CSotD: What is Truth, and Does Anybody Care?
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This is one of those “Where do we begin?” moments. The torrent of horrifying, dishonest, ridiculous nonsense that has poured out over the past 48 hours or so seems overwhelming, and I ended up with so many links to so much argumentation that I had to sort through them to come up with a reasonable number.
Pat Bagley says it best: We have a choice of being honest or of pleasing the new powers who believe in twisting the truth to serve their intentions. That might have been only an opinion a few years ago, and a bit of a paranoid opinion.
But a few years ago, those seeking power would couch their words in polite phrases that skirted around whatever malevolent or simply bizarre goals they had in mind.
A few years ago? A few months ago.
People voted for a man who promised to lower grocery prices, but who since the election has admitted he cannot, who promised to put American workers first but is now praising H-1B visas, who boasted that there were no wars when he was president but now is threatening Denmark, Panama and Canada with military invasions.
And who, as Daniel Boris noted, has nominated for his administration a collection of extremists, criminals and nincompoops, a rogues’ gallery accepted by MAGAts in part from loyalty and in part because they were angry about the price of eggs.
But the outrageous nincompoopery appears to be going over their heads. On Fox’s “The Five,” Roseanne Scotto declared that Harry Truman proposed acquiring Greenland in 1867, which was several years before he was born. As dissenters on social media suggested, this must have been after George Washington attacked British airfields during the Revolution.
It’s not so much that Scotto said something so ridiculous — both Truman and Andrew Johnson had floated the notion, though it came to nothing — but apparently her blunder went unchallenged by the panelists.
And while anyone can misspeak, Senator Tommy Tuberville serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, as well as its subcommittees on strategic forces, readiness and management support and seapower, but, despite that background, said
We’ve gotta take the Panama Canal back. We’ve gotta do something because if we were to happen to go to war with China over Taiwan and they were to shut the Panama Canal down, we’d have to go 8 to 10,000 miles just to get things back to the war zone.
Apparently, “Coach” serves on those committees but is not aware of our naval bases in San Diego, Hawaii, Washington State, Japan and elsewhere.
And why would we go to war to defend Taiwan if we’re willing to turn Ukraine over to Putin and start our own wars with NATO and the European Union countries over Danish and Canadian sovereignty?
But don’t ask on Facebook, Instagram or Threads, because, as Adam Zyglis notes, Mark Zuckerberg has declared them to be free speech zones, where there will no longer be fact-checkers, though other users will be allowed to disagree.
Zuckerberg’s Chief of Global Affairs Joel Kaplan explained “There’s no question that there’s an opportunity here with the new president taking office, as I said, who really believes in free expression.”
Which is true, except for the new president having sued ABC, an Iowa pollster, CBS, the Pulitzer Committee and Simon & Schuster for publishing things that hurt his fee-fees.
Steve Brodner notes that Meta has added Dana White to its board. White is head of the UFC, a mixed-martial arts franchise.
Trump’s ability to sell his preposterous lies to voters seems linked to his previous appearances in pro-wrestling programs, and he is appointing Linda McMahon, a WWE executive, despite the fact that she lied about having majored in education, to head the Education Department, which he also proposes to eliminate.
UFC fights do not appear to be choreographed like pro wrestling, but there is wide suspicion that referees and judges are aware of which fighter Dana White expects to see win.
Whether or not that makes him a solid fit for Meta, it would make him a welcome figure in the new administration, which believes in free speech as long as it comes out the way they want it to.
And don’t expect GOP legislators to act as a brake on the burgeoning flood of nonsense and lies, because, as Robert Ariail notes, they are less interested in debating history than they are in negating it entirely, not only denying that there was an insurrection on January 6, 2021, but launching an investigation against the committee that looked into the riot, a committee the GOP refused to sit on.
They’re also moving to prosecute Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans who broke ranks and served on the committee. Cheney responded that this is not the Soviet Union, but, then again, Trump has never bothered to hide his admiration for Vladimir Putin, so maybe she’s wrong.
What to do? As the woman in Joel Pett (Tribune)‘s cartoon says, there seems to be a limit to what you can cancel in order to maintain your own ethical standards.
While RJ Matson points out that it’s not as if Elon Musk were elected by anyone, yet not only has he assumed an outsized role in the new administration, but it seems that, however much he challenges Trump’s place as leader and president, his presence is not to be challenged even by Dear Leader.
Though he’s certainly raising hackles in Britain and Germany, were unofficial kibitzers are not as well tolerated.
But as the woman in Pett’s cartoon says, it becomes tricky to draw the line. You can quit buying Nathan’s hot dogs, given that the company donated to Trump’s campaign, but the folks at Goya have explained that the eccentric old rightwinger who founded the company is no longer in charge. Can you justify buying refritos from them?
Today’s Bliss (Tribune) reminds me of the ending of Candide, where he acknowledges the problems of the world but says “We must tend our garden.”
There is considerable wisdom in keeping your own karma in balance, and particularly in rejecting Dr. Pangloss’s insistence that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
The trick is to maintain personal balance without sacrificing your integrity or your duty to society.
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