The Taint

With the recent trend toward tweetstorms and manthreads, it was nice to see something published by a news organization that included truth-telling. Paul Krugman wrote an op-ed for the New York Times entitled "The Tainted Election", stating:

In other words, nothing that happened on Election Day or is happening now is normal. Democratic norms have been and continue to be violated, and anyone who refuses to acknowledge this reality is, in effect, complicit in the degradation of our republic. This president will have a lot of legal authority, which must be respected. But beyond that, nothing: he doesn’t deserve deference, he doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.

and

But we ought to be able to look both forward and back, to criticize both the way Mr. Trump gained power and the way he uses it. Personally, I’m still figuring out how to keep my anger simmering — letting it boil over won’t do any good, but it shouldn’t be allowed to cool. This election was an outrage, and we should never forget it.

As I struggle with the same conundrum of how to keep my own anger and fear at a useful level, I am reminded of a article I recently read at Teen Vogue of all places. My response (tweet) after reading it should help me simmer for a good long while:

The future is dependent on our ability to tell fact from fiction: keep your contacts honest, check your sources, and share with care.

This is no simple task and one that will be very tiring for those of us charged (even if only personally) with sacrificing our time and energy to accomplish it. However, fact-checking and truth-telling are now more important than ever as Russia's involvement in our election cycle becomes more apparent (Source: Reuters); the people the president-elect surrounds himself gets more shady (Source: The Atlantic) and underqualified (Source: The Washington Post); and the president-elect's conflicts of interest continue to be a major constitutional concern (Source: Newsweek).

Expect many more posts with a variety of well-sourced material as time marches irrevocably forward.