Dr. Bandy X Lee, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. Published October 3, 2017.
Chapter:
"Trauma, Time, Truth, and Trump: How a President Freezes Healing and Promotes Crisis"
written by Betty P. Teng, M.F.A., L.M.S.W
Quote ::: We are not machines; feeding our quest for knowledge and defining our existences online delivers a synthetic fulfillment that is fleeting and unsustainable. Seeking such satisfaction via the Internet is like trying to quench thirst by sipping water from a fire hose. By drinking from the Internet’s fire hose, we not only end up still thirsty, but we may get seriously hurt in the process. Because this onslaught of information disallows us from taking the time to truly consider any of it, we open ourselves to believing dangerous and unchecked falsehoods. Both Chun and Stanford University election law scholar Nathaniel Persily (2017) warn of the alarming political consequences of our collective inability to think or verify the truth of what is broadcast online. As Chun (2016) observes, “The Internet … has been formulated as the exact opposite of Barlow’s dream (of an unregulated space for a free marketplace of ideas): a nationalist machine that spreads rumors and lies.” :::
"While Chun points to the Internet’s potential for fostering the seeds of nationalist propaganda, Persily asks, “Can Democracy survive the Internet?” in the very title of his recent paper. By analyzing the 2016 digital campaign for U.S. president, he orients us to what today’s Internet amplifies: social media retweets, false news shares, bot-driven articles, and troll-inspired critiques that reflect and stir reactivity rather than disseminate the truth: “What the Internet uniquely privileges above all else is the type of campaign message that appeals to outrage or otherwise grabs attention. The politics of never-ending spectacles cannot be healthy for a democracy. Nor can a porousness to outside influences that undercuts the sovereignty of a nation’s elections. Democracy depends on both the ability and the will of voters to base their political judgments on facts.”