‘Wake up people and smell the facts’

There is an expression that goes, when you die, you don’t know your dead, but your family suffers. It is the same with being stupid. The political divide makes no sense. Take Trump and his followers. Do they think he is making their life better? What are they seeing that the rest of us don’t? The Republicans continue to paint the Democrats as socialists but where are the facts? Most, but not all, Trump folks do not even know what socialism is or how it works.

How do social media companies fit in? First, social media makes its money from advertising and since they seem to encourage division by allowing groups to use their platforms to grouse about almost everything, they hand advertisers (gun makers) a list of folks who are, let’s say, 2nd Amendment people. And so on.

Social media companies pray on vulnerable people and sell their information. Discord sells stuff. I do not belong to Facebook for the sole reason that it offers me nothing, yet I would have to give them something. My personal information belongs to me, not Mark Zuckerberg. If I want pictures of my grandchildren, I can get them without Facebook.

Now the situation has gotten dangerous. Without any facts, millions of people actually believe Trump won the election. These are people that cling to imaginary facts fed to them by social media and the chorus of Trump liars. While I think the 2nd Amendment has been interpreted incorrectly, now those same idiots are armed. Do these people understand that armed insurrection is a federal crime?

Methinks they do not know that and a lot of other things. Fox and Newsmax spout the most ridiculous, unsupported and frightening opinions disguised as news. Another feature is the new division between country people versus city people, the argument being that Democrats do not respect people from small towns.

Can anyone tell me what exactly Republicans have done for people who live in small towns? Being poor is not an excuse for being stupid.

We need folks to wake up and smell the facts.

Richard W. Carrell

Morrisville