Ignore the noisy few

It appears that that the whole country strongly supports Donald Trump, our U.S. Congress is full of extremists, and white evangelicals have taken over the country. That’s what the media would have us believe, but let’s look at the reality.

According to the Public Religion Research Institute, in 2021, white evangelical Protestants constituted just 14 percent of the country. Even if they all support Trumpism, they won’t decide the election.

The U.S. House has 435 members. About six of them make the headlines with outrageous statements. We don’t hear much from the other 429, who are quietly legislating. The noisy few make it sound like the whole House has extreme views. Not so.

The U.S. Senate has 100 members. How many of them make the sensational headlines? Four or five? Again, the noisy few give the impression that our whole government is going off the rails. You would think from both public and social media that Congress has 100 Ted Cruzes and 435 Marjorie Taylor Greenes, but they are the outliers, not representative of the whole.

A Gallup poll showed that in

2021, the Democrats were 47 percent of the country and the Republicans were 42 percent. This figure includes the independents who lean toward one party or the other, but when counted separately, the independents were 42 percent. Independents will decide the next presidential election, not the radical right or radical left.

The press has to report something, and the more sensational, the better. They can’t report “Nothing happened today.” But it’s time we stopped paying so much attention to the noisy few. They thrive on our attention, and we don’t need to keep giving it to them, especially on social media. The public contributes to that directly, and the public can stop responding.

The monsters that grow are the ones we feed.

MAYA PORTER

Springdale