Thread by @nbashaw

I gotta say, working on @QueryNews, and reading the news 100x more deeply, is radicalizing me.

I'm not being radicalized in the sense that I'm for more extreme policies.

I'm being radicalized in the sense that I'm extremely, deeply motivated to change the policies we have to something non-horrible.

I can hear my old self saying "but the news is made to spark outrage for pageviews! don't fall for it!"

But I'm doing more work than ever to learn the actual details of what is going on, rather than skimming the surface as before, and it's making me incredibly angry.

(e.g. I'm not just reading the news, I'm reading the studies referenced in the news, and the back stories on wikipedia, etc. I'm doing WAY more work than is reasonable for a person with a real job to do.)

So if you think, like I used to, you're somewhat outside it all, and that the news exaggerates because of their broken business model, ask yourself how confident you are that that's the whole truth.

Maybe you're just not informed enough.

For instance, just watch this one question and answer by Julian Castro:

In the first part of Castro's answer, he refers to Oscar and Valeria Martinez. A father and 23-month-old daughter that died crossing the Rio Grande. If you don't know much about it, watch this video: cbsnews.com/news/photo-of-…

You can see the emotion in his eyes when Castro says "If I were president today, I would sign an executive order that would get rid of Trump's 'zero-tolerance' policy, the 'remain in Mexico' policy, and the 'metering' policy"

Let's unpack that...

These are 3 policies designed basically to deter people from trying to enter the US, escaping terrible situations at home, by creating maximum pain.

The trio of policies Castro references are what separates families from their children, ships central americans (dangerously) to mexico while they await trial, and creates artificially low caps on the number of people who can even try to legally enter each day.

Some further reading on these policies:

washingtonpost.com/immigration/u-…

politifact.com/truth-o-meter/…

washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/…

Also, it's important to understand *why* people are coming here. This is a good primer: theatlantic.com/international/…