There are three basic kinds of facts: Real facts, legal facts, and political facts.
“Real facts,” as the term implies, are reality. “Legal facts” are the pictures lawyers paint to juries, which may bear little or no resemblance to reality. “Political facts” are what politicians want people to believe, which often are the opposite of reality.
I probably could throw in a fourth category here: Newspaper facts. News is a profit-driven and ad-driven business, and when readership is low, editors drum up newsstand sales by conjuring up non-existent “crime waves” or something else that will get attention. TV news works the same way.
Political convention speeches, especially Republican ones, obviously are filled with “political facts.” At the 2024 GOP convention, speaker after speaker claimed Biden’s alleged “open borders” caused the fentanyl crisis. Here’s a sampling from NBC News‘s reporting (from story here):
“Sen. Marco Rubio said when Trump was president ‘our border was secure and our laws were enforced’ — but that those days are gone. Ben Carson said, ‘We have a wide open border.’ Tom Cotton said, ‘Joe Biden thinks borders are racist.’ The implication for all of them was that an open border is to blame for the country’s fentanyl crisis.”
NBC News says, “This narrative of course is complete nonsense;” in reality the fentanyl crisis “has absolutely nothing do with Biden ‘opening our border’ because no such event has occurred.” For starters, border arrests and deportations under Biden exceed those under Trump.
Even more importantly, migrant border crossers aren’t the ones bringing in fentanyl; it’s coming in through legal crossings, and a stunning 86% of people arrested for fentanyl smuggling are American citizens.
How did Republicans respond to these facts? They gave a microphone to a bereaved mother who lost a teen son to a fentanyl overdose, and she told the GOP convention audience, “Biden opened our borders.” Of course, had she spoken the truth, they wouldn’t have let her speak.
We give extraordinary license to politicians to lie, exaggerate, distort, and make up facts. This isn’t a free speech issue; I’m talking about what citizens — and some media — let lying politicians get away with. It isn’t government’s place to censor them; it’s our responsibility to reject lies, and the liars who peddle them.
But many people listen to politically-motivated b.s., because it’s either what they want to hear, or have been conditioned to hear, or some combination of both. Psychologists call this “confirmation bias.” It’s harder to listen to things you disagree with, and human nature is to follow the path of least resistance.
In college, graduate school, and law school classes, I had factual rigor pounded into me. I was a newspaper reporter and lawyer, and both those professions require getting facts right. I also was trained in public management, where decisions have to be based on accurate information.
Probably most voters aren’t as careful with facts as I am, and quite a few make voting decisions based emotion rather than objective reasoning. But I’m for democracy, and every citizen having equal say, because no authoritarianism works better.
However, democracy puts a lot of political responsibility on citizens. Harmful consequences can flow from voting decisions based on lies and false propaganda.
As an obvious example, if migrant border crossers aren’t behind the fentanyl smuggling, then pouring public resources into rounding them up and deporting them won’t make even a tiny dent in the fentanyl problem. By diverting border resources, this cynical politics allows fentanyl smuggling to continue relatively unhindered.
That’s just one illustration of why facts matter. It shouldn’t require fancy diplomas to understand that the closer we pin public policy to real facts, the better off we will be; and the farther we drift from reality in what we believe, the more likely unfavorable outcomes become.
This is what education, training, and critical thinking skills are for, and why we go to the trouble of acquiring them. But all of that is useless, if we don’t use it when it matters. So this posting is a plea for responsible voting behavior.
Photo below: Bereaved parent Anne Fundner falsely tells 2024 GOP delegates she lost her son to fentanyl because of “Biden’s open border policies.” It’s what GOP politicians want voters to believe, but it won’t stop fentanyl smuggling or save any lives. America needs honest politicians to tell voters what actually needs to be done.
