A Minor Musing About The Loss Of Truth

Daniel Dale, Washington Bureau Chief of the Toronto Star, has taken upon himself the herculean effort of keeping track of every false claim President Donald Trump has made while in office. The total as of this writing is 2029. During the last week of June and the first week of July 2018 Trump made 100 false claims each week.

Let's be clear, Presidents Obama, George. W. Bush, Clinton, and George H.W. Bush all made claims shown to be false. The statements "...if you like the doctor you have, you can keep your doctor ..."; "Mission Accomplished"; "I did not have sexual relations with that woman . . ."; and "Read my lips: No new taxes" have all become punch lines.

Still each of Trump's predecessors understood what former President Obama said yesterday during his Mandela lecture:

We see it in state-sponsored propaganda; we see it in internet driven fabrications, we see it in the blurring of lines between news and entertainment, we see the utter loss of shame among political leaders where they’re caught in a lie and they just double down and they lie some more. Politicians have always lied, but it used to be if you caught them lying they’d be like, “Oh man.” Now they just keep on lying.

Meanwhile President Trump was asserting:

It should have been obvious, I thought it would be obvious but I would like to clarify just in case it wasn’t. In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word “would” instead of “wouldn’t.” The sentence should have been “I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t” or “why it wouldn’t be Russia.” So just to repeat it, I said the word “would” instead of “wouldn’t,” and the sentence should have been, and I thought I would be maybe a little bit unclear on the transcript or unclear on the actual video. 

The sentence should have been “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,” sort of a double negative. So you can put that in and I think that probably clarifies things pretty good by itself. I have on numerous occasions noted our intelligence findings that Russians attempted to interfere in our elections.

In schools, the young'uns are often told to use context clues, so let's look at the original comments for some context from the Helsinki press conference transcript.

TRUMP: So let me just say that we have two thoughts. You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server. Why haven't they taken the server? Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee? 

I've been wondering that. I've been asking that for months and months and I've been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media. Where is the server? I want to know where is the server and what is the server saying? 

With that being said, all I can do is ask the question. 

My people came to me, Dan Coates, came to me and some others they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. 

I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be. But I really do want to see the server but I have, I have confidence in both parties. 

I really believe that this will probably go on for a while but I don't think it can go on without finding out what happened to the server. What happened to the servers of the Pakistani gentleman that worked on the DNC? 

Where are those servers? They're missing. Where are they? What happened to Hillary Clinton's emails? 33,000 emails gone, just gone. I think in Russia they wouldn't be gone so easily. 

I think it's a disgrace that we can't get Hillary Clinton's thirty three thousand e-mails. 

I have great confidence in my intelligence people but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today and what he did is an incredible offer. 

He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators, with respect to the 12 people. I think that's an incredible offer. Ok? Thank you. [emphasis mine]

Given the fact that he questions the FBI handling of Hillary Clinton's email server and says Putin "was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today," it beggars belief that he meant to say "wouldn't." Of course, Trump made it very clear that he himself doesn't believe what he just said when he later asserted, "I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place. It could be other people also. There’s a lot of people out there."

The result of yesterday's speeches was that the members of the various populist tribes all issued social media pronouncements reminding the world about Obama's statement about keeping one's doctor. The #neverTrump tribal members all pointed out that Trump could not have meant what he said.

Those predictable responses are dangerous. First, the "everybody does it" or "what about that one time" never move to the key question "HOW DO WE FIX THE PROBLEM?" (Yes, I am shouting.) 

The most recent and best example of the failure of "your guy did it too" is the family separation situation. The fact that Presidents Trump, Obama, and George W. Bush all separated families at the border and housed children in cages does not justify the practice. Pointing out that Obama and Bush did it does not mean Trump should continue the practice. It does nothing to help create policy that distinguishes refugees from migrants and it does not create a policy on legal migration. Pointing out the sins of previous administrations leaves kids in cages without their parents.

Lying and the justification of one's preferred leader's lies over the lies of whoever preceded or followed him not only leads to bad policy; it also destroys democracy's foundation by encouraging the lying and weakening curiosity. Former President Obama made the point eloquently yesterday,

And, as with the denial of rights, the denial of facts runs counter to democracy, it could be its undoing, which is why we must zealously protect independent media; and we have to guard against the tendency for social media to become purely a platform for spectacle, outrage, or disinformation; and we have to insist that our schools teach critical thinking to our young people, not just blind obedience.

I don't know how to solve the problem of habitual liars. I was always tempted to require my Debate II to students to read "On Bullshit" as way to deal with false claims. I never gave in to that temptation. I commend it to everyone now. I also ask that everyone start asking "What caused the problem?" and "How can we fix it?" before screaming "What about that time that . . ."