It is sad to admit, but we are now governed by individuals who do not believe in truth telling, and for many, it’s rubbing off. Let me explain:
Donald Trump does not tell the truth. He tells falsehoods 70 percent of the time, and sources have fact-checked him to prove this — yet he still lies without much scrutiny (besides a good portion of citizens and the media). Donald Trump lies; his counselor, Kellyanne Conway, has promoted lies (or “alternative facts,” which are just plain falsehoods), and even Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer has lied during his very first time addressing the press in his new role.
These are the people in power now. Their clear disregard for facts have started to promote the idea of opinion and emotion outweighing the truth and what should really matter, and this brings me to how Donald Trump got elected in the first place: post-truth.
Post-truth is “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief,” which basically means that the opinions and feelings of many outweigh their desire to take the truth into consideration. This term was so popular last year that the Oxford Dictionary chose it as its word of the year for 2016.
Trump harnessed the notion of post-truth and connected with people who wanted a president whom they felt truly understood them. A president who participated in outrageous promises and made extreme points. A president who publicly mocked a disabled man, which resulted in a connection with those Americans who had similar views, found it funny and were just waiting for this display to give them permission to act in a way their president did. A president who outwardly slandered his opponent during the campaign every chance he got — not with facts, but with radical opinion. Post-truth is how Trump won the presidency and even how Brexit became a reality. It is becoming more effective, and it’s frightening. People are making huge decisions not because of facts, but because they relate emotionally to something said.
Through all of this, I ask myself this: how is it that those in big businesses and in advertising must pass specific rules and regulations while the leaders of this world have absolutely no process to undergo before they put out known falsehoods and other rhetoric that may be destructive to an entire nation?
Advertisers and marketers must go through the Federal Trade Commission’s strict regulations to ensure that they are not being deceptive or unfair to the public. Before a brand posts content on social media or puts out advertisements, it must go through some sort of regulation to ensure its appropriateness and legitimacy. But the fact that Donald Trump can tweet anything he wants without even autocorrect there to ensure he doesn’t put out falsehoods, or the fact that Sean Spicer can claim that there were no official numbers recorded of the attendance of the inauguration and immediately turn around and claim that Trump’s inauguration was the most witnessed in history is not fair in the slightest.
Those who run our country should be held to as high of a standard, if not higher, than those who inhabit it.