I’m becoming more and more convinced the issues of honesty, truth, integrity, earnestness, all wrapped up in a single word – anyone have a candidate? – is going to become the focus of a nation-wide discussion once both political parties have been kicked out of office, whether electorally or violently. Steve Benen has a convenient summation:
There’s a quote that’s often attributed to political theorist Hannah Arendt: “This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore.” As it happens, Arendt didn’t actually say this (at least not exactly), but the quote resonates because of its salience:
Trump obviously tries to get people to believe lies all the time, but nearly as often, the president and his allies try to get people to give up on the idea that facts exist. With too many Americans, these tactics are effective, which helps explain why they’ve become so common.
This reduction in the value of truth makes for gold for the grifter, the political operative who puts success above integrity, the social influencer seeking clicks and thus an income, the online health advisor who uses carefully crafted charisma and faux-endorsements to sell quackery to the victims they never meet, for an entire host of dishonest folks more interested in wealth or prestige than in being honest.
This may seem to be a pun-intended Golden Age for the criminals, but as citizens watch relatives march off after their pied pipers, friends after Godly enticers to commit horrendous crimes against fellow citizens, parents becoming destitute, and a general societal breakdown resulting in broad hints of mass starvation and climate change, those citizens who survive stand a good chance of learning that diverging from facts on the ground can lead to disastrous consequences.
Honesty is the best policy, no? It’s going to be a rough few years, I fear.
Exactly what will happen? A lot of yelling, especially from the corporate types for whom money is all. Will we ban the Internet? As unlikely as it seems, it’s not impossible. Indeed, it’d solve a lot of problems involving security. But, again, very doubtful. Some folks think the Internet should be considered a human right. They’d be hard Nos.
But whatever it is, we’ll have to do it together, with the give and take and compromise which is the mark of adults, and not the obdurate line in the sand! that marks the ideologue, the zealot, the arrogant twerp that is the source of today’s problems.
