“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.” ~ Mark Twain

Denial is the mind’s way of refusing an uncomfortable reality in order to avoid anxiety, pain, or overwhelm. It can soften the blow in the short term, but over time it stalls growth, blocks necessary action, and deepens the very trouble it tries to keep at bay.

This article has been percolating for a while. This morning, it boiled over….

By now, you know my morning routine: a couple of cups of coffee and a scan of the online news feeds. I try to be fair and look at all sides, but not everything fits neatly into partisan camps without a good deal of fiddling and spin. What infuriates me most is our habit of blaming others for problems we created – or conjured out of thin air.

Take climate change. What some call “climate panic” or “climate alarmism” grows out of a broader effort by scientists, activists, and media figures to communicate the scale of environmental risk and jolt political complacency. Mainstream science emphasizes the reality of global warming; critics argue that some of the rhetoric around it becomes exaggerated or engineered.

Climate change moves slowly and lacks an immediate, visible enemy. Proponents of catastrophic language argue that raising the alarm is psychologically necessary to motivate action. Critics counter that media outlets often prioritize extreme, worst-case scenarios over long-term adaptation. Constant exposure to imagery of wildfires and floods can heighten distress, and social media algorithms amplify high-emotion content, making existential dread and “doomism” more prevalent among younger, highly connected audiences.

The underlying data come from real observations of the Earth, but those datasets are often adjusted before publication to account for known measurement and record-keeping issues. Supporters say those adjustments improve accuracy and comparability; critics argue that they can also shape the story the numbers seem to tell.

Isn’t this what we always do? We create a problem that fits our needs, finagle the data to support it, then blame a convenient adversary. We’ve turned it into an industry – the Misinformation Industrial Complex (MIC). It pairs perfectly with Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD).

FUD is a manipulation tactic. It shapes perception, sways decisions, and drives panic. By spreading negative, exaggerated, or misleading information, its practitioners make people second-guess their choices. In politics, it becomes a weapon for warfare, electioneering, and public compliance.

FUD fabricates reality by using a grain of truth, spin, and deception.

Fear is often fact-based because it triggers real, vivid human anxiety about losing money, jobs, or safety.

Uncertainty concerns the future because no one can predict it with certainty. It plays on the phrase “What if?”

Doubt mixes real facts with an unprovable, terrifying prediction of the future, and it makes you question your own data and logic.

Outright lies don’t work because they are easily checked. FUD prefers insinuations.

IBM and Amdahl offer a classic example. In the 1970s, Amdahl developed a computer that outperformed IBM’s market-leading mainframe in both cost and performance. IBM countered the threat by creating fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about the newcomer’s stability, ultimately pushing customers to stick with the established, albeit inferior, product.

A prominent example of government-level FUD is the years-long cycle of “China Banning Bitcoin” headlines. It shows how a state can weaponize economic policy announcements to spark global panic, alter market behavior, and suppress technologies it views as threats. Rather than quietly enforcing domestic banking rules, the Chinese government has repeatedly issued dramatic public statements about suppressing or criminalizing crypto transactions (notably in 2013, 2017, and 2021, with continued reports of renewed enforcement and policy hardening in 2025).

I want to be specific and honest. I see far less fairness and balance in modern reporting than I once did. I remember the news from my early years, and I’ve pulled up recordings of those broadcasts for comparison. I’m ashamed of what passes for news in modern Merka. Too often, it reads like propaganda, excuses, and criticism, with advertising salted in for flavor and convenient transitions in the bunkum blitzkrieg. Yes, bits of real information are inserted to maintain appearances and satisfy federal licensing agreements, but that’s not why we’re here.

Citizens look to government to set a standard. Why wouldn’t we absorb its worst habits? It bends the truth often enough. And it points an accusing finger at the innocent – at each other. Why wouldn’t we follow suit?

Here’s an example I just heard: “That product is unavailable because of Mr. Trump’s tariffs…”

What’s wrong with something simply not being available? Why must we blame someone? Isn’t market availability enough? Must we always have a reason – and will that reason make the thing appear, or only soften the blow? If the answer is no, what does replaying the question change? Has it ever?

Out of curiosity, I opened a web browser and asked whether that product was available and where it could be purchased. The answer was yes, and several sources were listed. I didn’t pursue it any further because I didn’t want to share more personal details, and the only way to prove availability was to place an order. I didn’t. Remember that browsers use stored (cached) information, so it may have been available at some point in the past. I use this example to stress the point above: we’ll instantly blame someone or something to justify or protect ourselves.

Why must we hold someone responsible?

This commentary is about how we retreat into denial and blame when we don’t want to face the music.

We look for someone to blame because blame relieves pain and restores a false sense of control. When things go wrong, the brain often chooses emotional safety over objective logic, making finger-pointing feel less like a choice than a reflex.

Why do we do it? For a few familiar reasons.

– Discharges pain: Anger serves as an immediate release valve for uncomfortable emotions.

– Protects our ego: Deflecting blame shields us from guilt, failure, or shame.

– Creates control: Identifying a culprit makes a chaotic, random world feel predictable.

– Avoids accountability: Pointing fingers is easier than admitting mistakes and making changes.

– Simplifies reality: Our brains prefer clear heroes and villains to complex situations.

At the government level, the same habit explains why political systems so often spend more energy assigning blame than fixing what is broken.

At the institutional level, it tends to show up in five familiar ways:

– Weaponized deflection: Politicians point fingers at opponents to protect their careers and to secure re-election.

– Symbolic scapegoating: Governments sacrifice individual officials during crises to create an illusion of control.

– Simplified rhetoric: Campaigns reduce complex societal issues to easy-to-digest “villains” to win votes.

– Diffused accountability: Bureaucracy and red tape are used to spread out fault so no single person takes the hit.

– Perpetual gridlock: Systems spend more energy managing public perception than solving complex, multi-layered problems.

If you want to break the cycle – whether in government, an organization, or your own life – the focus has to shift from fault for the past to responsibility for what comes next. That change asks something of institutions, citizens, and individuals alike:

– Institutions: Reward transparency, use independent watchdogs for “no-blame” problem-solving, and eliminate incentives for political mudslinging.

– Citizens: Reject oversimplified narratives, tune out echo chambers, and demand concrete action plans rather than finger-pointing.

– Individuals: Pause the initial reflex to attack, identify personal vulnerabilities, and use future-focused language to solve problems.

Here’s a popular modern Merkan sport: Bashing the President.

Bashing the president isn’t new or unusual; it’s been done since the beginning of this republic. It’s a national partisan pastime, which tells us that finding fault and criticizing are not unique to the 21st century; it’s as old as humanity itself.

Trump bashing is a defining feature of modern political discourse, driven by intense polarization, media incentives, and his norm-breaking style. A lot fuels it. Here are a few reasons:

Political Drivers

– Deep partisan polarization: Hyper-partisanship turns political figures into symbols in existential cultural battles.

– Norm-shattering rhetoric: His direct defiance of traditional political decorum draws constant media scrutiny.

– High-stakes policy battles: Decisions on judicial appointments, immigration, and trade elicit strong systemic opposition.

Economic and Media Incentives

– The “Trump Bump”: Media outlets find that content focused on him consistently maximizes audience engagement.

– Algorithmic amplification: Digital platforms reward outrage and conflict, driving advertising revenues.

– Targeted monetization: Outlets cater directly to polarized audiences, securing steady subscriber growth.

Social Mechanics

– In-group signaling: Criticizing a polarizing figure reinforces shared values within specific social circles.

– Moral sorting: Public opposition serves as a visible marker of political identity and social belonging.

– Low-barrier engagement: Digital media transforms complex policy debates into easily shareable, viral content.

Trump remains a central figure in political criticism for three broad reasons:

– Polarization: He embodies deep cultural and political divisions.

– Media Profits: Stories about him drive high audience engagement and ad revenue.

– Social Identity: Criticizing him serves as a public signal of shared political values.

The intense polarization and media fixation surrounding Donald Trump trap the country in a cycle of distrust and division. It paralyzes legislation, pits neighbors against one another, and locks citizens into separate media realities where compromise becomes nearly impossible. The result is a volatile political landscape in which federal policies lurch with each election, weakening America’s stability and democratic health.

In daily American life and governance, this hyper-partisan environment shows up as a breakdown of shared cultural and political space. In Washington, governance has shifted from legislative compromise to weaponized investigations and retaliatory political maneuvers, driving moderate lawmakers out of office and paralyzing the political center. Outside government, the same division has led to geographic sorting, with citizens increasingly choosing to live in communities that mirror their political beliefs, and to a corporate culture war in which everyday purchasing decisions become ideological statements. Ultimately, that friction has altered basic communication, leaving the country with two distinct political camps that use different vocabularies to describe the same national realities.

This cultural friction reshapes everyday, non-political American life by affecting personal relationships, workplace environments, and consumer habits. At home, family gatherings and long-term friendships increasingly fracture or dissolve over ideological disagreements, while online daters openly ‘filter out’ romantic partners who do not share their exact worldviews.

In the professional world, office dynamics grow tense, prompting human resources departments to implement stricter workplace speech guidelines, while job seekers increasingly choose employers whose corporate values mirror their own.

Even routine commercial choices, such as where to buy groceries, coffee, or clothing, now serve as subtle declarations of identity, turning everyday shopping into a minefield of potential corporate boycotts. Ultimately, this deep division hollows out traditionally neutral community spaces, such as local charities, civic groups, and recreational sports leagues, leaving fewer places for Americans with differing viewpoints to simply interact as neighbors.

~ The Media ~

The mainstream media accelerates this hyper-partisan environment by prioritizing sensationalism, conflict, and ideological alignment in the name of financial survival. In a fragmented digital marketplace, traditional outlets have largely abandoned broad, neutral reporting for a subscription-and-retention model that caters directly to pre-existing biases.

By framing complex national debates as high-stakes binary battles and leaning on outrage-driven headlines, the press helps create information silos that validate one side while demonizing the other. That cycle deepens distrust in journalism as an objective institution and leaves the public with two rival versions of reality, each convinced the other is illegitimate.

The mainstream media’s shift toward hyper-partisanship accelerated in the late 1980s and 1990s, driven by changes in federal broadcasting rules and the rise of 24-hour cable news. A major turning point came in 1987, when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) abolished the Fairness Doctrine, freeing broadcasters from the requirement to present contrasting viewpoints on controversial issues. That decision helped energize the rise of conservative talk radio in the late 1980s, followed by the launches of Fox News and MSNBC in 1996, which showed how profitable ideologically driven news could be (Britannica, “Fairness Doctrine”; Fox News, “Fox News Channel celebrates 25 years on the air”).

By the mid-2000s, the rise of high-speed internet and social media algorithms had transformed this partisan approach from a business strategy into a financial necessity. To survive in a hyper-competitive digital attention economy, outlets abandoned broad, centrist audiences in favor of niche, highly passionate subscriber bases, cementing the polarized media landscape seen today.

Today’s hyper-partisan landscape stems from a multi-decade convergence of media fragmentation, partisan sorting, and structural electoral incentives. The shift from unified nightly broadcasts to algorithm-driven social media and niche cable networks has created distinct ideological echo chambers that thrive on outrage and confirmation bias.

At the same time, political parties have realigned geographically and culturally, making party affiliation a core “mega-identity” fueled by an emotional dislike of the opposition. These psychological dynamics are reinforced by structural flaws, including uncompetitive, gerrymandered districts that punish political compromise, close congressional majorities that turn governance into a zero-sum game, and campaign finance rules that favor polarizing candidates.

Social media algorithms deepen echo chambers because they reward engagement more than diversity of thought. They watch what keeps people staring, scrolling, pausing, and sharing, then feed them more of whatever triggers outrage, fear, or moral certainty.

That data is then used to build personalized filter bubbles that cluster like-minded users and screen out dissenting views. By leaning into confirmation bias, these systems create the illusion that your side is simply reality and the other side is either blind or malicious.

One way to disrupt that loop is to inject a little randomness – sometimes called “serendipity injection” or “noise insertion” – into the feed. By slipping in unexpected, diverse, or mildly counter-attitudinal content, platforms can thin out the concentrated stream of outrage that usually drives engagement.

This artificial variation forces the recommendation engine to test a broader range of user reactions, preventing the system from over-optimizing for a single partisan identity. Psychologically, encountering these random viewpoints nudges users out of their cognitive comfort zones, reducing confirmation bias and eroding the false sense of universal consensus created by insulated feeds. Ultimately, this technique shifts the algorithm’s goal from perfectly predicting what will trigger a user’s next click to fostering a healthier, more balanced information diet.

Social media platforms face steep financial trade-offs when reducing user engagement because their primary business model relies on advertising revenue generated by user screen time. Because highly emotive, polarizing, and outrage-inducing content naturally drives the highest rates of clicks, shares, and comments, algorithms that intentionally dilute this content to disrupt echo chambers inevitably lower overall platform activity.

For a publicly traded tech company, a decline in active sessions or scrolling time directly reduces the number of ad impressions available for sale to marketers, risking immediate declines in quarterly revenue and stock value. Furthermore, platforms risk alienating power users and hyper-partisan content creators whose high-volume posting drives community traffic; restricting their organic reach can prompt these high-value users to migrate to less-regulated competitor platforms.

Ultimately, tech executives must constantly balance long-term ethical and regulatory pressures to curb social polarization with the immediate fiduciary mandate to maximize user attention and profitability.

Traditional news outlets have radically altered their reporting styles to survive a massive audience shift toward social platforms and online video. To capture the fragmented attention of modern readers, legacy newsrooms have pivoted away from the traditional, detached “voice of God” framing toward highly conversational, short-form, and heavily visual storytelling.

Because online advertising revenue depends on clicks and time spent on a page, editors rely heavily on real-time metrics to set content priorities. That reliance has led to the widespread use of curiosity-inducing headlines, first-person reporting, and emotional hooks that trigger outrage and moral righteousness – all favored by social media algorithms. Traditional institutions are also decoupling their branding from legacy formats by pushing journalists to cultivate their own online personalities and aggressively package reporting into newsletters, mobile app alerts, and vertical video reels for users who rarely visit a standard homepage.

Real-time newsroom dashboards shift editorial priorities away from investigative journalism by rewarding instant, measurable attention over long-term public interest. Platforms like Chartbeat and Parse.ly track live visitors, concurrent users, and scroll depth, flashing alerts when a story goes viral or bounces hard. That constant stream of traffic data pressures editors to maximize immediate ad or subscription returns, encouraging cheap, high-yield clickbait, lifestyle pieces, and reactionary trending content.

Because investigative journalism requires months of research, legal review, and public-records work, its upfront cost cannot compete with the minute-by-minute spikes on newsroom dashboards. When survival and performance are tied to live metrics, newsrooms naturally shift resources toward low-effort traffic generators while starving the slower accountability reporting that democracy actually needs.

This combination of media echo chambers, political tribalism, and institutional gridlock has driven America’s confidence in the federal government to historic lows, eroding the legitimacy of democratic institutions. Recent Pew Research Center findings show that public trust has fallen sharply, with only about 17% of Americans saying they trust the government in Washington to do what is right always or most of the time—a steep drop from 73% in 1958 (Pew Research Center, “Public Trust in Government: 1958–2025”).

Because information is heavily weaponized across fractured media feeds, faith in governance becomes tightly tied to partisan control. Whenever power changes hands in Washington, trust scores can swing sharply, as the “out-party” views federal departments, executive agencies, and courts as tools of the opposition. According to an Economist/YouGov poll, a large majority of respondents believe political institutions have been captured by the rich and powerful, feeding cynicism that treats governance as corrupt, wasteful, and out of touch.

This systemic skepticism has fueled deeper democratic pessimism, leaving many Americans convinced that the country’s political system is broken and doubtful that it can be reformed.

While the American political system is severely strained and facing a deep institutional crisis, political scientists and historians generally view it as highly dysfunctional rather than irreparably broken, pointing out that its current flaws stem from alterable rules rather than an unfixable design. Describing the system as “irreparable” ignores the fact that the U.S. has navigated similar eras of hyper-polarization – such as the 1850s, the 1890s, and the 1960s – and emerged through structural transformations.

Today’s paralysis is caused by a complex web of systemic incentives like partisan primary rules, gerrymandering, and a “first-past-the-post” voting framework that legally locks in a two-party duopoly. Because these problems are structural rather than human nature, they can be mitigated by changing the rules of the game. For example, groups like BPC Action have advocated for specific electoral reforms like open primaries, independent redistricting commissions, and ranked-choice voting to incentivize cross-partisan appeal.

While the political terrain to pass these changes is brutal and faces immediate partisan resistance, the system retains the constitutional flexibility to reform itself, meaning its survival ultimately depends on the collective civic will to reshape those incentives rather than a fatal design flaw.

~ The Fix ~

The American political system can be repaired through specific structural changes that alter the incentives driving polarization. Because the current gridlock is caused by man-made rules rather than a flawed Constitution, changing those rules can break the partisan “doom loop”.

Political scientists and reform groups highlight several viable structural fixes:

– Implementing Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV): RCV allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference rather than picking just one. This forces politicians to appeal to a broader base of moderate voters to secure second-place votes, effectively penalizing hyper-aggressive, polarizing campaign rhetoric.

– Adopting Open or Top-Four Primaries: Standard closed primaries favor extremist candidates because only the most ideological partisans turn out to vote. Combining open primaries with RCV – as tested in Alaska – ensures candidates must speak to the entire electorate, not just their party’s fringes (Alaska Division of Elections, “Election Information”).

– Using Independent Redistricting Commissions: Taking the power to draw congressional districts away from politicians and giving it to independent, non-partisan panels eliminates gerrymandering. This drastically increases the number of competitive, swing-district elections where candidates must compromise to win.

– Reviving Fusion Voting: Organizations like New America advocate for allowing minor parties to cross-endorse major-party candidates. This gives moderate voters a distinct ballot line to reward consensus-builders without “wasting” their vote on a spoiler candidate.

– Expanding Congress: Keeping the U.S. House of Representatives capped at 435 members means districts are massive and disconnected from local communities. Expanding the House would reduce district sizes, making it easier for grass-roots candidates to compete against well-funded, hyper-partisan figures.

~ Fix the Media ~

Yes, the media ecosystem can be fixed, but doing so requires addressing both the algorithmic incentives of tech platforms and the business models of newsrooms. Because media fragmentation and polarization are structural rather than accidental, experts look to a mix of technical re-engineering, legislative intervention, and consumer-side changes to rebuild a healthier information environment:

– Algorithmic Reprioritization: Platforms do not have to ban political content; they can change how it is ranked. Landmark studies in Science Magazine demonstrate that adjusting recommendation algorithms to downrank overt partisan hostility and anti-democratic animosity immediately lowers emotional polarization among users without hurting overall platform activity (Piccardi et al., Science, 2025).

– Legislative Duty of Care: Proposals such as the Algorithm Accountability Act are aimed at curbing the harms of opaque recommendation systems through stronger scrutiny and accountability. The underlying argument is simple: if platforms had to answer for foreseeable social harms, they would have a reason to design for public safety instead of blind profit (Congress.gov, H.R.6266, 119th Congress).

– Radical Editorial Transparency: To rebuild severely eroded public trust, traditional outlets are adopting unified verification standards, such as the Reporters Without Borders Journalism Trust Initiative. By explicitly labeling news versus opinion, openly publishing how data was collected, and minimizing rage-inducing headlines, outlets can differentiate themselves from internet rumors (Reporters Without Borders, “Journalism Trust Initiative”).

– Alternative Funding Networks: Because the “click-driven” ad model forces newsrooms to chase viral outrage, moving toward nonprofit, philanthropic, and subscriber-supported models frees journalists to focus on slow-burn, community-centered reporting.

– Universal News Literacy: Grassroots educational frameworks, such as the News Literacy Project’s expansion into K–12 school districts, aim to teach younger generations how to spot AI-generated slop, recognize cognitive biases, and navigate an algorithm-driven media landscape (The News Literacy Project, “About Us”).

It’s easy to criticize. It’s harder to offer constructive alternatives – and harder still to live by them.

“The madness of the multitude, when they are enticed with the name of power, has been the cause of the ruin of the most potent empires.” ~ Machiavelli

“Black holes are where God divided by zero.” ~ Steven Wright

‘The devil you say…‘

 

 

For the Amalgamated Heavy…

June 27, 2026

~ the Author ~
Charles R. Dickens Was Born in 1951, Is a Veteran of the Vietnam War, for Which He Volunteered, and the Great-Great Grandson of the Noted Author, Whose Name He Shares.

He Is a Fiercely Proud American, Who Still Believes This Is the Greatest Country on the Planet, With Which We’ve Lost Control and Certainly Our Direction. He Grew Up in Moderate Financial Surrounding; We’re Not Rich by Any Stretch, but Didn’t Go Hungry – His Incredibly Hard Working Father Saw to That. As Most From That Era, He Learned About Life From His Father, Whose Story Would Take Too Long to Tell, Other Than to Say That, He Is Also a Fiercely Proud American; A WWII and Korean War, Veteran Marine.

Charlie Was Educated in the Parochial System Which, Demanded That You Actually Learn Something, and Have Capability to Retain It Before You Advance. He Attended Several Universities in Pursuit of a Bachelor’s Degree, and Chased the Goose Further to a Master’s, and Has Retained Some Very Definite Ideas About Education in This Country.

in Addition, Charlie Is a Retired Blues Guitar and Vocalist – a Musician. This Was His Therapy Career. Nothing Brings Him as Much Joy as Playing Music, and He Wishes That He Could Make a Living at It… but Alas… Life Goes on!