From 1346 through 1353 and from time to time thereafter, the Bubonic Plague ravaged Europe, killing as many as fifty million people. Spread through the air and likely through the bite of infected fleas, the so-called Black Death was the worst pandemic in human history. 

But just as this “great pestilence” caused social and economic upheaval and profoundly affected European history, a pestilence of another kind, killing friendships, familial connections, and civil political discourse, profoundly affects American history.

Whereas the plague from almost 700 years ago was believed to have been caused by divine punishment, the current contagion is not spiritual or biological, but rather a retribution for widespread public naivete. It is a “Bluebonic” infection spread by the mainstream media’s attempt to turn the electoral map from a healthy mixture of red and blue to the singular tint of the Democrat party.

All but the most progressive true believers could fail to see how one-sided the legacy media’s political coverage has become. Yet, in tacitly claiming the moral high ground as sham protectors of our democracy, they no longer even try to report the news objectively. 

In mirroring a state-run mouthpiece for a ruling party, the mainstream media has increasingly disregarded labeling woke exaggerations, context-free statements, or outright lies for the total fabrications they are. And to reinforce such manipulated deception, they rarely offer retractions and criticize Donald Trump as the foremost opposition to their propaganda.

So, among fabrications too numerous to mention, after falsely claiming for more than three years that Trump was “colluding” with the Kremlin and later asserting that Hunter’s laptop was “Russian disinformation,” how is it now possible that after such enormous reporting “lapses” that the public is so easily duped into believing the legacy media? 

After all, in stridently claiming that something historically bad was true that wasn’t, and subsequently insisting that something equally consequential was not true that was, wouldn’t behavioral history strongly suggest that the sources of those fictions were suspect at least and fraudsters at worst?

In answering that question, one need only understand that not being held accountable by the mainstream media for their omnipresent distortions, the Democrat party has successfully claimed the moral high ground by demonizing the easy target of Donald Trump.

Because Trump is not originally a politician, he often “shoots from the hip,” is sometimes considered abrasive or even “unpresidential,” and says things that, taken out of context, are ripe for verbal attacks. So, when his innocuous statements are surgically parsed and endlessly repeated, a falsely negative impression is attached to him and his guilt by association supporters. 

Obviously, in accepting the media’s polarizing reportage, such a good versus evil mindset is hard for many to relinquish when feeling smugly self-righteous against Trump’s supposed depravity. And once infected with such confidence raising “I’m good and those others are bad” sense of moral superiority, mentally challenging that belief with contrary evidence is extremely difficult.

This is so because questioning a firmly held belief creates an esteem-threatening tension between what is believed to be true and what irrefutable evidence proves otherwise. As such, the only surefire method to reduce that discomfort is to disavow, misrepresent, or devalue any undeniable facts contradicting one’s assumptions and unquestioningly embrace existing beliefs by creating additional “facts” supporting them.

In the end, while it took almost 200 years for Europe's population to recover to its level before the Black Death, it is yet unclear how long it will take for the divisiveness currently infecting America to recover after its Bluebonic Plague. 

In the meantime, it may be wise to consider that its European predecessor finally waned partly because the malady effectively ran out of victims. It is hoped when reason again prevails, our current intellectual contagion fracturing families, ending friendships, stifling respectful debate, and dividing us as a people ends well before that.

Image: Public Domain