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We Don’t Know — Acknowledging the Chaotic Political Moment
July, 2024. A few months until another U.S. Presidential election. The political news is a barrage. How do we stay aware without being sucked into the chaos?
I don’t know. But I know that being aware of how you take in news matters. And acknowledging we don’t know what will happen matters. And acknowledging this is a turbulent situation matters.
What if…
These two words dominate our news absorption.
The terrible things are happening. The terrible things will keep happening. Which terrible things and when? How terrible? Climate? Elections? Supreme Court? Wildfires? Authoritarianism?
I read Dave Pell’s newsletter. Sometimes I ignore the emails, but often…when I read it, I get a taste of the news without spending the hour or two to read the six articles he links to. I trust him as a source because he frames the articles with quotes and reasons for reading them. Sometimes I’ll read an article. It doesn’t bring me enlightenment, but it makes me feel a tiny bit more informed…which is the thing we all want…to be informed.
The problem with wanting to be politically informed is that there’s too much information…and so much of it right now is speculative. Polls. Commentary. Violence. Legal issues. So much of it leads to…