Guest writer

Outlast 'post-truth'

Come together against deception

The inauguration of Donald Trump brings us our first post-truth president. He may well be the first of many.

Oxford Dictionary defines post-truth as "denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief." Trump's political methods rely on this appeal to emotions such as fear and anxiety and to personal beliefs over objective reality.

His victory demonstrated the effectiveness of post-truth politics. Other politicians are highly likely to adopt Trump's successful methods, and our political system will deteriorate in a spiral of lies and deceit--unless we take decisive action now to move from this post-truth present into a post-lies future.

Getting to this future requires understanding of why our political system was vulnerable to post-truth political methods. While politicians frequently accused each other of deceit, mainstream media have traditionally served as the referees, blowing the whistle on liars. The lying parties generally did not go against the media consensus, and withdrew their claims.

In part, such trust stemmed from the public's inability to get information from sources other than mainstream media and also the journalistic code of ethics promoting objectivity. However, according to a 2016 Pew Research Center poll, more and more people are getting their news from social media. Likewise, the projection of objectivity left mainstream media unable to deal effectively with a politician who refuses to follow "the rules of the game," by refusing to back away from the deceptions when called out.

While other political figures have taken advantage of these vulnerabilities to promote their agendas, they have mostly been confined to the fringes of our political system. Trump's genius rests in being the first mainstream political figure to exploit thoroughly these systemic vulnerabilities.

A master at social media, Trump bypassed the mainstream media to tweet his messages directly to voters. His campaign was at the forefront of targeting voters with sponsored advertisements on Facebook. Such ads are very effective: A study from Stanford University shows that over 80 percent of participants could not distinguish a news story shared by a friend from a sponsored advertisement.

Additionally, Trump's harsh criticism of mainstream media when they called him out on his deceit both before and after the election undercut the credibility of media venues. As a result, trust in the mainstream media among Republicans dropped by over half from 2015 to 2016.

In order to deal with our post-truth politics, reasonable people all across the political spectrum need to come together in a post-lies movement.

We need to fight for a focus on truth in letter and spirit as the most important component of our political system. We need to work tirelessly to educate everyone about the benefits of orienting toward truth.

We also have to create incentives and consequences for politicians to be truthful, as orienting toward truth is not conducive to winning political battles in the current environment. Such incentives would involve a combination of carrots and sticks.

On the one hand, we have to catch lies and punish liars, especially those who share our own ideological perspectives, so as to minimize accusations of political bias in advocacy for truth in politics. On the other, we must praise and reward truth-telling, especially when it harms one's ideological position.

Such advocacy efforts are not easy, since they go against the grain of short-term political victories. Yet addressing the downward spiral of lies and deceptions is vital to preserve our democracy, and the early advocates of the post-lies movement will be the heroes of tomorrow.

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Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, who has been on a year-long research fellowship in Little Rock, is a tenure-track professor at Ohio State researching decision-making and emotional intelligence. He is the president of the nonprofit Intentional Insights, and also a speaker, trainer, consultant, and coach. Learn more at GlebTsipursky.com.

Editorial on 01/23/2017

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