From another message board describing how modern conservative politics is destroying TRUTH in America, and why it's so dangerous for our democracy when Trump calls the media 'fake news'.
" And this is how the truth dies. There's a yellow car, so when asked about what color the car is, the honest man says yellow. Meanwhile, the liar screams about how everybody is being deceived and claims the car is blue. And the people? Some take sides, but most think it must be somewhere in between, and so it becomes widely accepted that the car is some tint of green.
And how do you compete with this? As long as you stick with the truth and the other guy lies and exaggerates, the compromise position is always going to be in his favor.
And if you also lie and exaggerate, and maybe say that the car is red (two steps away from yellow on the other side of the spectrum), you've sacrificed the truth, and every issue becomes nothing more than a my-team-vs.your-team conflict without any basis in reality. And besides, rather than red and blue averaging out to yellow in people's minds, it's more likely they'll average out to purple, which is even further away from the true color of yellow.
Fake and blatantly partisan news has done great damage to our country, as recently more legitimate news sources are content to treat partisan propagandists with the same deference as legitimate experts, giving them credibility that they do not deserve.
"Here representing science, Dr. Emerson Clarke, an astrophysicist from MIT, claims the Earth is round. And here to represent the opposing viewpoint, Gary Brown, a religious scholar and an outspoken critic of the scientific community, claims the Earth is flat. So which is it? They'll debate the topic and we'll let you decide."
There aren't two legitimate sides to everything, and when you present them as if there are, you're back to a yellow car / blue car scenario."
