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Our country is in a terrible mess. Our president lies regularly to us, breaks the law and violates the Constitution, slashes environmental protections and government services to give tax breaks to billionaires, and announces tariffs that are likely to cause a recession. I believe he’s becoming a dictator and turning the U.S. into a land of the ultra-wealthy, by and for the ultra-wealthy.
How did we get here? I don’t blame MAGA supporters. I think they were patiently groomed by the conservative political media and the billionaires who direct them. This media figured out that if you keep repeating that someone is constantly oppressing good Americans, and you keep blaming all of our problems on that oppressor, people will get so angry that they can be easily led. They turned liberals into evil scapegoats and convinced us that it’s okay for our politicians to lie to us freely.
Remember when Donald Trump said that Joe Biden supported killing babies after their birth? They created a false reality that made people feel so victimized that they would support doing anything to overcome the power of the liberals, including dismantling our democracy.
How do we fix it? The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could impose meaningful fines on media and politicians for knowingly and persistently lying. Get money out of government. Make gerrymandering illegal. Let’s make our politicians debate and lead on the basis of facts, not lies and money.
Richard Thomas
Waterville
