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Cole Luken
The two articles that I read were on Detroit Free Press and Detroit News were Fact
check: The controversy over Trump's inauguration crowd size and Fact check: Trump overstates
crowd size at inaugural, respectively. Disappointingly, the tone of both comment sections was
largely the same; rude adults bickering about everything possible related to the matter. Of course
there were some who completely discounted the fact check and said why does it matter, and then
would go on to claim how corrupt and dishonest the media is because they waste their time
covering stories like this. Then of course there was the other side gloating that trump was a liar
and they were right, which is just as unacceptable. He is our President and you shouldn’t be
happy he’s being petty and dishonest, none of us should want him to fail. The most discouraging
thing in these comments sections were how grown men and women were getting their points
across. Instead of discussion and adult conversation, it was attack after attack, of course there
were some peaceful and reasonable commenters on each side, but the majority were arrogant
assholes who had nothing better to do than attack strangers on a newspaper website. These
people are so firmly set in their beliefs on both sides that compromise seems almost
unachievable, because if this is how adults are acting, the role models of society, it scares to
imagine what my generation will become.
Again, the comment sections were very similar, and the language used was generally
either a long speech that most likely was copied off another political forum, or it was jokes and
jabs at the opposing side. There was no civil disagreement, the writing styles were very
concerning, the communication was almost never positive. The term “idiot” was used a lot by
both sides, it seems it is the general belief of these people that if someone disagrees with you,
then they are an idiot. In my opinion, that’s pretty scary. What that says to me is that whenever
someone disagrees with these people, they don’t have the thought process of “Wait, could I be
wrong” instead they think “Wow this guy thinks differently than I do, what an absolute moron”.
Neither sides communication style puts their point of view in any kind of positive light so I
consider what they are saying to be largely ineffective. I hope that the communication between
opposing sides improves, because once that happens actual solutions are possible.