False Balance

After every election we hear the same mantra from our politicians: "now we have to work together for the good of the people." This is just one aspect of a greater truism, namely the widely held belief that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Well, it doesn't, and this "bothsidesism" is wreaking havoc on our societies.

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Especially liberal and leftist politicians and parties suffer from this debilitating tendency to want to "reach out" to their ideological and political opponents. If I had a dollar for every time Biden said he wants to "reach across the aisle", I could have bought Twitter instead of Musk. And I would have done a better job managing it as well; so would you. Nancy Pelosi, as well as other establishment Democrats, has famously said that "we need a strong Republican Party", claiming that otherwise American democracy doesn't work. Now, there is some truth to these claims. Here in Europe, where we have more than just two political parties, we know what it takes to form a majority coalition between multiple parties, and that it takes a lot of compromising to make that work. And it stands to reason that in a democracy, where millions of individuals all have their own political, social, economical and religious preferences, the political truth does end up "somewhere in the middle".

But there's limits to this. There comes a point where we have to acknowledge basic facts and have to choose a side. The above described behavior of liberals and leftists in mainstream politics has moved the Overton window steadily and surely to the right, to the point where far right and fascist forces have gained solid grounding in the public sphere. Liberals' unending efforts to compromise has caused the ratchet effect to pull them to the right. There's an easy explanation for why the move has always been to the right during my lifetime; neoliberalism and the unquestioning belief in the capitalist free market economy.

Karl Marx analyzed through the lens of dialectical and historical materialism, and he recognized that society is shaped in large part by how we transform natural resources into the products we want and need, and that the struggle between the classes formed by this interaction with the material world defines how we progress. Marx concludes that the private ownership of the means of production creates the classes (bourgeoisie and proletariat, capitalists and workers), and that the capitalists have disproportionate power to shape the ideological landscape. Modern day liberals and conservatives alike apply the dialectical method only to the ideological debate, and don't touch on the material conditions under which this debate takes place. To make it simple, liberals don't dare touch on the fact that the private ownership of news-media and social platforms create the false balance, in public and political debates, that pulls them to the right.

Oil companies have for decades funded climate change denial, for example. This has resulted in many discussions between climate change deniers and climate scientists. The mere fact that mainstream media include both viewpoints in their discussions creates the false idea that they are equally worthy of consideration. They're not; one is true and the other serves the interests of petrol capitalists. For years there's been debate between creationism and evolution theory, to the point even that courts had to rule against teaching creationism in schools. The idea that it's only fair to present both sides, and to give the public the opportunity to decide for themselves which side they choose to believe, is detrimental to progress. There's no legitimate debate about whether transgenders are child groomers; they aren't. There's no legitimate debate about whether Critical Race Theory is taught in K-12 education; it isn't. All these false debates have caused an increase in violence against LGBTQ+ people, African Americans and Asian Americans.

Most of the times only the scientific truth will do. The earth is not flat. Democrats aren't harvesting baby-blood. They're helplessly trapped in the same net of billionaire donors as Republicans, yes. And it's that net that prevents them from steering away from this awful bothsidesism, what compels them to reach across an aisle that's become increasingly toxic with wild, extremist and radical conspiracy theories. Capitalist-owned news media and social platform will suppress anti-capitalist rhetoric and opinions, and boost opinions that are beneficial to the capitalist hierarchy, the status quo that has served them so well. In times of strife, unrest and uncertainty they'll never boost the voices of those who blame capitalism; they'll rather boost the voices of those who blame other people, like immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, feminists or schools that supposedly teach CRT. This is why capitalism leads to fascism, why it's fascism's precursor. So, beware of this mantra of false balance, and watch the below linked video for a deeper dive into this subject.

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