WaPo | Welcome to — brace yourself for — the post-truth presidency.
“Facts are stubborn things,” said John Adams in 1770, defending British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre, “and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
Or so we thought, until we elected to the presidency a man consistently heedless of truth and impervious to fact-checking.
WaPo | It should be obvious that without the so-called mainstream media, especially newspapers such as the New York Times and The Post, no one would know anything that has any basis in objective fact — and yes there is such a thing. We will rue the day we forgot that newsgathering is a profession with demanding standards regarding performance and ethics. Notwithstanding the billion-member global newsroom, it’s nice to have smart, well-educated, experienced reporters and editors to pluck the pearls from the muck.
Therefore, the highest service the president of the United States could perform would be to actively engage the media in the national interest of nurturing an informed populace, without which a 8democratic Republic cannot long survive.
WaPo | You may think you are prepared for a post-truth world, in which political appeals to emotion count for more than statements of verifiable fact.
But now it’s time to cross another bridge — into a world without facts. Or, more precisely, where facts do not matter a whit.
WaPo | “I think that’s out of Trump’s hands. He should leave it to the Justice Department, and she should be prosecuted.”
His wife agreed, adding: “It was a debate. . . . He doesn’t always think. He’s not a politician. He just says it.”
Still, at Trump’s first mention of Clinton during the rally that night, the whole arena began chanting: “Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!”
Trump stood by and smiled.
Sitting one section over from the Meyers was another couple in their 70s who were convinced that Trump’s change in tone on Clinton is just a strategic act.
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