Post-truth

I will admit that I’ve been somewhat obsessively reading article after article on the US election. I even regularly check Trump’s Twitter account to see what on earth he could up to, berating people for actions that he himself had committed only so recently – read: Hamilton’s message to Mike Pence, and how he accused them of bullying when Trump had bullied SO many people.

It all just makes so little sense to my rational brain, and yet, I also rationally understand how we’ve arrived here.

I recently read this article from The New Yorker.  It’s long, but it’s worth it.  Well written, well considered.

Presented through David Remnick’s campaign-long interview of Barack Obama.  And his piece, in my opinion, speaks to the importance of media now more than ever.

Remnick says of the President-elect, “Trump understands the new ecosystem, in which facts and truth don’t matter. You attract attention, rouse emotions, and then move on” – today’s New Yorker cartoon depicted just that.

So this is where we are in North America.  The post-truth society?  Eek.  History will always be full of surprises, and lessons and this is just another of those.

I hope Remnick’s analysis of Obama speaks a larger truth about the future: ‘there is no denying the depths of Obama’s humbling. He fully grasps the nature of the bigotry and the nihilism that Trump has espoused in the name of working-class empowerment. Obama’s way is to keep cool while insisting on, and embodying, a faith in institutions’.