Sunday/Truth

A recent article by Gershowitz laments the decline of truth in American politics. He originally described the rise of "The Narrative" as Truth's replacement. So our leaders call Cormac McCarthy as witness for their defense. This recalls Zito's wonderful and insightful description of Trump: "The Press takes him literally but not seriously, his voters take him seriously but not literally."

The partisanship in American politics has made all analysis insincere. The Press supports their liars--the Progressives, the Clintons--and FOX theirs, Trump. The Gershowitz article has the openhandedness to blame both.

President Trump defines truth as being that version of events that best satisfies his needs or objectives, or salves his sense of self. Hence his inaugural crowds were the largest ever, and he would have won the popular vote but for the three million illegals who voted for Hillary Clinton. Both ridiculous assertions. President Trump simply says what serves his interest with complete abandon. For example, he blithely stated that his budget plan would offer “one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.” But in fact, Congress raised defense budgets by larger percentages than the 10 percent increase that Trump proposed three times since 2000. The base defense budget grew by 14.3 percent, in 2002; by 11.3 percent, in 2003, and by 10.9 percent, in 2008.

After all, President Barrack Obama knowingly assured the nation that under his healthcare program, (1) premium costs would decline $2400 by the end of his first term, (2) that everyone who wanted to keep his or her doctor could, (3) everyone who liked his or her plan could keep it, and (4) that he would veto the Affordable Care Act if it increased the deficit by one dime. To which, for emphasis, he added “period!” It wasn’t true.  It was never true, and the President knew it wasn’t true.


Remember when one of the key architects of the federal healthcare law, MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber told a panel that a “lack of transparency” and the “stupidity of the American voter” were essential in getting Congress to approve Obamacare. “Lack of transparency, he said, “is a huge political advantage,” Gruber continued, “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.” He said that voters would have rejected Obamacare if the penalties for going without health insurance (the so-called mandate) were interpreted as taxes, either by budget analysts or the public. “If CBO scored the individual mandate as taxes, the bill dies,” Gruber said. “If you had a law that made it explicit that healthy people are going to pay in and sick people are going to get subsidies, it would not have passed."


Gershowitz' overall point, however, is not criticism of liars but rather of their acquiescing victims who continue to excuse the lies to advance the narrative they favor.