Post-truth politics
Art of the lie
Politicians have always lied. Does it matter if they leave the truth behind entirely?
The Economist | 10 Sept. 2016
CONSIDER how far Donald Trump is estranged from fact. He inhabits a
fantastical realm where Barack Obama’s birth certificate was faked, the
president founded Islamic State (IS), the Clintons are killers and the
father of a rival was with Lee Harvey Oswald before he shot John F.
Kennedy.
Mr Trump is the leading exponent of “post-truth” politics—a reliance
on assertions that “feel true” but have no basis in fact. His brazenness
is not punished, but taken as evidence of his willingness to stand up
to elite power. And he is not alone. Members of Poland’s government
assert that a previous president, who died in a plane crash, was
assassinated by Russia. Turkish politicians claim the perpetrators of
the recent bungled coup were acting on orders issued by the CIA. The
successful campaign for Britain to leave the European Union warned of
the hordes of immigrants that would result from Turkey’s imminent
accession to the union.
If, like this newspaper, you believe that politics should be based on
evidence, this is worrying. Strong democracies can draw on inbuilt
defences against post-truth. Authoritarian countries are more
vulnerable.
Lord of the lies
But post-truth politics is more than just an invention of whingeing
elites who have been outflanked. The term picks out the heart of what is
new: that truth is not falsified, or contested, but of secondary
importance. Once, the purpose of political lying was to create a false
view of the world. The lies of men like Mr Trump do not work like that.
They are not intended to convince the elites, whom their target voters
neither trust nor like, but to reinforce prejudices.
Feelings, not facts, are what matter in this sort of campaigning.
Their opponents’ disbelief validates the us-versus-them mindset that
outsider candidates thrive on. And if your opponents focus on trying to
show your facts are wrong, they have to fight on the ground you have
chosen. The more Remain campaigners attacked the Leave campaign’s
exaggerated claim that EU membership cost Britain £350m ($468m) a week,
the longer they kept the magnitude of those costs in the spotlight.
Post-truth politics has many parents. Some are noble. The questioning
of institutions and received wisdom is a democratic virtue. A sceptical
lack of deference towards leaders is the first step to reform. The
collapse of communism was hastened because brave people were prepared to
challenge the official propaganda.
But corrosive forces are also at play. One is anger. Many voters feel
let down and left behind, while the elites who are in charge have
thrived. They are scornful of the self-serving technocrats who said that
the euro would improve their lives and that Saddam Hussein had weapons
of mass destruction. Popular trust in expert opinion and established
institutions has tumbled across Western democracies.
Post-truth has also been abetted by the evolution of the media (see Briefing).
The fragmentation of news sources has created an atomised world in
which lies, rumour and gossip spread with alarming speed. Lies that are
widely shared online within a network, whose members trust each other
more than they trust any mainstream-media source, can quickly take on
the appearance of truth. Presented with evidence that contradicts a
belief that is dearly held, people have a tendency to ditch the facts
first. Well-intentioned journalistic practices bear blame too. The
pursuit of “fairness” in reporting often creates phoney balance at the
expense of truth. NASA scientist says Mars is probably uninhabited;
Professor Snooks says it is teeming with aliens. It’s really a matter of
opinion.
When politics is like pro-wrestling, society pays the cost. Mr
Trump’s insistence that Mr Obama founded IS precludes a serious debate
over how to deal with violent extremists. Policy is complicated, yet
post-truth politics damns complexity as the sleight of hand experts use
to bamboozle everyone else. Hence Hillary Clinton’s proposals on paid
parental leave go unexamined (see article) and the case for trade liberalisation is drowned out by “common sense” demands for protection.
It is tempting to think that, when policies sold on dodgy
prospectuses start to fail, lied-to supporters might see the error of
their ways. The worst part of post-truth politics, though, is that this
self-correction cannot be relied on. When lies make the political system
dysfunctional, its poor results can feed the alienation and lack of
trust in institutions that make the post-truth play possible in the
first place.
Pro-truthers stand and be counted
To counter this, mainstream politicians need to find a language of
rebuttal (being called “pro-truth” might be a start). Humility and the
acknowledgment of past hubris would help. The truth has powerful forces
on its side. Any politician who makes contradictory promises to
different audiences will soon be exposed on Facebook or YouTube. If an
official lies about attending a particular meeting or seeking a campaign
donation, a trail of e-mails may catch him out.
Democracies have institutions to help, too. Independent legal systems
have mechanisms to establish truth (indeed, Melania Trump has turned to
the law to seek redress for lies about her past). So, in their way, do
the independent bodies created to inform policy—especially those that
draw on science.
If Mr Trump loses in November, post-truth will seem less menacing,
though he has been too successful for it to go away. The deeper worry is
for countries like Russia and Turkey, where autocrats use the
techniques of post-truth to silence opponents. Cast adrift on an ocean
of lies, the people there will have nothing to cling to. For them the
novelty of post-truth may lead back to old-fashioned oppression.
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