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Matt Hodges
Working on The Groundwork
Photo credit Gage Skidmore; CC-By-SA 2.0

We Don’t Live In A Post-Fact World

Today Donald Trump will ascend to the highest office of the most powerful country in the world.

Some of you chose this. Some of you are excited by this. Some of you are optimistic. Some of you are energized by his words. Some of you believe he is a man who ‘tells it like it is’. Some of you might not enjoy this piece.

For those who are not excited by this, I could list a hundred and one reasons why. From his demeaning rhetoric about minorities to his verbal — and physical! — attacks on women… from his religious fears and intolerance to his reactionary impulses to boost his own admiration… from his unwillingness to grasp facets of government to his propensity to misrepresent his own accolades. I get it.

If you’re a frequent consumer of social media (you are) you’ve no doubt felt anguished by the past two years. Boundless memes of lies. Increased polarization of ‘news’ outlets. There’s a bubble for every worldview. The facts you receive are shaped by your preexisting opinions, not the other way around. And the 45th president wields social media for his own misleading gain.

Put simply: Donald Trump is not a man who ‘tells it like it is’.

The evident truth is that Donald Trump lies a lot. He lies on Twitter. He lies in interviews. He lies in press conferences. He lies in speeches. These aren’t your typical politician lies of bending the truth to fit an agenda; these are lies in which he seemingly concocts statements posthaste. His lies are contradictory and disjointed. And we — both consumers and producers of media — are either flailing to parse them or have given up completely, demoting ourselves to mere stenographers of his lies and broadcasters of outrage.

Calling out his lies is ineffective, at least at changing his behavior. Most politicians are governed by shame; Donald Trump is not. No amount of cornering him will result in atonement or concession.

But facts and truth are still out there.

If Donald Trump chooses to live in a so-called Post-Fact World, that is his choice, but you and I don’t have to.

Last week, Brooke Gladstone asked:

“When reality is up for grabs and you can choose your own version to subscribe to, if democracy relies on consensus, what kind of democracy can we have?”

We can have a marvelous democracy, but we must remove the prior: don’t allow reality to be up for grabs.

This is an extremely easy thing for me to say, but exceptionally difficult thing to do. We’ve all read pieces about social media bubbles and biased consumption. Most suggest awareness and to follow and read differing opinions. Those are good pieces of advice, but too abstract.

So let me throw out some easy ideas:

  • If you follow news or opinion outlets on Facebook, unfollow all of them. Start over.
  • Go unlike all the politicians you’ve liked on Facebook.
  • Go unlike all the opinion espousers you’ve liked on Facebook. I’m talking about Bill Maher. I’m talking about Milo Yiannopoulos.
  • Find 5 active Twitter users you follow, and unfollow them. I don’t care who they are. It’s okay if I’m one of them.
  • Stop sharing, liking, or retweeting any political meme. You know, those pictures with big block text on top. I don’t care if you like it or if you think it’s honest. They aren’t helpful. I’m talking about The Comical Conservative, Occupy Democrats, Being Libertarian, The Other 98%.
  • Unsubscribe from /r/politics.
  • Install an actual news app that is outside your comfort zone. Are you a Cenk Uygur Progressive? Go install the Wall Street Journal app and turn on notifications. Is Sean Hannity your main outlet for information? Go install the Al Jazeera English app and turn on notifications.

These are just ideas, and you don’t have to do all of them. Even one will result in a noticeable change in your content stream.

Today is the first day of Donald Trump’s presidency. You, not he, get to control your next four years of media. If you choose to embrace him, so be it. If you choose to resist him, so be it. I encourage political activism, but I’m also asking you to eat your vegetables.

655 days until the 2018 midterms.