Do Facts Still Matter?

Do facts still matter?  Does it matter if politicians lie routinely?  Does it matter if they “make stuff up” in order to express a point more vividly and energize an audience?  Does personal character matter in a leader?  Self-control? The capacity to feel compassion for others? The ability to listen to a range of views before making an important decision?  Does it matter if a political leader advocates violence, both directly but also indirectly through hints and winks and dog whistles of all sorts? Does it matter if he or she talks disrespectfully about our military?  About women?  Does it matter if he or she demonizes fellow Americans and publicly fantasizes about using the American military against them?

Republican voters and probably a good many Independents have just answered all these questions with a resounding NO! These things really don’t matter. Other things, apparently, matter more. As a registered Democrat, I have to admit I am grieving over the decisive defeat of Kamala Harris and other Democrats at the polls and very uneasy about what this means for our country.  The great tree of democracy produces some strange fruit now and then. But the people have spoken, and those who voted for Donald Trump and his crew of compliant Republicans will now own the consequences of what they have done for the rest of their lives.

If you are a Trump voter and have read this far in an opinion piece by a self-confessed registered Democrat, God bless you! I know you felt that, unlike Democrats, Trump heard you during the election and understood the things you care about.  I suspect you took some of the wild statements he made seriously, but not literally, as people used to say back in his first term. Still, he really has had some wild things to say on almost every day of the campaign. That’s where most of the questions in the first paragraph came from.

Ironically, the issues that matter most to me personally were barely mentioned by either candidate in the campaign.  The relentless bombing of civilians in Gaza with weapons paid for by American tax dollars.  A healthcare system still not readily accessible and affordable for all Americans. And maybe the biggest one of all, the climate crisis.  I am writing on a day of record heat and persistent drought for Pennsylvania, and all across the country and around the world people are experiencing ever more serious effects of climate change directly and personally. But candidates for both parties running for many different offices have seemed reluctant to talk much about climate.

The truth is, our political system—even before the election—did not seem to be working all that well to help us face up to problems like climate change and begin to address them.  With Donald Trump back in the White House, progress on many fronts may well become more difficult.  How will we manage, those of us who take climate science both seriously and literally? It’s easy to say we have work to do, but what will that work be exactly?

Facts do matter. Reality matters, too, and has a way of coming back to bite us in the butt when we insist for too long on ignoring it. But the facts of a matter can sometimes be hard to discern. People who provide training for psychological warfare will tell you the key thing you need to do in a country you want to destabilize is to make it impossible, or nearly impossible, to know what’s true and what’s not true. If we just don’t know what really happened, or what the real situation is, how can we act? Our uncertainty can empower a bad government and leave us paralyzed. In a way, it feels like that’s exactly where we are now heading into a new administration.

So, facts are something that I, personally, am going to continue to fight for. I’m going to support independent media in as many different forms as possible, and yes, I’m going to continue to subscribe to (and read) my local paper, even though I sometimes disagree with the opinion pieces it publishes.

Secondly, I am going to take comfort in that fact that there’s more to life than politics. There is family, there are friends. There is church for those of us who have a way to relate creatively to a religious tradition. There is music and there is nature, all around us here in our beloved Pennsylvania.

Thirdly, I am going to bet my big money on listening, and on conversations with those with whom I don’t necessarily agree. I’m going to bet my big money on democracy even when my side has just suffered a painful defeat.

Will Lane is a retired lecturer in English and Environmental Studies at Gettysburg College. He hosts the online Green Gettysburg Book Club and is a member of Gettysburg Democracy for America.