Has anyone else grown weary of personal attacks on politicians?
So many in my network have been completely sucked into the political polarization vortex, spouting vitriol about people and groups they know little about.
Republican, Democrat; Liberal, Conservative, Labour, Reform – we pick a side and then completely ignore the misgivings of our team while heaping criticism on the other side.
Such behaviour is fun and harmless when it comes to backing professional sports teams, but it is terribly harmful when it comes to politics.
Why is it all about loyalty and emotion?
Why can’t it be about integrity? Why can’t it be about facts?
Unquestioning support of disinformation-filled smear campaigns by party faithful pushes our society in an ugly direction. It is such a terrible example for today’s youth.
It is important to hold accountable political parties and their leaders, but it is counterproductive to only see the sins of one side. When we give “our party” a free pass on corruption, scandals, and lies, while ranting and raving about the other team, we are encouraging complacency and corruption in our team.
News media rivals love it when we check our brains at the door and allow the emotion-evoking headlines of the day to send us into a tizzy, sharing the latest attack ads and caustic content with our social media networks, and coming back for more tomorrow.
Of course, many of us have strong opinions on political matters, but let’s do our best to remove the vitriol while injecting facts and logic into public discourse.
If we rise above and elevate the dialogue, we all benefit.
(Rob Driscoll – BIG Media Ltd., 2025)
