Everyone choosing his own facts

Recently, the Daily Herald published the editorial piece, "Facts matter in a democracy where people rule" and I cannot agree more with the this piece. Democracy needs facts to function.

Democracy is the process of people deciding amongst themselves what policy the government should pursue based on the circumstances of their country. And facts are our way of describing not only the circumstances that our country is in, but also the nature of our reality itself.

But, without a shared, base understanding of facts, what you get is two sides bickering at one another because, according to the facts that make up their reality, they are right and the other side is entirely wrong.

Without a commonly held facts, debate is not held about the best way to address a country's issues but rather the debate is about whether or not the issues actually exist.

This is frustrating. This is infuriating. And, to be honest, I can't see any easy way to fix this issue and that is just as infuriating as the issue itself.

Because, at the end of the day, it feels like everyone is going to agree that facts are important, but the second they are present with facts that don't match up with their understanding of reality, then it is just fake news.

Christopher Henning Jr.

Mundelein