Everything you need to know about the post-truth era

Politics Explained

Nov 29

The Trump era has sped up the spread of extremism, seen in many major political events such as the attack on the capitol to the most recent debt limit crisis and the filibuster. As the attacks keep coming, there’s one question on everyone’s minds: What caused this apocalyptic political ground? It’s the consequence of the post-truth era, created by Donald Trump, which we’re still reeling from the effects of today.

What is the post-truth era?

A post-truth era is a time period where objective facts are less influential on popular decisions than appeals to emotion and personal belief. During the Trump era, this can be seen in his many tweets that have been repeatedly, over 20,000 times, proved to be complete lies. However, his supporter base continued to accept these claims wholeheartedly and would even go so far as to contradict all existing evidence to attack any political opponents.

The climax of the post-truth era is arguably the attack on the capitol, where Trump’s claims about the election being stolen by Joe Biden and the Democrats fueled Trump supporters to raid the capitol in pursuit of stopping the inauguration. Although the election has been shown to be completely valid, Trump’s influence is enough for his supporters and 66% of the Republican Party to support him. The Republican Party is now at the mercy of Trump’s claims in order to preserve their supporters, and objective policy has become insignificant in the face of Trump’s pressure to legitimize the belief of election fraud.

This is the post-truth era, where power determines truth. What’s truly terrifying is how its origins mirror those of totalitarianism.

There’s a history behind the post-truth era?

Even though the term is quite recent, the act of denying truth in the face of objective facts is nothing new. In fact, even right now you can go on any social media site to see it in action. But historically, this tactic has been an extremely effective way for totalitarian, fascist dictators to consolidate their power and do away with the competition. Adolf Hitler presented his ideology and his ideas with unshakeable conviction despite it being blatantly false. Benito Mussolini once stated that the myth is more powerful than the truth. Fascist dictators were able to organize their supporters to back up these claims, forcing them to be seen as truth despite the abundance of contradictory evidence.

What’s going to happen?

By looking back at history, we can see that the rise of post-truth politics leads to the downfall of democracies. The newfound extremism of the Republican Party after catering to Trump will inevitably lead to U.S. politics becoming far more right-leaning than it intends to in the future. This will especially be exacerbated by more extremist political education policies, such as the banning of critical race theory in schools.

The post-truth era is not a critique of the media, but a critique of the propaganda political platforms use to further their own agenda. Despite Trump’s attacks labeling the media as “fake news broadcasters,” freedom of the press and its ability to reveal the falsehoods of Trump’s claims is the key to ensuring our democracy and combating the post-truth era.