.
PD Scullin: Social media is masturbatory for the most part. We go there to feel good about ourselves, to let off some steam and connect with like-minded people. We curate and broadcast our perfect lives. Ironically, the time spent on social media makes us feel worse and more alienated. Research has proved this again and again. That said, social media feels good and feels like action. It feeds dopamine rushes as we collect “likes” like lint on a wool suit, but to expect that social media will translate into real change is wishful thinking. And it can be a useful tool for manipulation and to divide us further. Life today generally boils down to only two choices –– you are a conservative or a liberal, and wedge issues are used to stimulate our reptile brains. Problems are black and white, rarely shades of gray.
PD Scullin: While I just trashed social media, it is very effective for promoting protests and spreading the buzz. Progressive organizations are also valuable resources for information, as are CL and sometimes the AJC.
PD Scullin: Get involved –– vote, protest, spread the word. Also, listen and try to understand those you don’t agree with. While you may never agree with a Trumper’s worldview, you may at least understand what drives it and find some common ground. Or not.
One of the most important problems facing Americans today is our loss of focus on living together as one nation. Because we are more divided in many ways, we are losing ground in the global landscape and will not be able to compete on a global scale if we don’t figure out how to work in accordance with one another.
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There are so many problems we’re facing, it’s overwhelming: systemic racism, sexism, ageism, inequity, homelessness, marginalization, immigration policy, school shootings/gun violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, climate change … this is an incomplete list, and I feel sick to my stomach thinking about it. Much of it stems from hatred and fear of “the other.” It feels like we’ve lost a basic sense of human decency.
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I want very badly to name the issues of poverty, wealth inequality, and class oppression, but all of these are intertwined with, and compounded by, the problem of race, difference, and grappling honestly with America’s history and identity. I have a metaphor for this process, it is a cracked egg with the yoke running long.
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Healthcare is a human right. That means ensuring that every person doesn’t just have access to health care, but has the ability to afford health care.
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Apathy towards injustice is toxic. We have become so entangled in conversational clouds on social media that we honestly feel that ‘shares’ and ‘likes’ are making a direct impact. This helps to a certain degree, but it does not solve the problems plaguing our nation today.
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The biggest problem facing Americans today is the stark difference between where we have made progress in this country under the Obama Administration and where the Trump Administration is going. With regards to the Trump Administration right now on immigration and voting rights, we believe they are moving in a direction against the values of most Americans.
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I believe that racial discord remains the most divisive issue facing Americans. It continues to suppress wages for all and promotes anger that leads to violence within the oppressed communities. Remove racist symbolism and implement long-term remedies to counter the long-term legacies of discrimination.
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Of all the global issues facing us, including biggies like climate change and nuclear war, what troubles me currently is the rise of fascism in governments around the world. This is what also troubles me about America. People are emboldened to openly discriminate and hate because our elected officials represent values of hate.
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The most important problem facing Americans today is partisan politics that removes empathy from the conversation toward compromise on the real issues that are affecting everyday Americans. Everything is viewed through the lens of tribal political division, when the solutions to most problems facing the nation can be solved through bipartisan collaboration.
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There are so many things that need to be fixed but somehow we need to stop the OTHER mentality. Trying to embrace difference — and understanding that our differences are what make us stronger — will lead to a better unity within our populations. We spend so much time hating and singling out those that are different. If we used that energy to come together we could make a better life for all of us.
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Atlanta and America have never participated in reparations for its genocide, land theft, and displacement of indigenous peoples, its kidnapping and enslavement of African peoples, or its destabilization, colonization and assassinations in other nations. So, in 2018, what we are still faced with is the displacement, incarceration, and murder of black and brown people in this city, this country, and this globe.
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The most important problem facing all of us is our increasing inability to work with and get along with those who don’t share our views. I know it’s a cliché, but “United we stand, divided we fall.”
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The most serious issue for all Americans is the very real risk of our democracy being taken away, which is happening on a daily basis. There are so many issues: racism, human rights, climate change denial, guns, income equality, lack of a universal heathcare system, police brutality, tearing refugee families apart and putting them in interment camps, our status in the world and how we interact with other nations, and a government party in charge that refuses to act in the best interest of the American people.
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The greatest problem facing USA citizens today, is how to become a global citizen without having an imperialist or colonial mentality. The greatest problem facing Atlanta today is how to move from the white and black mentality to become a multicultural city in action and not in words only.
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Greed. The only consistent measure of success is wealth. If you’re so good, so smart, so talented, why aren’t you rich? Why should anybody listen to you? You’re accomplished, but if you’re poor, you haven’t “succeeded.” Rich, therefore smart. Rich, therefore good. There’s a paucity of everything, so you’d better have dough. If you’re needy, it’s because that’s what you deserve. Loss of wealth is loss of power, loss of status.
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The most important problem is the denial of the problem. Most white people have been lulled into the myth of a “post-racial” America. Research on implicit bias and the persistence of numerous forms of institutional racism, including in the criminal justice system, demonstrate the reality of racism in 2018. A much greater threat than hate crimes and organized white supremacists is our inability to address core issues like white privilege and internalized white supremacy. We cannot progress until we have that honest reckoning. Atlanta paints itself as the city “too busy to hate,” but it’s been too busy to do the real work to begin to heal the very old wounds of its racist history.
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The most important problem facing Americans today is the pervasive ideology of white settler colonialism. By this I mean that we live with a way of thinking brought over to America that goes back as far as the English Reformation in the 16th century — the belief that God has ordained a select group of white people to claim land — regardless of who might already have been on it — as a God-given right.
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“The most important problem facing Americans today” is that we have so many problems that rotate in and out of first place that we cannot choose and therefore cannot answer the question. The second part of the question is easier (for me). Atlanta’s most important problem is a subset of a national problem.
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A decline in trust. We’re losing opportunities to get to know each other. We spend all kinds of time and money creating our own private, secluded spaces, both in the physical world and online, where we don’t have to encounter people who look or think differently than we do.
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The most urgent problem facing not just Atlanta, but all of humanity, is the fact the U.S. is now ruled by a fascist regime (Trump/Pence) set on reshaping society in a way that will be catastrophic for humanity and the planet.
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One of the most important problems facing America is the widening income inequality/economic mobility gap. For many, the “American Dream” is just that, a dream they will never realize. Many of the social and political challenges we are dealing with today stem from this problem.
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The list is long and it’s all really important. But most of the things on that list have a root cause, and I think it’s greed. People’s desire for power and wealth outweighs their humanity and their ability to see humanity in others.
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