When looking to the mainstream media for information one would believe the public is almost unanimously not in favor of the border wall while if one looked to the President the opposite would be true, The Washington Post stated,

“Overall, only 4 in 10 favor building a wall. Fewer than half our respondents were convinced by the argument that a wall would prevent potential threats from coming into the country and would strengthen U.S. borders.”

While according to President Trump who tweeted out a Fox News poll, with 66% percent  in favor and 21% in opposition. These are vastly different conclusions about the same topic and this divide is also self evident of  students at Triton,

“I do approve of the government shut down. I understand and feel for those who didn’t get paid in this time period. Sure these people don’t have work now, but at least by building the wall, we’ll be insuring their jobs in the future. Less immigration from Mexico means less people to take jobs from hard working Americans. A lot of people are objectively against the wall even though it doesn’t affect them. In the long run, I can only see the wall helping our country.” said Kiefer Callewaert.

In regards to same topic of the shutdown Andrew Valianti said,

“I think it was pretty dumb however because he had two years to get the wall started with control of both the house and senate but chose instead to wait until he had lost control of the house to try to get the wall past. It was immature and hurt a lot of people for a very inconsequential issue. It did way more harm than good as Trump will not even get his full wall in the end.”

Valianti and Callewaert demonstrate the same divide of ideas as the two sides of the media but seeing these two sides of opinions in Valianti and Callewaert is a healthy as it leaves room for civil debate. But what can be unhealthy is the divide in information people will state as facts on both sides of the political conversation with each news network giving into outrageous titles with obvious slants such as one called “Fox News Poll: Did God favor Donald Trump in 2016?” Or MSNBC’s “With emergency declaration, Trump ignores public will (among other things)”  These clear slants make hurt the relationship between the public and the media with some news sources objective being rooted more in party politics than unbiased news, according to politco.com,

“More than 3-in-4 of 803 American respondents, or 77 percent, said they believe that major traditional television and newspaper media outlets report fake news. Among those, 31 percent said they believe those media outlets spread “fake news” regularly.”

This seems to show President Trump’s constant accusations of fake news on outlets have worked with this ability giving strength to him making him seemingly bullet proof considering all the scandals during his presidency that haven’t stuck the same they would for other Presidents or politicians. Valianti commented on President Trump’s supporters of the shutdown saying,

“Because 30% of the public will get behind anything he does. He could declare war on Canada and rename us the United States of Trump and 30% of the public would still cheer him as the second coming of Christ.” A fair or unfair criticism of Trump supporters Valianti’s words illustrate the point that this statements interpretation depends wholly on whatever echo chamber one finds themselves trapped.