I am entering the Echo Chamber

This is a new space for me, the echo chamber.

In all the arguments in which I got involved in so far, I have always prepared myself to the extent I think necessary-with points of discussion on both the sides just so I would not be easily surprised by the others on the obverse. There have been a few instances when I was indeed surprised; I just brush them off, but not from my memory.

Let the issue be climate change, global warming (the current term is Global Heating, and I am not yet prepared to go that far), economics, evolution, philosophy, many streams of science and engineering, education ... I am quite opinionated and am prepared.

It just changed about eight months ago, and I am much poorer for it.

I would not claim, “The devil made me do it.”

Oh, I just changed my mind, the devil did make me do it, using remote control.

I never had any skin in the election for the President of the United States (short form, POTUS) but what happened to Hillary Clinton in 2016 rubbed me the wrong way, indeed grated on me. No, I did not think she was any manna from Heaven, but her opponent (the nominee for the Republican Party (GOP) was truly the Satan, roaming not the Garden of Eden, but the 50 states of the US.

Election came and went, and Clinton lost. I, living in India, put the blame on Jill Stein. Who was she? Or, should it be “...is she?”.

Sitting in India, and poring over many newspapers from New York / Washington, D. C. / London , I concluded that Jill Stein, the purported environment warrior, took away from Clinton the precious few votes from Trump that made the difference in that election.

I am an environmental foot soldier, but hearing so much about how Stein helped American voters sway away from Clinton and towards Trump, let me blame Stein for Trump victory. I have been told that it was more the Russian bots and Clinton’s “erased emails” than Stein’s environmental catastrophe that led to her loss in the deciding Electoral College-don’t worry about that-while Clinton won by a difference of millions of votes for her from individuals. What was truly surprising was that Trump’s “Grab them by their pussy” comment did not balance the scales.

From this I came to the inescapable conclusion that the US is not forward looking, and is not a democracy of one man-one vote. The votes of the Electoral College that exists only on paper can be, and is, a game and nothing more.

As Stein is still on the ballot of many states in 2024, I know for a fact that she will be the spoiler this time round. I watch all the YouTube videos that I know are loud amplifiers for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and religiously avoid anything from which I get the fetid smell GOP boot-lickers of Trump.

I can honestly tell you that the Kamala-leaning hosts / panellists / discussants on any of the media outlets (including podcasts) is this teapot’s cozy. I feel most comfortable, meaning essentially that I have stopped preparing myself for a debate with the other side.

I believe this is start of the slippery slope leading to the echo chamber – I love my own voice, maybe modulated by the hand-picked media outlets.

There is still two weeks to go and I am sure I will be at the bottom of the slope at the end of the election drama, what with Trump and his minions not giving an inch to abjure violence if he lost.

See you there!

Raghuram Ekambaram