Misinformation is going to make me insane. And yes, it is a very short trip.
Regular visitors to this column might suspect I'm referring to the stream of baloney coming from the rightward end of our political spectrum.
Or maybe I'm talking about the incessant elephant droppings from paid provocateurs working to destabilize our country, sewing doubt for our most vital institutions. Troll farms are real.
But honest observation of the junk that comes across any social media news feed prove it doesn't all come from the right end.
Our political spectrum isn't a flat horizontal line, but a circle. The extreme ends of our national debates have more in common with each other than they do with the political middle.
Don't believe me? Lay the same truth on a Trumpet and a Bernie Bro and see what happens. Either is just as likely to hit you with a dizzying array of conspiracy theories that make an MC Escher illustration look like a cave drawing.
It's not easy for me to type this because I'm a Bernie guy. I admire his determination and his vision for a country that works for all of its people, not just the more fortunate in wealth and birth. He's pulled the Democratic party back toward the left where its strengths are. He's inspired more people to step into the polical arena. These are great things, even if he isn't the democratic nominee for president.
This leads me to this past Monday when I was confronted by a timeline full of voter suppression memes. First, let's say voter suppression is quite real and being practiced in this country. Unfortunately, that's where the truth ends and the spin begins.
This set of memes and tweets were attacking Kentucky, the state you and I vote in. You know, the one that couldnt' get 20% out for a gubernatorial primary last year.
More importantly, it's the state that, through actual bipartisan cooperation, had opened up absentee voting and early voting for everyone. A state that had contacted every registered voter early to give them the options for safely voting in a primary during a pandemic.
But no. According to the tweets and memes, there was one poll open for 600,000 people. That's the number of registered voters in the Louisville area. There was no mention of early voting, no mention of absentee ballot voting, and certainly no mention that, of those 600,000, only 133,000 showed up for the last primary.
These memes and tweets were picked up by national news, including sources I depend on for reliability. Not one of them had checked the information with Kentucky sources, they simply ran with it.
On Tuesday Kentucky had the highest participation in a primary in memory. Once the votes are counted we may have doubled turnout for the last primary. But the Bernie Bros were still sharing voter suppression memes based on a picture of 10 people banging on the doors after the polls had closed in Louisville.
It's confusing and frustrating, but I know what would make me feel better. If you really want to stop voter suppression in Kentucky, fight for open primaries. Imagine the turnouts if all our voters, not just the club members, could take part in determining the candidates for the general election.