Burying Stories (Lies)

 

Ronald Reagan told the story about the welfare mother who had a Cadillac as an example of what was wrong with welfare. Anyone going into any slum, would not find welfare mothers cruising around in Cadillacs. Most would be struggling to make ends meet.

However, that made up story worked to create animosity toward welfare mothers.

Trump has a new favorite story about a little old lady who was hit in the back of her head with a baseball bat, He thinks horrible people, who commit acts of violence, should be deported.

These stories, usually made up, are repeated to create fear and help the teller push through bad legislation.

Reagan never told stories about women who left abusive relationships and were on welfare because they had a handicapped child and couldn't work to take care of him/her. It didn't cover the situations that many welfare recipients lived through.

Trump, when he talks about the immigrants who are criminals, drug dealers, and mental hospital escapees, doesn't talk about those Latinos, who were farmers and because of treaties, could no longer earn a living. He doesn't talk about people in Latin America where the U.S. supported a dictator after a democratically leader was assassinated with the help of the U.S. He doesn't talk about people who walked for months through horrible conditions because they thought they might have a glimmer of a chance for a better life in the U.S.

Bloomberg has reported that 90% of those sent to El Salvador have no criminal record. But that isn't part of Trump's stories about those that are now living in German concentration camp conditions.

Stories are effective, but they can also be misleading. Yes there has been welfare fraud, and yes there are criminals among some immigrants. But they are the minority and such a small part of the complete story that it warps the truth.

We need the complete story because only telling the bad, hurts too many innocent people. 

Words are part of stories so when Trump uses words like criminal, terrorist, mentally ill he creates a story that doesn't tell the major part of the story. It is like picking up a 300-page prize-winning novel and reading two pages and thinking the novel is no good because of those two pages.

It is worse if someone lies about those two pages over and over and over. To watch the press secretary stand there and magnify the lies for example saying Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a terrorist is inexcusable.

I'm not comparing Reagan with Trump, but both men used the story-telling method to whip up false narratives that hurt others.

It would be wonderful if all lies that pass as true stories were buried, leaving room for true stories or good stories.

Check D-L's website https://dlnelsonwriter.com