Can we handle the truth?

“There’s what people want to hear; there’s what people want to believe; there’s everything else — and then there’s the truth.”

That’s been a common refrain in this column, as the “truth” is increasingly ignored or subjugated by hyperpartisan spin doctors. Yet while the truth never changes, and is neither subjective nor “gray,” that doesn’t stop some from manipulating facts to fit their desired narratives.

So let’s talk truth — specifically, the truth about “the election,” since its result affected the world in unprecedented ways. Was it hacked? Yes. Did powerful forces conspire — in other words, was there “collusion” — to affect the outcome? Most certainly, yes.

Since it was rigged, was the president legitimately elected? No. Yet was the election nullified, or he impeached? Nope.

Finally, did the losing party (and candidate) swallow their pride, accept the outcome, and work with the new president to move America forward? Damn right they did.

And because they valued country over self, America persevered through difficult times.

So thank you, Richard Nixon, for presciently understanding that dignity and discretion would best heal the nation’s wounds. After all, the 1960 election was, in fact, stolen from him and all Americans, thanks to collusion among Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Lyndon Johnson’s minions in Texas, and members of the Democratic Party.

If that situation occurred today, with the advantage of social media and 24/7 news coverage, one wonders how many Democrats would voice outrage at their party leaders for allowing such a breach of America’s most hallowed right. Not many. They didn’t in 1960, and almost certainly wouldn’t today — the result of politics trumping principle.

The irony is that those hellbent on delegitimizing President Trump, simply because they don’t like him, are doing the very things that should have been done six decades ago, when they were merited.

This has nothing to do with Donald Trump. Instead, it’s about how we as a society, especially via social media, have allowed ourselves to become so polarized, and so utterly bitter toward anyone with whom we disagree, that the truth has become an afterthought. So long as “our side” benefits, regardless of facts and truth, so be it. And consequences be damned.

The icing on the cake is the left’s lovefest with former FBI Director James Comey because he is feuding with the president.

The most whopping irony is they are embracing the man who literally handed the presidency to Mr. Trump after announcing, at the eleventh hour, that he was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Truth is, there isn’t a person on the planet who interfered with the election more than James Comey. But somehow that’s ignored because he is perceived to serve the interests of the left.

The left accuses the president of being in the pocket of Vladimir Putin, yet says nary a word when his actions say otherwise: Mr. Trump approved the largest defensive weapon sale to Ukraine in half a decade (infuriating Putin), and told Germany that it was “captive” to Putin for Russian natural gas.

Conversely, the right — hardliners toward Russia and Mr. Putin prior to the 2016 election — has turned a blind eye when Mr. Trump’s way-too-cozy interactions with Putin should have raised eyebrows. But because Mr. Trump is “their man,” many have followed without question, abandoning long-held positions overnight.

And many on the right, who incessantly complained about President Obama, from his spending deficits to his vacations to his travel budgets, have uttered barely a peep about the undeniable truth that Mr. Trump has exceeded all of them in less than two years.

We have become an increasingly rude, self-absorbed people with little empathy for anyone but ourselves and “our side.” Common decency and good manners have become casualties in our all-about-me society. And social media is widely seen as the only way to be “relevant” — but to have a voice, one “must” be in the other side’s face, all the time, even when the truth don’t support one’s position.

There is another famous adage: “the truth shall set you free.” If we don’t restore the principles that once united us — starting with seeking the truth, wherever it leads — then true freedom will become elusive.