OPINION - Guest writer

Beyond post-truth

A strategy for ‘alternative facts’

I shuddered when Donald Trump's senior adviser Kellyanne Conway presented the Trump administration's false claims as "alternative facts" in a Jan. 22 interview. Many share my perspective. Prominent columnists are condemning Conway for appealing to "alternative facts," and Internet memes featuring "alternative facts" are spreading quickly.

Yet I know that my negative visceral response simply indicates a strong intuitive orientation toward truth. Research shows that plenty of people resonate more with appeals to emotions rather than facts. They do not see an inherent problem with politicians they support lying for political gains.

How do we convey to such people the dangers of "alternative facts"? Just calling out such lies, as many are currently doing, will not work. This approach is characteristic of a typical thinking error, termed the "false consensus effect" in psychology, where we intuitively assume other people share our values and concerns.

As a scholar who has studied decision-making and emotions in politics extensively, I set out to learn how to reach those who do not intuitively emphasize factual truth in arriving at an opinion. Based on research in political psychology, I hypothesized that the surest way is to discover what such people care about and show them how post-truth politics will undermine what they value.

The most promising avenue in my investigation has proven to be demonstrating how "alternative facts" will result in corruption and authoritarianism, one of the top fears of Americans, according to a Chapman University 2016 study.

Without the truth about the influence of money in politics, citizens cannot evaluate who is corrupt. As Secretary of State John Kerry noted at an Anti-Corruption Summit in May 2016, "corruption tears at the entire fabric of a society." Former President Barack Obama took a series of steps to address government corruption through regulations increasing transparency in business and politics. Trump's plans to roll back regulations will reverse this transparency.

Regarding authoritarianism, we can easily envision Trump losing the 2020 election, and then blaming that loss on voter fraud, as he has already done in his false claims that he actually won the popular vote in 2016. Trump is surrounding himself with allies who promote similar lies, such as his new attorney general, who has promoted the falsehood of widespread voter fraud.

Trump's lack of respect for American democracy is clear from the fact that when he thought he was losing the 2016 election, he made the case for rigged elections. If he actually loses the 2020 election, it is not unlikely that he will claim voter fraud and use the might of the presidency to make up evidence to support his claim--spelling doom for American democracy.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of my approach, I went on a radio show whose host, Dwight Lilly, is a Republican activist. The reasoning I used appealed to what Lilly and his listeners cared about--corruption and authoritarianism. We had a very productive conversation where he and I agreed about the dangers of post-truth politics and the importance of not taking any claims at face value, and instead demanding credible evidence.

Given that he has a wide following of, and represents, other Republicans with libertarian leanings, the approach I outlined seems quite promising for getting people like him and others to care about fighting post-truth politics. The key is to determine what such people do care about, and show them that "alternative facts" will, in the end, destroy what they value. Doing so will enable us to form an alliance across the political spectrum to fight for truth in politics for the sake of preserving our democracy.

To help bring about this reality, take the time to talk to people in your life who do not inherently value truth in politics, whether in your family or friendship circles, your church, your workplace, or your virtual community on Facebook or Twitter. Figure out what they value, and point out to them how what they care about will be undermined through accepting "alternative facts."

Doing so will require you to be thoughtful and compassionate, going outside of your comfort zone and trying to reach people where they are and not where you want them to be--but such actions are the only way we can move from our post-truth present to a post-lies future.

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Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, who spent the past year in Little Rock on a research fellowship, is a professor at Ohio State, and author of the forthcoming Solving Post-Truth Politics: Fighting Alternative Facts With Behavioral Science. He is the president of the nonprofit Intentional Insights, and also a speaker, trainer, consultant, and coach. Learn more at GlebTsipursky.com.

Editorial on 02/23/2017

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