1. A hallmark of authoritarian countries is an utter loss of certainty regarding what is true & what is false. Autocrats systematically attack independent sources of truth. Donald Trump is not an autocrat, but he admires despots, praises them, and is mimicking their key tactics.
2. Undermining a sense of certainty around truth serves a regime's interests. Truth is a weapon not just against lies but against corruption & criminality. But if the waters are muddied and people can't be sure what to believe, they are less likely to act or oppose those in power
3. Since taking office, Trump has borrowed a page straight from the despot's playbook: attack the press, lie constantly, accuse your rivals of that which you are guilty, and entrench a partisan tribalism mentality amongst your supporters so that truth matters less than "winning."
4. In that sense, Giuliani's objection that "truth isn't truth" on MTP was inadvertently sort of accurate. For Trump's supporters, truth isn't truth. For many, truth matters less than the messenger. If CNN says something, even something with ironclad accuracy, it's "fake."
5. Trump, his administration, and his network of surrogates or Fox News sycophants like Hannity, Ingraham, or Carlson have figured out that the mix of misinformation, partisan tribalism, motivated reasoning, toxic polarization, and tapping into racist/racial fears is a potent one
6. The story is ostensibly about Trump. But when citizens are socialized in a way that unmoors them from shared reality & a sense of objective truth, it's not like a switch that can be turned off as soon as Trump leaves office. It's changing how millions think.
7. This is deliberate and, to some extent, it will work. Millions of people believe Trump's lies, his whataboutism, and his gaslighting. And because his supporters believe it, it protects him politically to a great extent, allowing him to get away with far more than he should.
8. It's easiest to stop this alarming degradation of truth at the ballot box. For now, it's harder to convert the Trump base than to convince people to vote (especially the 63.6% of Americans who didn't vote in the 2014 midterms). Send a message with your vote: "truth is truth."
