Beyond true and false

As a blogger in the Mormon Democrat space, I have recently realized that I may have been seeing the struggle through too narrow a lens. I had thought that Trumpism, and the even more radically fascist post-presidency Trumpism, was primarily a problem of lies versus truth.

My response has been to relentlessly tell the truth and to expose lies. I have also written about the techniques liars use to spread their disinformation.

Speech is an act

I now recognize that speech is more than just words, stories, and opinions. Even more important than the meaning of words is the effect of words. Speech is an act. It actually does something. It affects physical reality. It changes things.

For example, when a judge says, “I sentence you to 20 years in prison,” or when a minister says, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” those words change the real lives of real people in a significant and dramatic way.

The Mormon Democrats who are attacked, belittled, ignored, or shunned in their LDS wards and neighborhoods are not simply being “exposed” to other people’s “opinions.” They are being personally harmed.

Every time Tucker Carlson and his ilk put another lie out into the world, it can be countered, it can be debunked, but the damage is already done. People are more deceived, trust is weakened, society is less civil, and our democracy moves closer to fascism.

In the past, when someone expressed a racist or fascist idea, and then claimed “I am entitled to my own opinion,” I would have said, “Not when your opinion is based on lies.” Now I might say, “Not when your opinion oppresses people,” or “threatens the Constitution,” or “tears apart the moral fabric of society.”

Rethinking the 1st Amendment

Many increasingly view with suspicion ideas about free speech that lack an analysis of power, especially colorblind First Amendment advocacy. They know that valuing all speech equally is as likely to build a universe of lies as truth.

K-Sue Park

I used to agree with the concept that the solution to bad speech is more speech. The idea is that the best way to counter lies is not to “censor” them, but to expose them. Now I don’t believe that simply exposing lies is a strong enough response to save our country.

The concept of “more speech” comes from a quotation from Justice Louis Brandeis. Unfortunately, people do not know the full sentence. Justice Brandeis qualified his statement with an “if.” Here is the quotation:

If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.

Justice Louis Brandeis in the Whitney opinion

The Justice said the remedy to falsehood is “more speech” “IF there be time” for discussion and education “to avert the evil.” This implies that sometimes “enforced silence” may be necessary to “avert evil.”

As a retired teacher I will always support discussion and education. The problem, in our current hyper-saturated media environment, is that there is no “time” (meaning opportunity, desire, and good will) to avert the evil of disinformation through open, civil, discussion.

How can a lie be corrected when the primary audience for the lie refuses to even listen to fact-checked, mainstream, sources of information?

Changing someone’s mind

Liberal appeals to truth will not stop fascists.

Natasha Lennard

Those who manufacture lies are not interested in listening to reason. They have a vested interest in peddling their poison. We must focus our efforts on those who have been deceived. It is a process that requires gentle persuasion, unfeigned love, and long-suffering (D&C 121:41-44).

Escaping brainwashing is a process of conversion similar to when a person joins the Church. The Trumpist must come to see and understand things differently. They must change their paradigm (or internal model) of the world.

Awakening one’s mind can be a difficult struggle. We are creatures of habit. We create our preferred image of ourselves and others and then we spend the rest of our lives paying attention only to information that reinforces our preconceptions. If we have always defined ourselves as a Republican, we will even vote for an obviously corrupt and incompetent narcissist rather than consider voting for a Democrat.

The nature of the struggle

We on the Left, as always, are not just opposing lies. We are fighting evil. The opposition – in the boardrooms, in the media, in the statehouses, and in the US Capitol – is unabashedly interested only in increasing their power and in making even more money.

In our current environment, the old journalistic and political tools of evidence, reason, fact-finding, discussion, and debate no longer work. The opposition has gone off the deep end and refuses to listen at all.

We are left with the tools of the missionary – faith, determination, consistency, humility, prayer, example, and testimony. We are asking our deceived friends and family to repent. They will only do this for us if they believe we truly care.

Do not be silent. All of our voices are needed to counteract the cruel, manipulative, and selfish speech acts of the far right. Do not hide away from the Church in frustration. You have already been blessed significantly with the gift of being able to see through the dark mists of propaganda.

Please continue doing your part in defending the sick, the poor, the weak, the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, the elderly, and the children, against this intense latter-day assault by the selfish and powerful.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Matthew 5:16

Sources

Natasha Lennard, “A Struggle, Not a Debate,” Dissent, Summer 2021.
K-Sue Park, “Whose Free Speech?” Dissent. Summer 2021.