I lived near one of the areas that got a ton of media attention. Comparing what a certain breed of pundits were saying about it with what I could plainly see with my own two eyes showed that the pundits were mostly talking nonsense.

I'm not saying that there was no property damage or unrest. There most certainly was. but it was far more limited in area, and far less intense, than many were describing.

"Cities are burning" is one of those absurd things. Nothing even close to that happened.

I think some people have an incentive to exaggerate it for political reasons.

My father believes that the entire country is embroiled in an unmitigated crime wave because he gets his news from Fox and Youtube. Every time I talk to him he whines about how "the country isn't the same as how I grew up anymore."

This is a man who lives closer to the country than the city. It gives him a justification for turning his brain off and voting the way that he does, because in his mind, he's protecting the nation by preventing what he believes to be the liberal dream: allowing young, black men to run around and commit crimes with reckless abandon to bring about the end of capitalism.