gas-light - ThisIsCommonSense.org

Rumors can fly fast. And the Internet not only aids in their spread, but can make even false rumors seem worthwhile.

The gas stove ban rumor, which spurred so many hilarious “memes,” is a case in point.

It appears to have started with a letter from Senator Corey Booker (D‑NJ) and Representative Donald S. Beyer, Jr., to the chair of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission about the risks associated with gas stoves per “indoor air pollution.” According to Rep. Beyer’s defensive tweet, which cleverly enough uses the buzzword “gaslighting,” such risks even include “childhood asthma,” though the word “asthma” does not appear in the politicians’ original letter.

What does appear is extra concern for the “cumulative burden to households that are already more likely to face higher exposure to both indoor and outdoor air pollution” — i.e., “Black, Latino, and low income households.”

Booker and Beyer did not quite suggest a ban; their concern was for more research and regulation. But on Monday, Bloomberg quoted the word “ban” from the lips of a government bureaucrat: “‘This is a hidden hazard,’ Richard Trumka Jr., an agency commissioner, said in an interview. ‘Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.’”

But that’s all very … iffy. More directly, and fueling the reaction, the Governor of the State of New York did propose a ban.

Which all goes to show that the “over” in over-reaction can deflate pretty fast, down to a perfectly apt response, at the speed of … memes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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When a partisan discovers that opposition leaders engage in blatant, bald-faced lying, do you find it charming … or sad?

Donald Trump and his “administration are gaslighting us,” writes Ariel Leve. “It’s a term we are hearing a lot of right now.”

Of course we are. “The term ‘gaslighting’ refers to when someone manipulates you into questioning and second-guessing your reality,” explains The Guardian’s helpful reality guard.

By way of explanation, she discusses some vague abuse* her family directed towards her as a child, and then asserts that her mother’s denial of the issues, the “erasure of the abuse,” was, to her, “worse than the abuse.”

I can see that. But what if “your reality” — what you defend — is irreal itself?

Sure, she thinks Trump and the Republicans are “gaslighting” her. Well, welcome to the club, Ms. Leve. I thought Bush and the Republicans were gaslighting me — as were, in the previous century, the Clintons and all those Friends of Bill, and, more recently, Obama and Pelosi and the incredibly fawning media.

The problem sure looks like the proverbial protesting about the mote in the other guy’s eye while not seeing the two-by-four in one’s own. But it is worse when the lumber juts from most eyes on both sides of the partisan aisle — enough to build a McMansion with all the spare wood.

Leve advises the reader to do like she did — trust in her “version of reality. Not allowing it to be altered on demand. Resistance.”

Good advice, but only if you aren’t deluded.

And could politics be too often an avenue for wounded people to lash back at (or make up for) childhood grievances? That would explain a lot.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Ms. Leve helpfully expands upon the chaos of her childhood elsewhere. Sounds horrifying enough to me. She is convincing.

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