Anticipating the upcoming primaries, it is only natural that I would be wondering if this election season will be any better than the last. I would hope that many past candidates are now ashamed of much of what they said and the mean-spirited tone of their attacks. Whatever happened to agreeing to disagree?
Not too long ago my I-phone dictionary app greeted me with the word of the day “malarkey! It is defined as “speech or writing designed to obscure, mislead; ‘bunkum’… as in “the claims are a lot of malarkey.”
As we prepare for a new primary season, let’s hope that there will be a minimal amount of malarkey. Processing it is a huge challenge for every media consumer. It feeds polarization and fuels extremism. When repeated over and over it is eventually accepted as true by too many partisans. And as it builds momentum it erases any chance of compromise, and can lead to hostility… and even anarchy.
What makes it worse is that technology today spreads malarkey so rapidly that many thoughtful people become overwhelmed and disgusted election dropouts. The world becomes so cluttered with conflicting information that it is often impossible for even intelligent people to distinguish fact from fiction. Therefore, too many of them are dropping out simply because they think there are no decent choices.
Every day, understanding the consequences of media revolutions is becoming more and more essential to the survival of a civil society.
Larry D. Lauer 
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