She asks me:
How did Putin mess with our election?
I reply:
I reflected on all of this in the shower and came to the realization that it seems we all keep blaming one group for 100% of the responsibility for something happening. I have been guilty of giving Putin the overwhelming share of the credit when there were many many factors at play from many people, including myself. I told myself that if Donald Trump won the primary, that I would get into politics and help the Democratic candidate win. I didn’t do that and I feel regret and guilt that I didn’t follow through with myself.
That being said, after the election, I researched a ton and learned more and more about disinformation. The word itself comes from Russian, as it was a technique used by the Soviets. The US government even had a department designed explicitly to counter these “active measures” by the Soviets. Disinformation is also something that American companies have used and I’m sure many more humans throughout human history. It pretty much is just seeding doubt in order to break people’s trust in other things. It seems to often come in forms of personal attack, discrediting one side to say that they are untrustworthy.
I believe the DNC hack helped to destroy the trust that Bernie supporters had in the Democratic party, and more so, in Hillary Clinton (I wanted Bernie to win as well). I don’t know who did it, but it happened and it seemed to destroy trust. I believe that the fake news destroyed trust in mainstream media and social media. I believe the mainstream media has destroyed trust by being more focused on click-bait worthy headlines and fast-to-publish articles than rigorous investigation. I believe Donald Trump has destroyed trust in “Crooked Hillary”, “Lyin Ted”, the “rigged media”, the “rigged election”, and anybody else who crosses him.
I don’t think these people destroy trust on purpose. Some may use disinformation intentionally and I still believe there’s something beneath that: they feel hurt and therefore hurt others. I believe Trump doesn’t trust many people. I believe he has been betrayed many times in his life and instead of forgiving those people, he has attacked them. I believe Hillary has been betrayed many times in her life. Instead of forgiving those people, she has attacked them. I believe Putin has been betrayed more than most, and same thing. I think they, like most humans, including myself, want to seek revenge.
I believe we actually feel self-betrayal. That we trusted ourselves to to do well in the world and we messed it up. And that we let ourselves down. And that we don’t forgive ourselves and hold that self-resentment often until we die or something else breaks us open.
Do I think Putin has seeded our media with stories that seed distrust in our society and has done so possibly since 2011? Yes. Do I think we should retaliate and punish him? No.
I think we should forgive ourselves. In this case, that means forgiving myself for not helping out the Democrats in an active way. I was trying my best to make it in this world, and to grow my business and make my family proud. I want to do that so that I can trust myself again.
I believe that we should trust ourselves again and get back to joy so that we don’t continue to escalate distrust in the world. I like trusting myself. I like trusting my neighbors. I like trusting my president. I like trusting humans around the world. It feels good.
What about you?
(originally posted on Facebook while replying in a friend’s feed)