Battling Misinformation One Conversation at a Time: Insights from a Birthday Dinner
by Annette Dion
Last December I went to dinner with a friend to celebrate my birthday. It was innocuous enough; we were just out grabbing a bite to eat at a new local eatery and having a nice time.
At some point the mention of the work I am doing day in and day out to help save democracy, for the better part of 3 years, came up. My friend is what I consider a “normal American.”
She, like most people, is very busy with her life. She also is a single mom and is not a person programmed to watch “up-to-the-minute news” about what is going on in our country in the same way that I am. It was understandable to me, for weren’t most of us in that “kind of, but not-really-paying-attention-to-our-democracy” mode, for a good portion of our lives?
The name Joe Biden came up. At this my friend scrunched up her nose as if the food placed in front of her had arrived smelling bad (it hadn’t). And she said, not exact words, but something like this, “Oh, he’s so old. He doesn’t know what he is doing. I don’t like the way he looks.”
My heart sank.
I did my best to give her some facts and to inform her of the actual grave danger we are in of losing our democracy.
I told her that Joe Biden was, in a nutshell, doing the job of not only holding our country together, but of holding the world together. I made a few points about how our President has been doing that; how he saved America from hurling into a bottomless pit of despair as we faced losing our democracy entirely.
Fortunately, my friend heard me out and said to me not to worry as she would never vote for Trump. But by that time the damage had been laid out for me to clearly bear witness to. Until I set her on the right path of actual factual information she inadvertently had been going around believing the fake and distorted “news” broadcast all over the airwaves. She obviously had heard a fair amount of snippets on the topic of “Joe Biden’s age”.
When you really think about it, how many times have we heard the three words: “Joe Biden’s age”? Even if you are a staunch, pro-active fighter for democracy, you have listened to and heeded these words, since you have heard them a LOT. It is as if Biden’s experience and truly historical achievements for Americans, holding us all together through almost inconceivable global crises and challenges; it’s as if, according the mainstream news, these things Biden is doing and has done are NOT happening!
For how else did my friend get to the point of hearing the name of our POTUS Joe Biden and only thinking about him being around the same age as a dinosaur? And nothing else?
This was LAST YEAR. Since then the misinformation has been cranked up to the level of “11”.
Lately it has reached fever pitch. This past week, with the “not the first time” mass release of a gigantic blanket of the same lines of lies about our President from right-wing owned Sinclair media, a story which my last Substack article addressed, like the matriarchal cockroach that feeds its young, (I’m sorry for the visual, but to me, it’s THAT bad), we were overrun with a deluge of malicious misinformation that had been pumped out to communities as far reaching as all the local news outlets. That’s a ton.
How often have you heard the words “Biden Crime Family?” When you think of a political family who has been in and around the White House, most of us who have been alive and awake for the past 6 to 8 years obviously would think the “Trump Crime Family”. Yet, what words have you heard more often?
How often have we heard the words “Hunter Biden’s laptop”? How about “corrupt DOJ”? “The corrupt and conflicted judge?”
Or this one, “weaponization of the justice system?” There are oh so many memes and little phrases that just hit us continuously, without ceasing. After some time we might think we are tuned out, but like my friend, because these things are repeated so often, the unsuspecting, which includes most people that you know, unfortunately go around with these ideas subconsciously rolling around in their heads.
In short, the malicious lies designed to obliterate our democracy are the ideas that are getting planted.
If it were just not that effective, and if nobody was really harmed by this constant barrage of misinformation, well, that would be one thing. But this is what we are up against, folks.
Right now as you read this, “they”, the sometimes referred to as the “Putin Republicans,” are in the process of implementing a plan for an authoritarian takeover of our beloved United States of America. They are feeding the masses all the lies to get them on board with what would destroy ALL of us, IF it happened.
I guess you could consider it something of a boon that they are telling us what their plan is. Yet, my greatest fear is that not enough people are paying attention. Not enough are taking action yet. It disturbingly right now feels like too many are, through no fault of their own, deaf and blind to what “they” are doing.
As much as I do not enjoy telling people about Project 2025 because I do not want to think about heinously unpleasant things, (I tried to toughen you up with the cockroach mention earlier…)
HERE ARE JUST A FEW POINTS OF THEIR PLAN:
What it is:
A plan to reshape the U.S. federal government to support the agenda of Republican Party president, i.e. Donald Trump. And what is in it?
A plan to strip the entire government of ALL Federal agencies. That is a lot.
Install Trump as “dictator on Day One”
Immediately gut all actions taken by the Biden administration, you know, the ones that put the most critical of American peoples’ needs first ? Those.
They want to track girls and women’s PERIODS, for god’s sake. No joke. They are saying it.
In the words of California congressman Jared Huffman, currently working to raise awareness of, and push against the fascist plan for the ongoing authoritarian takeover of America;
“Project 2025 is more than an idea, it's a dystopian plot that’s already in motion to dismantle our democratic institutions, abolish checks and balances, chip away at church-state separation, and impose a far-right agenda that infringes on basic liberties and violates public will.”
Members of what was formerly known as the Republican party are right now taking away the power of our votes by promising to make it more and more difficult to vote, and are planning to not count our votes at all, they are openly promising to not concede when their cult leader loses, again, they say they are going to go further with taking away women’s rights, they will dismantle the agencies that work to keep us safe; the DOJ, FBI and CIA, ban gay marriage, ban contraception, round up immigrants into “camps” and deport them, installing Christian extremism as the law of the land.
Horrifyingly, there’s more! I don’t want to make you feel too nauseated here, so I’ll leave you to your own devices to do a little research. The brief synopsis can be summed up with “good-bye to America and good-bye to the planet,” as their plan also includes immediately gutting any regulations that are presently in place to help keep our air and water clean. They will reverse and stop any measures that have been implemented and put in place to avert further climate disaster.
Meanwhile, here is what that “old Joe Biden” and this administration have accomplished.
The American Rescue Plan, which jumpstarted our economy and helped change the course of the COVID pandemic (remember that?)
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, restoring our roads and bridges, upgrading public transit, cleaning up pollution and providing high-speed internet to all.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act; most significant gun violence prevention legislation in 30 years.
The CHIPS Act, bringing back manufacturing from overseas and create good-paying union jobs. Companies announced almost $300 billion in new American manufacturing investments due to the CHIPS Act.
The PACT Act, the most significant expansion of benefits and services for toxic-exposed veterans in more than 30 years.
The Respect For Marriage Equality Law, protecting same-sex marriage.
The Inflation Reduction Act: landmark legislation to bring down costs for families, lower prescription drug prices, and make historic investments in American clean energy jobs and manufacturing. (Every single Republican in Congress voted against it.)
There is literally so much more that this administration has accomplished that I’m running out of room to list it all.
When we stop scrambling around, when we catch our collective breath for a minute, when we decide it is important enough to our own futures and the futures of all those we love deeply, and the country and the democracy that we cherish, we will finally see that democracy is worth it.
When future generations look back at this time and see that we answered the call; that we did what we needed to do to rise up and save our precious democracy, for THEM, it will feel real, real good to say:
Yes, WE did that.
Let’s roll.