Biden, Harris and truth will be sworn in today
After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the installation of metal detectors at the U.S. Capitol, the reaction from one Florida congressman was predictable.
Republican Greg Steube called the post-insurrection security precaution “appalling.” He added, “Take note, America. This is what you have to look forward to in the Joe Biden administration.”
Steube is right — just not in the way he intended.
In the Biden administration, we can look forward to a campaign against what Rand Corporation researchers this year labeled “truth decay.” It’s the refusal by some Americans — mostly Republicans — to accept basic facts, such as the ongoing threat to the Capitol. It’s a costly refusal.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, truth decay has resulted in many needless deaths and economic suffering. The U.S. continues to have 4% of the world’s population and about 25% of the world’s
COVID-19 deaths.
Throughout the 2020 campaign, President Trump hardly ever wore a mask in public. President-elect Biden was hardly ever without one. After his wife reminded him to mask up at a news conference, Biden apologized to the reporters. Gov. DeSantis and other Republicans took their cue from Trump. According to a December poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 87% of Democrats nationwide were willing to continue mask wearing and social distancing until vaccinations are widespread. Only 50% of Republicans expressed a similar interest in protecting public health.
So, yes, we can look forward to an administration that emphasizes science and facts over politics. As New York Times columnist Ezra Klein said, the amazing thing about aspects of Biden’s proposed COVID-19 vaccine plan — more sites, more personnel, more doses — is that Trump failed to order any of them.
Truth decay also caused the Jan. 6 insurrection. Those Trump cultists went to Washington only because Trump had told them for nine weeks that Biden stole the election.
It didn’t matter that Trump had lost five dozen lawsuits alleging fraud. It didn’t matter that Republicans in key states verified the vote. It didn’t matter that the election security advisor for Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security called the election secure and fair.
It mattered only that Trump turned a lie into a rallying cry — with help from key Republicans in Florida.
Attorney General Ashley Moody joined a frivolous GOP lawsuit seeking to invalidate results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The Republican Attorneys General Association, to which Moody belongs, helped to organize the rally that led to the assault on the Capitol.
Despite the attempted insurrection, Sen. Rick Scott and 12 of the 16 Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation voted against certifying Biden’s victory. But the truth decay doesn’t stop there. The new lie is that Trump bears no responsibility for the assault.
Republican Brian Mast represents northern Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast. Last week, he asked whether any of the insurrectionists had appeared before Congress “to answer whether they did that because of our president.”
Of course not. But many have made statements linking the violence to Trump’s rallying cry. In a video taken by a New Yorker reporter among the rioters, one of them yells at Capitol Police officers, “We are listening to Trump, your boss!”
Like all demagogues, Trump knew that democracy’s key institutions and players — traditional media, the courts, apolitical civil servants — would question his lies. So he tried to undermine their credibility.
Sometimes, the effort was comical. Remember when Trump claimed that he had been right about Alabama being at risk from Hurricane Dorian?
More often, the consequences have been serious. Against all evidence, Trump claims that Russia didn’t act to help him against Hillary Clinton.
As Shakespeare wrote, however, truth will out. All of Trump’s pardons — from Paul Manafort to Roger Stone — can’t erase the truth in the Mueller report.
As Biden takes office, truth decay is the Republican claim that the burden for healing the country rests on the new president. In fact, healing can’t start until Republicans admit that Biden didn’t steal the election.
According to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, 73% of Republicans believe that Biden won through fraud. Republicans created the Capitol violence by ducking the truth for four years. Can we look forward to Steube, Mast, Moody and all the others admitting that they were wrong?