The Normalization of "Post-Truth"

In 2016, Oxford Dictionarys' word of the year was "post-truth." Since the 2016 presidential campaign, Americans have been inundated with these "alternative facts"/lies, so much so many begin to see this tactic as "normal" in our society. This presents a great risk. It is critical our government institutions remain trusted agents of their citizens.

Much has been said about President Trump's false or misleading statements. The Washington Post has been cataloguing them since the campaign began. So far, the count is above 3000. Yet, despite this, many disenfranchised voters ignore his lying because they see him as authentically representing their interests when the establishment has ignored them. In 1959, sociologist Seymour Lipset called this a "crisis of legitimacy." In a recent Bloomberg article, Why Trump Gets Away With Lying, writer Mark Buchanan states: "Lipset suggested that a crisis of legitimacy would have psychological consequences — and set the stage for a lying demagogue to be perceived by many people as bravely speaking suppressed truths. In normal conditions, voters shun any candidate who obviously lies and abuses widely shared social norms. But in a crisis, Lipset argued, disenfranchised voters may see such violations as a symbolic protest, and a deliberate poke in the eye to the elites they have come to despise."

In this poster, the upside-down flag is an accepted sign of distress: the state of our country right now. The words on the flag are taken from our Declaration of Independence and read: That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...