Truth, Again

 

I have written several times in recent years about the decline of simple truth in our time. Now I am prompted to write about truth and falsehood again because the situation is leading, and has led to both war, killing, and the complete collapse of even an elementary sense of ethics in one of the major nuclear nations and in one of our two major political parties. I am referring, of course, to Putin’s attack on Ukraine, with its attendant losses of life and civilian structures, and the outright lying in public from both this puta-tive leader, and the plague of lying which has overtaken the entire Republican Party. The latter is promoted, of course, primarily by Donald Trump’s confounding control over his “base,” which demands that his most egregious lie to date about winning the 2020 presidential election—which he claims was “stolen” from him by massive Democratic party fraud—be corrected by overturning the election, evicting Biden from office, and declaring Donald Trump President. This would be remarkable even if Trump were the only one subscribing to this whopper. But he is not. Millions of his American supporters believe this self-serving crap. Still more astonishing, large numbers of Republican office-holders actually insist that it is the truth. We seem to have entered Donald’s Wonderland. 

            There was a time—and I am old enough to remember it—when such a transparent lie coming from federal office holders would have prompted outrage from voters, public shame and humiliation for the liars, and calls for their resignation. No more. In our confused and benighted time, we have members of Congress, leaders of major parties, and countless state officials willing to repeat this outrageous lie, one that early on and repeatedly has been exposed as having no merit whatsoever. With almost no one in the entire Republican party, save Liz Cheney, willing to call what it and the Jan. 6 assault on those trying to certify a fair election, actually is: an assault by a mob on the most basic elements of our democracy. The peaceful transition of power from one president to the next. The constitutional duty of every member of Congress to certify electoral votes duly submitted to it by the states for approval and verification. Instead, most Republicans, including the leadership, have cowered in fear of Trump’s base, and denigrated and excoriated the Committee trying to investigate the Jan. 6 events, claiming that the rioters were simply exercising their right to visit the Capitol, and protest. Any news, such as that emanating from the New York Times or the Washington Post suggesting otherwise, is dismissed as “fake news.”

            What Trump has done in America finds its more sinister and lethal echo in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and his invasion of Ukraine. The lies are just as preposterous: Ukraine has never been a “real” nation; the war of invasion Russia has launched is not a war, but a ‘special military operation’ to oust the Nazis seeking control there; the destruction of cities and the slaughter of civilians is actually carried out by the Ukrainians themselves to make Russia look bad. Given Putin’s more thorough control of the state apparatus (which Trump openly envies), he can also control more completely what the Russian people can see and hear. So they see peaceful scenes of Russian troops being welcomed by their Ukrainian ‘brothers’; none of the scenes of the rubble-ization of Mariupol and other Russian cities whose apartments, theaters, and infrastructure have been terror bombed to a point not seen since Nazi destruction in WWII. Any Russian who questions this “truth” is branded a traitor to the nation, and subjected  to fines, arrest, and worse. Any news that contradicts this official truth is “fake capitalist news.” And all is backed by thinly-veiled threats to use the ultimate weapon if Russia’s sacred territorial integrity should be threatened. 

            The truly astonishing thing about the perpetration of such egregious lies is that, for a sizable and not-insignificant portion of the publics in each nation, this bullshit works. Recent news articles (see NY Times, Mar. 6, 2022) have shown that Ukrainians with relatives in Russia have been unable to penetrate the beliefs of even their parents about what they have experienced: that the Russian military is waging a brutal aerial, artillery and rocket-led assault amounting to a terror attack on civilians and their living spaces meant to demoralize the population. Instead, those in Russia believe what their media says: that the Russian ‘special military operation’ is saving Ukraine from drug-addled Nazis in power there. And as Ukrainian defenses have put up stiffer and stiffer resistance, the apparently-frustrated Russian military has resorted increasingly and more ferociously to indiscriminate bombing and artillery campaigns that many have labeled war crimes. With Russian officials and news media hiding the mounting deaths of their troops which, if publicly known, might blow the whole cover. 

To be sure, Aeschylus’ line that ‘truth is the first casualty in war,’ pertains as much today as it did in ancient Greece. But the demise of truth in our time has reached another and more dangerous dimension. That is because, with the rise of internet-based social media platforms, and the ability of governments to either control those internet outlets, or ban them outright, or provide others that contradict what major media choose to report, the labeling of any contradictory evidence as “fake news” becomes easier. Or, at the least, more confusing for the average citizen. In America,  those who have been addicted to the simplistic version of politics promulgated by Fox News, seem to find such simplicity both easier to digest and more consistent with their preferred narrative of events. 

The upshot of all this fakery and subterfuge is that elementary facts, which once provided the basis for what we might call “consensus reality,” no long pertain, and can no longer be taken for granted. Where once Walter Cronkite could intone on nightly TV his mantra “And that’s the way it is,” and count on most Americans taking his word for it, now millions can find their own preposterous version of “the way it is,” and feel more righteous than those who believe mainstream “fake news.” This amounts to a serious state of affairs, and a dangerous one. Democracy depends on a rough consensus among its citizens. It depends on most of its citizens agreeing, if not to the interpretation of major events, at least agreement on what those events are. Not any more. I have talked personally to a cousin who insisted that the Q-Anon-promoted canard about Hollywood child-abuse rings was the major issue of our time—one that Donald Trump was the only person with the moral authority to address. This about a proven narcissist and pervert who once spoke on the record about grabbing women’s pussies with impunity. It is simply mind-boggling. And anything that contradicts such a person’s “facts” can be met with what I was met with: “do some research.” With such a conflict about basic facts, a democracy cannot function, cannot reach consensus about what matters and what should be legislated. The rule of law, likewise, depends on a rough consensus—that most people will agree with the fact that everyone needs to stop at a traffic light, for example, or that murder is a capital offense that demands adjudication, abiding by proof and evidence, and punishment if warranted. Or that racism and lynching are unequivocally wrong, and cannot be permitted. If a society cannot agree on such basics, it cannot function as a society. 

But in our time, we increasingly have the collusion between power and truth that promotes, too often, the condition that power can make its own truth, create its own facts. This is precisely what is happening in Ukraine at this very moment. Vladimir Putin is creating his own reality, and insisting, with the power he has assembled, that the Russian people—and more generally, the whole world—accept that reality as the truth. Russian troops are not killing civilians; his brutal invasion is not a war; the destruction of apartment buildings and other civilian infrastructure witnessed by the entire world is not his military’s doing but that of the Ukrainians themselves. Trump, likewise, though with far more resistance, can insist that he had nothing to do with inciting or planning the Jan. 6 riot at the capitol; but, in any case, that the violent attempt to stop Congressional certification was more or less justified by the theft of his “victory” in the 2020 presidential election. Or that Americans might try ingesting bleach to protect  themselves from the Covid-19 virus. And those who report on these things, or demand some accounting, are simply the victims of the large, liberal conspiracy of the “fake new” media. What’s worse is that this nonsense can be openly admitted by those with power. During the George W. Bush administration, for example, journalist Ron Suskind in 2004 attributed the phrase “reaity-based community” to a Bush aide (thought to be Karl Rove) who said, in part: 

… that guys like me (Suskind) were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” [...] “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality…” (Wikipedia, accessed 3/30/22)

 

Or, we might recall the inimitable Kellyanne Conway’s evocation of “alternative facts,” in a Meet the Press interview on Jan. 22, 2017, where she tried to defend Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s lie about attendance numbers at Trump’s inauguration. This might have been considered a joke, were the words not uttered and defended with incredible zeal. 

            What’s even more baffling is that large numbers of the population, both in Russia (where they are compelled to) and in America (where the compulsion is internal), take this idiocy for the unvarnished truth. For the way things should be. Alternative facts? We create our own reality? Have people lost all touch with what used to be called “the real world?” Apparently they have. And the sum total of this willingness of those in power to “create their own reality,” can leave millions of ordinary citizens at sea in a swamp, a miasma of uncertainty, if not outright bedlam. 

            The question is, can democracies, which depend on the consent of the governed (all governments, ultimately, must have popular consent to stay in power), still assemble sufficient majorities on which to base that consent? Or disagreement? What will persuade enough people on this planet that global warming is not only real, but has very nearly reached the point of no return? What can persuade people to turn away from propaganda meant to serve a small, wealthy elite, and commit to vetted, scientific opinion that this crisis is real? That there are, in fact, substantiated facts? That the war in Ukraine is not only an actual war but a slaughter? That autocrats like Putin and Trump are both frauds and liars?

            I have to confess, the prospects from here don’t look good. Because in truth, the truth about reality is, even regarding normal facts, not easy to discern. Where power obscures it even more, it may be impossible for the average person, who doesn’t have time to pursue and tolerate the uncertainty that increasingly dogs our pursuit of the truth, to ferret out. This is why populist leaders and their simplistic solutions appeal so broadly. For many people, perhaps a majority, anything, no matter how unfair or preposterous or brutal, can seem preferable to uncertainty. All one can say is that care is needed. Patience is needed. Ability to read and discern mere opinion from that which is based on real evidence, is needed. And a healthy skepticism about information coming from authoritarians who “make their own reality” is desperately needed. Though actual attention to those recommendations may seem unlikely, they may be all we have. 

 

Lawrence DiStasi