The Rise Of Truthiness
Or, when did we decide that the truth no longer matters?
There are certain things in life that I suspect most of us were raised to believe are true:
More is greater than less
Tall is bigger than short
Water is wetter than dust
Chocolate tastes better than dog poop
Men are pigs (present company excluded)
The Green Bay Packers suck (one of the few ironclad truths in this life)
Those are all objectively true things. Well, the last two may be debatable to some, but this is my sandbox, which means I’m the one who gets to piss in it, capice??
One of the things I didn’t mention because it should be self-evident is that truth is better than lies. This is because truth and facts are verifiable, provable, and empirical realities. We know they are because we can show they are.
Anyone can craft lies on the spot for any reason or no reason at all. They need no basis in reality because they’re not based in reality. If parents possessed with a moral compass raised us, they taught us the value of telling the truth. Integrity- or a reputation for honesty- is earned over time but can be destroyed in an instant.
How many of us had parents who did business based on a handshake? That’s because they trusted the person on the other side of their agreement; the handshake merely sealed the deal and meant neither would renege. I grew up in a small town in northern Minnesota where virtually everything happened on a handshake basis. Everyone knew everyone, so if you developed a reputation for dishonesty, you were finished; you’d never be able to make a living.
Then, along came Donald Trump in 2015, and everything changed. A few years before that, comedian Stephen Colbert introduced a new term into the American lexicon- “truthiness.” It was done tongue-in-cheek; the man’s a comedian, after all, but that joke quickly symbolized a seismic shift in how Americans relate to objective truth.
The definition of “truthiness,” according to dictionary.com, is
the quality of seeming to be true according to one's intuition, opinion, or perception without regard to logic, factual evidence, or the like
Colbert coined the word before taping his first episode of The Colbert Report on October 17, 2005, after deciding that the originally scripted word- “truth”- was not ridiculous enough.
Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word ...
It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the President [George W. Bush] because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true? ...
Truthiness is 'What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true.' It's not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true. There's not only an emotional quality, but there's a selfish quality.
Today, “truthiness,” or something vaguely approximating it, has befouled our political and interpersonal discourse. We’re no longer able to agree on what the truth is, and we can have long, pointless arguments about what’s true and what isn’t.
Thus, “truthiness.” What once was intended as a joke has become embedded in our culture.
Perhaps the worst example of truthiness is the result of the 2020 Presidential election. By any objective measure- the popular AND Electoral College vote tally- Joe Biden won a decidedly one-sided victory over the incumbent, Donald Trump.
Given the margin of victory, most politicians on the losing end with any sense of honor and dignity would’ve conceded the election, called to congratulate their opponent, and called it a day. Trump, born with a deficit of honor AND dignity, has to this day refused to concede. Instead, he continues to claim that he won by a landslide and that only “widespread fraud” succeeded in preventing his re-election.
Millions of Americans, and many influential Republican politicians, have bought into this “Big Lie.” Their worthiness to be endorsed by Mango Mussolini is based in large part on their obeisance and willingness to deny the result of the 2020 Presidential election.
Welcome to our new idiocracy, where truthiness rules the Right, and the cult of Donald Trump continues to push the Big Lie.
Wir sind SEHR gefickt….
I’m not going to re-hash what happened in the months leading up to January 6; we all know what a clusterfuck that was. And we all know that Donald Trump attempted to stage a coup on January 6, which has never happened in American history.
January 6 is what happens when truthiness gets taken to malevolent and dangerously dishonest extremes. It’s what can happen when people become so unmoored from objective reality that anyone can manipulate them into believing ridiculous conspiracy theories.
Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
Voltaire
Despite 60+ rejections in various courts and NO credible evidence, Trump and his minions continue to insist that Joe Biden stole the 2020 Presidential election. But how? And by whom? And what evidence is there to prove those claims?
We don’t know because there is no proof implicating anyone nor indicating how Democrats may have carried out such widespread fraud.
Despite this objective truth, many insist on their view as being the truth. Truthiness has taken over. No, they can’t PROVE anyone stole the election, but they BELIEVE in their heart of hearts that it was. Therefore, belief has replaced empirical reality as the definition of truth for those who continue to believe Joe Biden robbed Trump of his “rightful” re-election.
Last September, the Public Religion Research Institute found that one of three Americans and two of three Republicans believed the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. The poll also found that four of five Republicans who most trusted Fox News believed the election was stolen and nearly a third agreed that political violence might be necessary “in order to save our country.”
The findings, suggesting a trend that has only worsened since then as false narratives have solidified, offer plenty of reason to worry whether America could loosen the extremist grip. “I’m not an alarmist by nature, but I’m deeply disturbed by these numbers,” said Robert Jones, head of the polling firm, last November. “I think that we really have to take them seriously as a threat to democracy.”
A threat to democracy? Yes, especially considering the number of Trump acolytes who won GOP primaries this Spring and Summer. Of course, some of these exceedingly poor candidates will deservedly lose their general elections, but some will undoubtedly win and be in office if/when Trump runs again in 2024.
Will they be willing to help Trump steal the Presidency? Does the Pope defecate in the woods? Are bears Catholic? Of course, they will; it’s their raison d’ etre. Some of these folks, especially the ones who may have succeeded in becoming Secretaries of State and thus in charge of elections in their states, will no doubt be ready, willing, and beyond able to put their thumbs on the scale.
Republicans who are eager to please their orange master and can win their elections may well have an impact come 2024.
Into this volatile mix come the midterm primaries, fueled by an unhinged, incendiary former White House occupant who continues his constant lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Endorsement-hungry Republicans have been more than happy to spread his disinformation and the dangerous anti-democratic rhetoric that neither the election process nor its results can be trusted.
Tragically, this line of attack is working, perhaps nowhere better exemplified than in Arizona on Tuesday where Republican candidates for governor, attorney general and secretary of state won their primaries with Trump’s endorsement and their aggressive rejection of factual truth and President Biden’s legitimate victory. These positions—involved in certifying federal elections, counting the votes, representing voters and enforcing the law—offer a trifecta of trouble for democracy. As The New York Times’ political correspondent Nick Corasaniti put it Thursday on MSNBC, “This is like putting the arsonists in charge of the fire department.”
On Tuesday night, while the votes were still being counted and the election’s outcome remained close and uncertain, gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake announced to her supporters: “We won this election. Period.”
Sound familiar?
It should; it’s right out of the Trumpian playbook. Claim victory early and often; before long, it will become accepted as the truth. Never mind that Kari Lake’s victory was hardly the no-doubter she confidently proclaimed it to be.
Her approach to the election was chapter-and-verse Donald Trump.
On Wednesday just after midnight, while maintaining a small advantage over Karrin Taylor Robson, she declared on Twitter, mimicking Trump, that the result “isn’t a win. It’s a blowout.” In fact, it wasn’t until about 48 hours after the polls closed that the Associated Press finally called the election in her favor.
In true Trumpian fashion, Lake had been saying for weeks that she had “evidence” of “stealing.” That she refused to share this “evidence” with anyone was characteristic of her mentor; Arizona Republicans were expected to take her at her word.
Of course, the pretext for her accusations that she knew the election was dishonest early on was to prepare the ground for the possibility she might lose. Then, like her orange mentor, she could raise Hell and deny the results. Even if she won, she could fuel enough distrust in the electoral process that it might help her win the general election in November.
Kari Lake is not your average first-time candidate. After a decade-long career as a TV news anchor, she’s accustomed to being before a camera and has used that experience to her advantage.
It’s also allowed her to carefully and comfortably employ Trump’s playbook to full effect.
[F]or those who might have expected a candidate for governor to emphasize her vision for the state’s future, Lake has demonstrated her fealty for Trump by aggressively focusing on the 2020 election. Following the one televised debate with Robson and other opponents—in which she falsely claimed that Biden “lost the election and shouldn’t be in the White House”— Lake called Robson’s refusal to agree with her that the election was stolen “disqualifying” and “sickening.” She also continues to claim that Trump was the “real winner” of Arizona, that the state’s largest county Maricopa engaged in “criminal” conduct, that Secretary Hobbs (who oversaw the election) should be imprisoned, and that unnamed journalists are “liars,” “criminal” and need to be “locked up.”
If it sounds like she’ll say or do whatever it takes to win, that’s because she will. But, like Donald Trump, she knows that winning isn’t everything; it’s the ONLY thing.
Of course, there’s every chance that Kari Lake will implode under the pressure of the general election, but to assume that someone so comfortable being in the public eye might be hoping for too much. As Steven Beschloss writes, “hoping for the best when a candidate tells us with grim ferocity who they really are is a failing strategy.”
Indeed, if there’s anything we should have learned from Donald Trump’s Reign of Error, it’s that when they tell you who they are, BELIEVE THEM. In 2016, Trump telegraphed what he had in store for America, but many of us on the Left couldn’t grasp that anyone could be so irredeemably evil. And so we lived through four years of Trump and his minions eagerly trying to dismantle democracy. He stripped the State Department for parts, seeded the lower levels of the federal judiciary with incompetent and barely qualified young jurists in lifetime sinecures, and packed the Supreme Court with True Believers.
Yeah, when they tell you who they are, believe them.
It began with one word- “truthiness” and led to a Conservative movement with no attachment to either Conservative principles or objective truth. Instead, this Trumpified version of the GOP cares for one thing- political power intended to create a permanent Republican majority.
Even if the country itself is not nearly so Conservative.
Kari Lake is the new generation of GOP fascists dedicated to the elevation and worship of Donald Trump. They’ll do whatever it takes, even mangle the definitions of truth and objective reality, if it gets them the brass ring.
They’re ready to fight for it, which is more than can be said for those of us on the Left. So that leaves us with only one weapon- the ballot box.
That’s right; you’ll need to vote as if your life depends on it. Because it just might.
