HOW TO REFUTE TRUMP’ S LIES? WITH FORCE AND ALACRITY
George Berkeley was an Irish cleric— the Bishop of Cloyne— and philosopher. His 1709 “An Essay toward a New Theory of Vision” promoted “immaterialism,” the idea that physical objects do not actually exist but are merely perceived. The world isn’t all houses and stones, just light and color.
I mention this as part of my broad- minded attempt to give Donald Trump and his supporters the benefit of the doubt. The idea that there is no reality, no facts, that all is subjective perception was not invented by them, though they certainly have seized the Berkeley viewpoint in what is already being called our “post- fact world.”
Last week, Scottie Nell Hughes, a CNN contributor and Trump supporter, phoned a Washington, D. C., public radio station that was discussing Trump’s baseless claim that millions of illegal votes were cast in the last election. Hughes argued that these deliberate fabrications were not “lies,” but merely differing views. She said:
“I hear half the media saying that these are lies, but on the other hand, there are many people that go, ‘ No, it’s true.’ And so one thing that has been interesting this entire campaign season to watch is that people that say facts are facts, they’re not really facts. Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth or not truth. There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore of facts.”
How to reply? I could point out that this is patently false and give an illustration: millions of children believe in Santa Claus, yet that does not will him into physical being.
But Trumpian thinking— and remember, his logic is not about perceiving reality, but obscuring it— dismisses this as just another opinion, and one from the mainstream media at that. ( His whole lying media schtick is not based on any media lies, but on a kill- the- messenger attempt to shut up those pointing out that the emperor has no clothes.)
Politco’s Glenn Thrush, also on the program Hughes had phoned into, offered an immediate response of incredulity.
“First, I gotta pick my jaw up off the floor here,” he began. “There are no objective facts? I mean that is an absolutely outrageous assertion. Of course there are. There is no widespread proof that 3 million people voted illegally. It’s been checked over and over again. . . . Facts are facts. I’m sorry you don’t like the facts.”
That is what our frightening political moment is about. People who don’t like certain facts trying to clamp their eyes shut, cover their ears, and hum away the facts they don’t like. Because it’s easier. Fighting global warming is hard, and involves stepping on the toes of big money interests. Forcing NASA to stop researching climate change, as the Republicans are keen to do, is easy. Shouting down the media broadcasting the facts you don’t like is also easy.
Whether denied or accepted, facts don’t go away. Republicans can ignore facts, but facts don’t ignore Republicans. Those sea levels are still rising. Santa still needs helpers.
Samuel Johnson, the great English wit, offered a classic retort to Bishop Berkeley’s theory that nothing is real. In the summer of 1763, he and his biographer, James Boswell, traveled to the coast of England— Boswell was sailing to Holland, and Johnson went along to see him off. They stopped at a Harwich church, where the subject of Bishop Berkeley arose.
“I observed, that though we are satisfied this doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it,” Boswell later wrote. “I shall never forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, ‘ I refute it thus.’”
Exactly the strategy for dealing with what will be years of constant lies from Donald Trump and his supporters. Refute them with speed. Refute them with mighty force. Refute them thus, confident that the facts assembled sing their assent and will win out in the end. The trick is getting to that end with the country we love battered and bruised but still intact.
HIS WHOLE LYING MEDIA SCHTICK IS NOT BASED ON ANY MEDIA LIES, BUT ON A KILL- THE- MESSENGER ATTEMPT TO SHUT UP THOSE POINTING OUT THAT THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES.