On Tyranny - Lesson 10: Believe in Truth

 Lesson 10 of 20 from the 20th Century On Tyranny - we're half way there. If you're still reading, or if you're tapping in at the mid-point, welcome. Thanks for taking the time. This lesson is one that feels a little hopeless to me sometimes. Believe in truth.

Snyder discusses the 4 phases in which truth dies according to Victor Klemperer, a Germany scholar whose diaries were published after his death. The first phase is open hostility to verifiable information. Safe to say we can check that box. All the way back in 2016 as Trump ran for his first term as president, he was uber-resistant to any fact which inconvenienced him. Anything that painted him in a bad light was deemed fake news. Anything that didn't serve his agenda was shunned as false, no matter how easily verifiable it was. Not only that, but the rate at which Trump lies is astronomical. Snyder points out how during his campaign in 2016 it was determined that 78% of the claims he made were false, and yet his base would take his word as gospel. Kellyanne Conway even coined a new term for him: alternative facts. So anything Trump doesn't like is false (like how tariffs work) and anything he says is absolute truth (like "they're eating the dogs"). 

The next phase is shamanistic repetition: repeating the same things over and over until people believe it to be true. Check this box too. Did you know that immigrants are inherently criminal, and foreign countries pay for tariffs on imported goods? Actually, neither of those things are true. But if you ask Trump's base, those things are simply common sense. All he has to do is repeat something enough times, and it's regarded as fact. If you tell a lie enough times, sometimes you can convince yourself that it's true. It's like that, except on a national scale with millions of people falling victim to the lies in numerous ways. 

The third phase is magical thinking. Trump was ordained by god and is going to solve all of our problems. He's going to fix the healthcare crisis AND get rid of the Affordable Care Act (let's not forget the ACA is ObamaCare). He'll cut taxes for everyone AND eliminate the national debt. He'll implement widespread tariffs and deport millions of workers AND lower prices. All of these things contradict each other. You have to abandon all reason to believe it's possible to accomplish each combination. And yet we can check this box too. Trump's base wouldn't dare call him a liar. He's the political outsider who "just tells it like it is" after all! He's not like these other crooked politicians. Klemperer wrote about a soldier who, after WWII and all of the atrocities committed, said that he still believed in Hitler because he'd never lied. Sound familiar?

The final phase is misplaced faith. Germans reached a point beyond evidence. A worker told Klemperer "understanding is useless. You have to have faith. I believe in the Fuhrer". It was a point of rejecting evidence, because what's the point of understanding if it undermines your belief? Another box easily checked. The right wing has unwavering faith in Trump's ability to make their lives better. Except, he won't. He didn't honor many of his promises in his first term, and like we discussed for phase 3 it's impossible for him to honor most of his promises this time around. I'm not so sure they'll hold him to account when it's all said and done, much like the soldier above didn't hold Hitler to account.

So all the boxes are checked. The truth is dying. What do we do? We have to stay vigilant and know when we're being duped by alternative truths, which are just lies. We have to remain committed to seeking out evidence and trusting it when it's found, but we also have to be open to new evidence. It's okay to change your position when you find new *verifiable* information. We can't just do this quietly for ourselves; we need to be loud. We have to combat the volume of the lies we're refuting, and we have to make sure our friends and families understand the truth too. It does feel hopeless sometimes. It will likely continue to feel increasingly hopeless much of the time. But we have to persevere. The chapter ends "Post-truth is pre-fascism."