The Big Lie - and lots and lots of little ones too

One side stands for voter expansion, the other for voter suppression.

One side stands for strengthening democratic institutions, the other for undermining them.

One side stands for promoting democratic values, the other for holding onto power.  

One side stands for integrity, the other side for conspiracy and lies.

When I think about what makes this era so unsettling, I don't think it can be boiled down to one person, trump for example, or one economic factor, globalization and the growing disparity between the super wealthy and the very poor, or widespread ignorance and civic disengagement. I do think, however, it can be summarized in one big lie, or rather our willingness and propensity on a broad scale to accept lies being told, even ones that collapse under the most superficial scrutiny. And in America, I'm thinking about one particular big lie, so-called "Birtherism" - the blatantly racist and obviously false contention that launched trump's political career, which promoted the notion that Obama was an illegitimate president because he was not born in America. What makes this lie so interesting to me is that it performed a wide-ranging and multifaceted litmus test of both people, and the informational eco-system in which politics is played out. When trump saw how easily the lie of Birtherism spread, and how readily people were willing to entertain and embrace it, he and those who supported him began to understand how far the cultural, racial and political boundaries had shifted. Birtherism also tested the way the media responded to misinformation. What they learned was that the advent of social media and personalized news feeds allowed lies to be mainlined directly into the body politic without inter-mediation or filter. More than the silo-ing effect, people having their preexisting notions and prejudices being constantly reinforced by curated informational sources (legitimate journalism and conspiracy mongers presented on an equal footing), but Twitter, more than any other single factor, I believe is what accounts for trump's ability to lie with impunity, control the attention of the media, and also for his iron-clad cult-like hold on his followers. 

Of course, trump himself has played an important role. His attention-addicted enthusiasm for amplifying lies has made the fragility of the conventional system even more glaring. The one major difference between trump and other traditional politicians is the degree to which they feel tethered, as opposed to him, to the truth. While most politicians have played footsy with lies, often twisting their oratory into verbal concoctions to avoid outright lies because it would be unseemly, beyond the pale, dishonorable or politically costly. Trump made no bones about lying, in fact he embraced and reveled in it. He lied flagrantly and without limits, and when his lies were disclosed, he either repeated them louder, doubled down on them, or lied about lying. And he was rewarded for lying. The transparency of his lying was celebrated as being authentic. Lying repeatedly and unapologetically was lauded as a show of strength. In this respect he was truly unprecedented. The difference between trump and other politicians could be seen most starkly in 2015 during the Republican nomination debates. His opponents on stage came off as timid and hamstrung by their desire to stick to policy, boxed in by a wish to maintain a level of dignified public discourse, while trump was carefree and unbounded in his rantings, ravings and insults. Any other politician at any other time would not have survived trump's vulgar obnoxious performances during the Republican debates. But not only did he survive, he thrived, eliminating his 15 more educated and experienced rivals, one by one, on his way to winning the nomination. 

What trump understood and demonstrated is that people were not interested in hearing the truth. They were interested in being indulged, enraged or placated. They were interested in blaming others rather than taking responsibility themselves. They cheered his most delusional, ridiculous promises like "I'll build a wall and Mexico will pay for it!" With every outlandish statement trump stress-tested the electorate's tolerance for his duplicity, and found it to be extremely robust. Trump used lies in another way during his presidency: as a loyalty test. He would lie publicly to see who backed him up and who didn't. The more you defended his lies the more loyal you were. It's an old Soviet Communist party strategy according to Garry Kasparov. 

Trump never paid a political price for his lies in four years as president. His approval rating hardly budged. In fact, he was continually rewarded for lying - through the Russia probe, through impeachment, through scandal after scandal. Fittingly perhaps, it was one unassailable, undeniable, and inconvenient truth that ended his presidency: Covid. A truth that he could not obscure with lies, not for lack of trying. After his lies about the pandemic failed to help him win the election, he tried stealing the election with more lies. He has no other game plan. But as I said earlier, trump is not the illness, he is only the most pronounced exponent of a poisoned informational ecosystem. A deficit of trust in the government and media preexisted him, he just exploited it.

How did lies become more attractive than the truth? And how can we ensure that the truth and those who doggedly pursue it win out in the end? Politically-speaking I think these are the central questions of our era. And not just this era but every era, which is why press freedom is constitutionally protected - it's simply that critical to the functioning of society. Because when we cannot or will not distinguish between lies and truth, when we can not agree on the importance of established facts, when the pursuit of truth is not our core value, then there is no foundation for governance, justice or social peace. Social media is here to stay. Like all technologies, it has good and bad impacts on people's lives. Any solution to the problem of pervasive, unchecked lies will likely include regulation of social media platforms by authorities, but also the self-regulation that comes with taking personal responsibility. The one thing I do know is that people will embrace the truth only when the cost of accepting lies becomes intolerable to them. If this pandemic we are living through in which hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens have died is any indication, the price we are willing to pay for accepting lies is appallingly shamefully high.