Trying to separate emotions from fact
Political rhetoric, we are told, is more and more polarized. Usually, we are told by someone partisan who is pointing fingers at the other side. More worrying, though, is the rise of emotionalism and the dearth of facts. Right now, we have a lightning-rod president in the US and an only slightly less controversial PM in the UK. People make points and curate “facts” (when they bother with facts at all) to heap either praise or blame on these two figures. This has never been more true than in the current pandemic crisis. I started this blog to add my point of view to the COVID discussion, but also to provide anyone who reads it with the sources to do their own research. My sources for statistics are Johns Hopkins’s Coronavirus Dashboard, Oxford University’s Our World in Data, and the Office of National Statistics. My news sources will change as the story changes.
As the US Presidential election has approached, I’ve found that I have things to say that I don’t want to mix into my COVID blog, so I have started a second blog on more of the political aspects of the illness and the election in general. My point of view is as someone who is more centrist than my one-sided friends on either side would like, but I hope to add a centrist voice to an increasingly polarized debate. Generally, I believe that if you agree with your candidate’s position on absolutely everything, you haven’t done enough research. Make up your own mind and then decide who is more likely to get the country where you think it should go.
If you just want to read my COVID research/opinions, click on the link above for COVID in the US, the UK, and the World. If you’re interested in politics overall, click on Centrist Politics in an Extreme Age. I hope having more information and less shouting will give other people, as it has given me, a little more feeling of control in a world that is spinning out of control.
About me: Four years ago, my British husband and I moved to London from Bucks County, PA. I have spent the last decade as one of those people your teenagers love to hate, writing content for the SAT and GRE. Before that, I taught English and public speaking to community college students, but being an English literature academic was a second career. I started out with a degree in economics from Princeton and worked in the financial industry for 15 years before deciding to follow my passion. All of these jobs required the ability to understand and research issues and separate legitimate information from spurious sources. I hope my ability to do that and to explain my thinking will help you feel a little more in control in a very uncertain world.
Beyond the Rhetoric 