confirmation bias

The whole Jussie Smollet story has got me down. I even got in an argument with a friend of my one friend who said it was all a hoax the moment it came out. I refused to accept it and thought Jussie was going to provide evidence of the assault.

It seems that we were both confirming our biases. I am willing to believe the worst about any trumpanzee. My friend's friend is a closet racist, so his bias was confirmed too when he was told Jussie was lying. it's called confirmation bias and with Cheeto in the White House it's become less and less difficult to believe that people are racist pieces of shit. I have become accustomed every week for the last two years to being overwhelmed by Wednesday about anything the Cheeto administration has done. Corruption, collusion, racism, lies, obstruction of justice, blood money, blackmail, obfuscation of truth, gaslighting, straw-manning, false equivalencies. The lot. When it's only the middle of the week I'm already exhausted. Numb.

By the end of the week, I don't even know what to believe about the Smollett story. He was ordered to pay a hundred thousand dollars and was ordered to surrender his passport. Media outlets blared to the four winds his mishap with the check he wrote to the purported assailants, there was some information about his phone records, people saw him with the guys in a tv studio... it's too much.

One thing, though. I think that if the story ends up being fabricated (and it may be, of course) Jussie would have caused some significant damage to the public perception of victims of hate crimes. Smollett is both a black man and gay and that was part of the whole problem with the attack. I won't stop believing with people say that they were victims of a hate crime. My first reaction is compassion and shock. I usually tend to believe the victims. Like with Smollet, they are victims unless they are proven liars. But this situation has provoked the racists to point and laugh. Ann Cuntler (typo and it stays) went to say that ALL hate crimes are hoaxes and Cheeto babbled some stupid tweet about it too. Yep, the racist in chief tweeted about an actor in a soap opera.

.@JussieSmollett - what about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments!? #MAGA

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 21, 2019

I can't even. I'm exhausted with this whole thing. There are rumors Mueller will wrap up the investigation soon. Of course the White House is planning on obscuring the findings (when Kenneth Starr made public the most lurid details of the Clinton investigation, natch) but I hope everything comes to light. I hope each and every member of Cheeto's family is indicted of some crime and that the Repugs who have enabled his mental illness to corrupt the country pay too.

Meanwhile, I will keep a sliver of faith and I hope there's somehow another explanation to these events. Smollet went to the set of Empire (I actually watch that show!) and told them he'll prove his innocence. I don't even know what to believe. Or who to believe. It's maddening.

Jussie Smollett returned to the "Empire" set today and reportedly told the cast that he's innocent https://t.co/0n5JyUnCar

— JustJared.com (@JustJared) February 22, 2019

XOXO