FBEL – Rumors

So everyone occasionally shares a rumor. Most of us catch onto a good one and speculate among ourselves, making sure everyone we talk to understands IT IS A RUMOR. Rumors are not truth, and I suspect that everyone on Vine of Liberty and most conservatives are quite aware of that fact. Liberals in general and Democrats in particular are less sure of this distinction.

Rumors I have heard this week on social media:

• Trump is dead.
• Trump is being defeated in the courts.
• Trump is giving massive tax cuts to the rich and forcing the poor to pay for everything.
• Able bodied people dumped off of food stamps and other gov’t funded charities will die.
• Republicans are racist, homophobic (and/or hate gay people), misogynistic, etc.
• JK Rawlings is a racist, homophobe, etc.
• Trans people are dying because of Trump’s rules and laws.
• Gay people are losing their rights.
• Trans people are losing their rights.
• People of any ancestry other than “white” are losing their rights.
• Women are losing their rights.
• We’re on track to be in an episode of The Handmaid’s Tale.

I could go on, but I know you’ve heard it all before, too. And I could sit here and refute most of the above without even having to look stuff up, but why bother? Even when I present factual, irrefutable proof that their rumors are actually untrue, they continue to believe.

Most of the rumors I hear are bullshit, and I treat them as such. I just skim onward, ignoring them. There’s simply no point in giving them any traction, and there’s no way to weed them out. They’re teflon, because people on the Left have such strong belief that it’s … well, unbelievable.

And then there’s the recent set of rumors (I refuse to call them facts, but I have no other word to use, so we’re going with “rumors”) that Pew has put out. I’m disappointed in them, by the by. I normally consider their stuff to be not too bad, but this really got me.

They did a survey of Americans, asking what their opinions were on the economy, and a variety of economic factors. Now, even red states have a low view of the current economy in certain areas, because we’re recovering from four years of Liberal spending and waste. That’s to be expected. But the headlines that came out of it was stuff like “Economic failure in sight!” and “Trump’s Economy Problem is Threatening his Entire Agenda.”

The Left is all excited that Trump is apparently disliked by most people. They miss that the polls only polled people who would answer a certain way. The outcome is one of opinion, not fact. Someone a few weeks ago was explaining (mansplaining) to me that the economy was shite, that everything was becoming so expensive that it wasn’t affordable to eat, businesses were failing, and the world was going to sink under massive debt. I looked over at the lowest gas prices I’ve seen in years, and the cost (expensive but affordable) of the sushi dinner I had with my partner last week, and how the price of my groceries has dipped by about a third since Trump came into office. I tried to explain that to the person, but was rebuffed. I don’t understand economics, they said. They’re correct that I’m not great with economics, but I know how to make a budget and I know I’m coming in UNDER budget for most things for the first time in years. So… I guess they don’t understand economics either.

Everything presented by the Left lately is based on opinion. Now the Right does that sometimes too, but most of the time the Right manages to rightly label something as opinion. They don’t put opinion out as if it’s fact. They don’t say the economy is bad because people think it’s bad. That is literally what’s happening right now on the Left. They can’t point to facts to show how bad things are going, so they’re polling people who are “proving septum ring theory” and presenting it as fact. By that, I mean that they’re proving that septum ring theory is correct.

I’m tired, folks. I’m worried about a lot of things. I’m worried about vaccines (because I know most vaccines work and I don’t want to see the baby thrown out with the bath water). I’m worried about the economy (because if Vance doesn’t get in for 2028, the economy is going to circle the drain). I’m worried about books in schools (while I don’t see anyone banning any books, I do wish some books were more readily available in schools and I worry that the Karens of the world will spoil school libraries for everyone). I’m worried about the posting of Christian-only religious materials in public schools (because I’ve long held the opinion that either it’s “everyone gets to” or “NO ONE gets to”). I’m worried about the next generation being able to manage the world (because other than the few successful kids I personally know, all I see out there are slackers who think that working more than 7 hours in a day is some kind of abuse, and they’re damn vocal about it). I’m worried that the ideal of personal success is gone. I’m tired, and I’m worried. The rumors don’t help; they make it worse.