Let me start with this: I am rarely surprised by anything that happens in politics. Call it cynicism or pragmatism. But after spending two decades covering politics, I feel like nothing is shocking anymore.
Except, that is, the remarkable disdain for facts in the context of this presidential campaign. Candidates have always done their best to bend numbers, statistics and stories to make themselves look as good — or as not-bad — as possible. But there was almost always a line that wasn’t crossed in years past, a sort of even-partisans-can-agree-on-this standard.
Now, in large part because of Donald Trump’s candidacy, that line has been smudged out of existence. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous quote that “you are entitled to your own opinion ... but you are not entitled to your own facts” is no longer operative in this American presidential election campaign. That is to the detriment of not only the people running for president, but to all Americans.
Trump’s latest foray into the fiction zone came last Saturday when he told a group of supporters that he watched as “thousands of people were cheering” in Jersey City, New Jersey, when the World Trade Center towers collapsed after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Then, Trump called in to ABC’s This Week and got into a back and forth with moderator George Stephanopoulos over that claim. The exchange is long, but worth printing in full.
Stephanopoulos: “You know, the police say that didn’t happen and all those rumours have been on the internet for some time. So did you misspeak yesterday?”
Trump: “It did happen. I saw it.”
Stephanopoulos: “You saw that ...”
Trump: “It was on television. I saw it.”
Stephanopoulos: “...with your own eyes?”
Trump: “George, it did happen.”
Stephanopoulos: “Police say it didn’t happen.”
Trump: “I know it might not be politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as that building came down — as those buildings came down. And that tells you something. It was well covered at the time, George. Now, I know they don’t like to talk about it, but it was well covered at the time. There were people over in New Jersey that were watching it, a heavy Arab population, that were cheering as the buildings came down. Not good.”
For those who would criticise Stephanopoulos for “letting Trump get away with it”, I would ask you how he could have done things any differently. Trump is operating on his own set of “facts”. Stephanopoulos is adamant that “the police have said it didn’t happen” but it’s quite clear that Trump wasn’t going to suddenly say: “Yeah, you’re right. I misspoke.” Trump wasn’t going to give in.
In elections and campaigns past, there would have been a price to pay for The Donald’s complete flaunting of fact. It would have hurt him politically to just say things that aren’t true. In this one, there’s plenty of reason to think that he not only will get away with saying it, but also that it may even help him among certain segments of the electorate.
Flouting the rules
Why? Because trust in the media — in both parties but especially among conservatives who comprise Trump’s base — is at an all-time low. So, anything that a member of the media calls a “fact” is inherently viewed as fishy (at best) by the people backing Trump. The media lies, we all know that, so why wouldn’t they lie about this, too? All the mainstream media cares about is serving as the political correctness police, so if this did happen, then of course they would work to cover it up, right?
Here’s the thing: If there is no agreed-upon neutral arbiter, there are no facts. And what is happening in the Republican race is that most of the candidates — save Trump and, at times, Ben Carson — are playing by an established set of rules around what you can say and do. Trump is not only not playing by those rules, but there are also no referees to enforce his blatant flouting of them.
Ben Carson’s response last Monday to Trump’s allegations amounted to “Yeah, I saw that too”. Katherine Faulders tweeted: “@RealBenCarson tells me he “saw the film” of American Muslims cheering as the towers fell in New Jersey on 9/11.”
What’s remarkable is that even as the fact-checking industry has blossomed its ability to keep candidates honest has declined precipitously. On the same day that he was fighting with Stephanopoulos about “facts” regarding 9/11, Trump retweeted an erroneous set of facts about black-on-black violence, suggesting that blacks were responsible for most killings of black people — and most killings of whites.
As Philip Bump of the Washington Post wrote: “According to data from the FBI, most whites are killed by whites, as most blacks are killed by blacks. There’s an obvious reason for that: Most people are killed by someone they know — as is the case in 78.1 per cent of homicides between 1980 and 2008, as we’ve noted before — and most people are related to and live near people who are of the same race as themselves.”
None of that concerns Trump or, if we’re being honest, his supporters. He has established himself as a politically incorrect truth-teller, so naturally the “establishment” doesn’t like or agree with what he has to say. Why would it? It has been protecting the status quo so long, it has to keep doing it.
The obsession with disqualifying the ability of the media to referee what is factual and what is not is a terrible thing for the future of our democracy. Of course the media makes mistakes. Of course there are bad apples among us. Of course we are human.
And, yes, the fracturing of the mainstream media has made it easier than ever to get your own set of “facts” and your own “evidence” that supports those “facts”. You can now live in a world in which only your opinions, often loosely based on factual evidence, are not only never challenged but are affirmed. But just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should do it. Challenging your assumptions, digging beyond surface claims, educating yourself on what’s real and what’s not are the basic tasks of being a citizen of the United States and of the world. Refusing to do that allows this fact-less environment not only to continue to exist, but to prosper.
Campaigns and candidates, seeing the success Trump has had, will imitate his cavalier attitude towards an established and agreed-upon set of facts. And, before long, the media will be helpless to fight for facts because the efforts to discredit what we do have been so sustained and successful.
That’s not the future I want to be a part of — as a journalist or as a citizen.
— Washington Post
