Alternative Facts Are Killing Us

Thought it time to revisit this. I wrote it several months before Covid-19 emerged.

At least we did tackle #7:

7) Vote Trump out on his ass in 2020. He represents the poisonous idea that we can just lie about our problems instead of facing them honestly. He has fixed nothing, he has no skills apart from conning people, and he has no respect for our system of laws. These are basic principles, without which we cannot consistently reward practices that work and phase out those that don't. His very presence in the highest office signals that the powerful, corporations included, are free to keep cheating the rest of us without fear of consequences.

Electing Biden might just send a better signal. But anyone who thinks the worst is over... is not paying attention.

Trump made an epic fail out of his term in office, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief that that's over -- he can no longer do the same level of damage. (He can still do some, for as long as people keep listening to him.) We now know Trump's administration never even had a plan for distributing the Covid-19 vaccines. Not a scrap. That alone is a level of criminal negligence that ought to be a hanging offense, with the execution witnessed by the ghosts of 400,000 dead Americans. He destroyed lives, and our nation's standing in the world. Taken together, Trump's run has been an astounding and deeply tragic waste.

The White House has been like an ambulance, stolen from an honest, well-meaning ambulance driver, and driven around randomly for four years by an angry, selfish, immature teenage brat. He got a bunch of other brats to come along for the joyride, the GOP legislators, and they enjoyed that ride -- even when Donny drove over a pedestrian or two -- right up until the collective might of the people stopped the ambulance. At that point, the angry teen tried to turn it into a showdown, while most of the joyriders, not liking their chances, slinked away out the back. Mitch McConnell ditched earlier; Pence took longer. A few (the Ted Cruzes and the Josh Hawleys) stood with him right up to the end. But finally, Don was forced to relinquish the wheel, and an honest-to-God ambulance driver regained control. Now he's cracking his knuckles, checking his routes, and saying, "Let's see how many needy folks we can deliver to the nearest hospital."

In real terms, Biden has hit the ground sprinting, aiming to tackle everything at once: The vaccine distribution problem, the politicization of mask-wearing, preventing evictions and pausing student loan payments during the pandemic, the extension of DACA, rejoining the Paris accord and the WHO, ending the Keystone XL pipeline, undoing the damage to the census, ending the Muslim ban, reforming ICE...

At one point during Trump's presidency, I suggested if someone merely took every decision by Trump and did the opposite, you'd have a good president. Judging by these first few days, Biden may as well be following a similar playbook.

So that's great! The most powerful office in the world's richest government is once again occupied by a man who's competent and who gives a damn. I just want to be clear that this is the end of a self-inflicted wound. We have a ton of other problems that have, over these past four years, been allowed to take root or to fester. We have to tackle all of those, and we know Don's sympathizers are still everywhere. 74 million Americans voted to re-elect him. It's absurd to think they wanted more of the deeply tragic waste. Somehow they managed not to view it as one.

I'm fully in agreement with this post by Jamelle Bouie, We Have to Make the Republican Party Less Dangerous:

We were saved, in short, by the point spread. This does not reflect well on American democracy. But it does make clear the source of our dysfunction: the Republican Party.

Things do look grim. But Bouie ends by throwing up his hands, saying we "may not have a solution" to the GOP's stranglehold. For my part, I think we do have solutions; they just aren't easy, and no one fix will be enough by itself. We can claw our way back from the brink, but it will sure go slowly, so long as we're in a tug-of-war with 74 million Americans intent on dragging us over.

Along with nearly begging Americans to try getting along, to work together to defeat the pandemic, to let go of racist prejudices and treat each other with respect and dignity, I'm glad that Biden also mentioned this other problem during his inaugural address:

Recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson. There is truth and there are lies. Lies told for power and for profit. And each of us has a duty and responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders – leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation — to defend the truth and to defeat the lies.

White supremacy is undoubtedly a major factor in Trumpism. But another major factor is the rise and rise of Alternative Facts. It seems a lot of those wrong-headed 74 million are pulling so hard because they believe the dangers aren't real. What they fear, instead, is that all their opponents are pedophiles and lizard-people.

Lately, even the Pope has been calling for rationality. I would describe as "incredible" many of the beliefs espoused by the organization he heads, but even American religious fundamentalists look like High School science teachers, next to QAnon.

We've reaped a small side benefit to Biden's election, when it dashed the hopes of some portion of Q's adherents, waking them up from their delusion. The rest will revise history and keep on chugging. People's ability to believe nutty things, even when staring in the face of contradictory evidence, is disheartening to witness.

And hey, these challenges are hard enough to face already, before you add wild conspiracy theories to the mix. The CDC screwed up its response last year, and that was partly their own doing: they underestimated the threat. It was also partly the fault of the officials Trump selected, who worked to tone down the status reports to keep them more in line with Trump's rhetoric. Trump resisted the push for more Covid-19 testing because he hated facing inconvenient facts -- a man who refuses to live in the real world if he can possibly ensconce himself in a self-serving fiction.

Alternative facts are literally killing us. Quite simply, we don't have the luxury of ignoring inconvenient truths any more. Yes, that includes the ones about climate change, but it covers everything. The entire American worldview needs to have steely-eyed honesty at its core. When Biden told the nation he would be up-front with us all, and admit to any missteps or setbacks, that was as refreshing to hear as anything else.

I used to be an avid defender of the First Amendment. I still think it's a fine idea, but I'd like to better delineate the boundaries. If someone wishes to voice an opinion, even one I consider execrable, I'd say the US Government has no standing to object. Mind you, it's been repeatedly clarified that the First Amendment holds no sway over how the private sector responds, say, to your support of the Proud Boys, or your contention that we'd all be better off under authoritarian rule. Your employer may conclude it's a PR risk not to fire you (because people like me will refrain from spending our money there if they don't). That's the price you pay for being odious.

Voicing the opinion that Trump ought to get a second term as president? Go ahead and say so. Cast your vote accordingly. The First Amendment does not, however, cover your attempt to force that outcome. If you actually try to put your favorite authoritarian in charge, that's insurrection, an affront to my own cherished freedoms. Calls for unity are about compassion, seeing the other guy's point of view. They do not extend to excusing a failed coup attempt. None of us, however tolerant, should be anything short of outraged by the criminal acts of January 6th. Like any serious crime, it needs to incur a steep cost, lest we tacitly encourage others, or the same people, to try it again.

Trump himself is guilty of sedition, of inciting the acts of open rebellion. Others in Congress, including Cruz and Hawley and Giuliani, made their support clear. All in public office who aided and abetted the crime should be impeached. You don't get to serve in a democratic government while simultaneously trying to subvert democracy.

OK, so attempting to assault members of Congress is a violent act, not protected speech. That should be unambiguous. What's more problematic is claiming Hilary Clinton is running a pedophile ring out of a pizza joint. This is not a matter of opinion. It's a statement about the world, and one that is untrue. We can quibble about whether to call it a "lie". Is it lying if you're deluded enough to believe what you're saying? Can you make such a statement and pretend you're joking, or excuse it as somehow a metaphor?

We have to be practical about these things. The goal is to stamp out wild conspiracy theories. We can't do that if any Alex Jones or Sidney Powell can brush aside objections by claiming they don't mean it. Recall that Rudy Giuliani talked plenty about voter fraud, until he got inside the courtroom; then he changed his tune, saying it was "not a fraud case". He knew he'd catch hell for perjury in there. This kind of double standard is disgusting and it's time we end it. If it won't fly in court, it doesn't belong in the headlines, or on social media.

What's going on in these people's heads, what they might believe or intend, must be declared irrelevant. What matters is what they say, the words they use, and what psychology teaches us about how their listeners and followers will respond. If it's phrased such that people will think they're making statements of fact, and they can't be substantiated, we should term them "lies" and declare them out of bounds for First Amendment protection. "Free speech" should cover opinions, only.

It would be great if everyone had the critical thinking skills to separate fact from fiction. The existence of QAnon proves that ain't the case today. Of course we should also try to arm people against disinformation and propaganda and general lunacy. But we can't wait for that to happen. In the meantime, we must also penalize the con artists. There are fewer influential speakers than listeners.

Epistemology is important here. The burden of proof is on the speaker -- "you can't prove it isn't true" does not cut the mustard -- and that proof must be rigorous. Someone can claim George Soros is a lizard person from Venus, because they saw it in a vision while they were half-asleep. This is not a broadly acceptable standard of truth. We should be looking to journalists, to lawyers and judges, and to the broader scientific community to adopt their standards of truth. If a broadly centrist, mainstream news outlet, the New York Times or the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal, would print it in their news articles (not their opinion pieces which are clearly labeled as such), that's a good standard. "Infowars" is not. Broad consensus by climatologists that climate change is real? Good standard. One guy employed by Exxon? Not.

This is where Fox News enters the picture. They offer some authentic news reporting, but have failed to make clear the distinction between that, and their commentators like Carlson and Hannity who have license to spew random garbage they heard on some Twitter feed. Their shows give undeserved legitimacy to baseless nonsense, and to uncredentialled speakers who'd be laughed out of respectable venues. (And then Trump would see them on TV and give them a job in his administration.) Going forward, news-adjacent commentary programs should be required by law to flag their own rumors and speculation, inserting verbal disclaimers every few minutes, like the warnings on packs of cigarettes:

"These statements have not been verified by any independent fact-checking agency and may be false."

And if they refuse, let Fox pay some heavy fines instead.

I'm not a lawyer, nor a legislator. Doubtless there are serious practical challenges to doing this. You'd need some federally approved fact checkers, and an agency to target offenders. There'd be a lot of arguing about all of it. I'm not saying it's easy, merely that I perceive we need it. We have laws against libel and slander, but if someone should ask us to fund exterminators to stamp out a serious mothman infestation, who exactly has standing? What if the dollars spent on those exterminators were pulled from a general fund that also covers Medicare? Even silliness without an obvious victim causes harm because resources are limited.

While we're all thinking about that, we have other avenues to explore before we give up on the American experiment:

• Broaden the use of instant run-off voting, eliminating the problem where voting for a third-party candidate would be a "wasted vote".
• Mandate nonpartisan primaries, reducing the incentive for candidates to be more extreme.
• Make every vote for President count, not just those in swing states. Get more states subscribed to NaPoVoInterCo - watch this video by CGP Grey.
• Stamp out gerrymandering. Require states to use nonpartisan algorithms, like The Shortest-Splitline Algorithm, to draw district borders. CGP Grey again.
• Establish government funded programs to match small political donations, to counter the effect of big money on elections.
• Change the House and Senate rules to be less partisan. Why should Mitch McConnell, or Chuck Schumer, have the power to deny a vote on an issue (that might have the support of a majority of the members), just because he leads the party with more members in seats? It's a stupid rule, and there are others like it.

Go read this for more ideas: Why Competition In The Politics Industry Is Failing America

Many of these measures can be passed at the state level. If you live in Washington State, that means petitioning the legislators in Olympia, not D.C. We can make meaningful, incremental progress here, and every bit helps.

The point of all these ideas is to rebalance the government, to give it a push toward the rational decision-making that has been sorely lacking in the past few decades. Why does the GOP wield such power to disrupt the country's functioning? Because it's one of only two games in town. The Libertarian Party and the Green Party, and all other alternatives you might consider, have no reasonable shot because the game is rigged against them. Fix that, and you'd force both parties to up their game significantly.

The GOP is in the midst of an identity crisis, a spasm that threatens to tear it in two. It goes, excruciatingly publicly, to the very top: VP Mike Pence attended Joe Biden's inauguration, while Donny took off early. His absence was a breach of protocol, something Trump cares about as little as he cares about truth, or children at the southern border. Thus, the two sides: Pence chose the side best represented by Mitt Romney, the side of traditional politics with conservative opinions, working within the system (though often disparaging it and seeking to weaken its programs), and keeping faith with the underlying democracy and its norms of behavior. Trumpism is the other side, the one that cares only about winning at any cost. To win, they will lie, cheat, and steal elections if they can. They'll appeal shamelessly to racism and sexism and homophobia and xenophobia, whatever works. Respect, dignity, rationality, anything anyone considers sacred, are all fuel to be burned when it suits them.

Trumpism is the new Tea Party. It may have suffered a defeat, this month, but it isn't going away. Even assuming Trump would shut up for a minute (and of course he won't, Twitter or no Twitter), Trumpism is a political trend that can outlive him. So long as conspiracy theories are allowed to thrive, it probably will.

It would be somewhat satisfying to see the GOP fracture over this. What we've seen instead, so far, is a few Republicans on the edges, abandoning their party to declare themselves independent (or rarely, joining the Dems). Enough Republicans probably realize that splitting the party, with the current duopoly guardrails in place, would be political suicide for all of them. For that matter, a similar calculus is at work on the Democratic side, between the centrists (Nancy Pelosi) and the strong progressives (AOC).

Even before Trump, the government's overall effectiveness was low. Until we fix more of these underlying issues, we're just waiting around for the next demagogue to hit the national stage. Until we stem the tide of disinformation, we'll elect more idiots, and witness more gunmen storming pizza joints. Let's not sit on our laurels. Pick one of those issues and fight for it. I know, the bureaucratic stuff isn't inspiring, not in the same way as fighting the pandemic (life or death!) or addressing immigration (kids in cages!). Those are the in-your-face first-order issues, the ambulance picking up patients. Fixing our elections is like repairing the ambulance, when it can barely sputter along at 25 MPH. We'd best get to work patching up our democracy, whoever's driving it.

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