Renouncing Facts for Feelings

Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder recently commented that "fascism always begins with clearing the horizon of factuality."

During a December 2019 speech for a Turning Point USA conference in Flordia, President Trump talked about the Green New Deal, and made a number of disjointed declarations about wind turbines and wind energy. In Florida he remarked,

“… I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody I know. It’s very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none. But they’re manufactured — tremendous, if you’re into this, tremendous fumes, gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything — you talk about the ‘carbon footprint’ — fumes are spewing into the air, right? Spewing. Whether it’s in China, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything, right? So they make these things, and then they put them up, and if you own a house within vision of some of these monsters, your house is worth 50 percent of the price.” In previous remarks this year about wind turbines he said they reduce the price of nearby properties by 65% and also claimed that wind turbines cause cancer.

If my neighbor made a similar speech at the local bar after one too many, I wouldn’t pay much attention. But Trump is the president of the United States, and his continual distortion of reality has purpose and impact worldwide.

Victor Klemperer, who kept a diary while living under the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and the German Democratic Republic, noticed that one way totalitarianism is expressed is hostility to “verifiable reality. ” Lies are frequently presented as undeniable facts. Trump’s comments on wind turbines are one of many examples of his distaste for facts. And the false or misleading claims he makes have been accelerating each year. At this point, journalists have documented more than 15,000 false or misleading statements by Trump during his presidency.

Why is this important? Because as historian Timothy Snyder points out, “If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so.” This is the reason Trump has branded America’s free press as the “lying press” (Lügenpresse). There must be no truth except the one he declares.

Trump’s windmill speech is also an example of another sign of budding totalitarianism. Since he’s become president, Donald Trump has declared himself an expert on everything from windmills to nuclear arms to ISIS. He’s made statements such as:

"I know more about renewables than any human being on Earth..." (April 2016.)

"Nobody in the history of this country has ever known so much about infrastructure as Donald Trump." (July 2016.)

“I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A.” (December 2017)

"I know more about drones than anybody. I know about every form of safety that you can have." (January 2019.)

To believe that Trump is a leading expert on renewable energy, infrastructure, taxes, drones, nuclear arms, ISIS, and much more, one must abandon the world of reason and devote oneself to an almost religious faith in Trump. Victor Klemperer, who survived the Nazi reign in Germany, wrote that one of his university students urged him to “abandon yourself to your feelings, and focus on the Fuhrer’s greatness, rather than on the discomfort you’re feeling...”

To continue to support Trump, one must embrace the lies, and simply believe. Accept that Trump knows more “than any human being on Earth.” Afterall, as he’s told us, he is “the chosen one.”

*First published as a column by Quest Lakes in the RJG and MVN on Dec. 27,2019

Bill Barr and the Great Crucible of Crisis

*First published as a column in Nov. 2019 by Quest Lakes in the MVN and RGJ with the title "Information Bubbles and the Death of Irony."

This may come as a shock, so prepare yourselves. I listen to Tom Gresham's Gun Talk on KKFT FM 99.1 on Sundays. I watch Democracy NOW and the PBS Newshour. I listen to the Larry Elder Show on talk radio and programs on Capital Public Radio 90.5 FM. On Twitter, I follow people like Dr. Sarah Kendzior, whose research focuses on the authoritarian states of the former Soviet Union and how the internet affects political mobilization. I also keep an eye on what people like Charlie Kirk and Cassandra Fairbanks are tweeting. I go to lectures at UNR by people like Dr. Angela Davis, and watch lectures online, such as recent ones by Attorney General Bill Barr for Notre Dame and the Federalist Society.

I do this to keep myself from becoming a case study in epistemic closure. In “epistemic closure”, people in a closed environment get most of their new information only from one another. It’s like an “information bubble” filled with limited information and/or misinformation.

What I've noticed by using this method is that there's an alarming asymmetry of information. This lack of symmetry is part of what allowed some to cheer when Attorney General William Barr, a fervent defender of President Trump, delivered a speech at Notre Dame recently that laid out arguments in direct opposition to this country’s First Amendment.

The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Yet in his speech on October 11th, Barr declared, “we see the growing ascendancy of secularism and the doctrine of moral relativism...The consequences of this moral upheaval have been grim.Virtually every measure of social pathology continues to gain ground…I will not dwell on all the bitter results of the new secular age. Suffice it to say that the campaign to destroy the traditional moral order has brought with it immense suffering, wreckage, and misery. And yet, the forces of secularism, ignoring these tragic results, press on with even greater militancy. Among these militant secularists are many so-called “progressives.” But where is the progress? We are told we are living in a post-Christian era. But what has replaced the Judeo-Christian moral system? ...In the past, societies – like the human body – seem to have a self-healing mechanism – a self-correcting mechanism that gets things back on course if things go too far... The opinion of decent people rebels. They coalesce and rally against obvious excess. Periods of moral entrenchment follow periods of excess. This is the idea of the pendulum. We have all thought that after a while the ‘pendulum will swing back..’ But today we face something different that may mean that we cannot count on the pendulum swinging back...Secularists, and their allies among the ‘progressives,’ have marshaled all the force of mass communications, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.”

If you do not know why this is an attack on the First Amendment, and if you do not see any irony in Trump’s right hand man delivering a speech rallying against “the unbridled pursuit of personal appetites at the expense of the common good,” you might be trapped in an information bubble.

*Postscript: Speeches like recent ones by AG Bill Barr serve a purpose, and it’s not a holy one. The New Zealand mosque shooter, who murdered 50 people and injured many more in 2019 while they were at their place of worship, left behind a manifesto. He wrote, “The change we need to enact only arises in the great crucible of crisis.” He hoped that his cowardly rampage would “add momentum to the pendulum swings of history, further destabilizing and polarizing Western society in order to eventually destroy the current nihilistic, hedonistic, individualistic insanity that has taken control of Western thought.” The New Zealand attack in March was followed by an attack targeting Latinx people in a Texas Walmart and an attack on on a Pennsylvania synagogue, both by shooters who named the New Zealand killer’s manifesto as inspiration. If you don't see how any of this is related to the worldview Bill Barr is pushing, you might be a case study in epistemic closure.

See also, this video of Patricia Hackett, an adjunct professor at Notre Dame Law School, delivering a theological and jurisprudential response to Attorney General William Barr's recent speech on religious freedom at Notre Dame Law School. Hackett confessed that after she read Barr's talk, she felt a persistent nudge, a personal responsibility to "correct the record." She titled her talk, "Contempt of Grace: The Theological and Legal Error of William Barr's Understanding of Religious Freedom." Patricia Hackett earned her B.A. in government and theology, and an M.A. in theology from the University of Notre Dame. She holds a J.D. from Notre Dame Law School. https://youtu.be/qQQ_WyGzYqs