Fact vs. fake has become a real battle

One wonders these days if the post-truth era has reached new depths. A chasm where the art — and science — of fact-checking political pronouncements continues, but respect for it or authenticated evidence or the verifiable truth appears closer to death than ever before.

And do we even care? Never was that clearer than the disastrous presidential debate we witnessed last month, a seminal event which led to President Joe Biden ending his campaign for a second term. Most of the post-debate focus was on the president’s fragile performance, his halting and wandering speech and his ashen appearance. The president clearly struggled, prompting calls for him to step aside, which he now has.

What has been missing in the post-debate discussion is that while the president seriously stumbled, his opponent, the former president, spent 90 minutes robustly peddling wholecloth lies, a variety of whoppers and “stuff” he simply made up … the noun in quotations there an acceptable substitute for the editing desk.

When fact checkers eventually weighed in, they confirmed what the casual viewer and even the raspy, laboring president knew: Most of the former president’s responses failed the truth test. For good measure, he reprised his hooey parade with 22 tall tales during his nomination speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

So yes, the debate was a disaster … for the American people. But even more so for the news media, which followed one story as it should have — the president’s clearly diminished capacity — but seemingly whiffed or ignored or downplayed the other story from the debate, the one where the other candidate offered us plenty of bombast and more than a few of his own lapses into vague, rambling distortions. But not the truth.

Sadly, the former president has plenty of “untruthiness” company.

A sampling: — The phrase “every state is a border state” may play as politically pithy and clever. The concept of federalism, how the nation divides its power, begs to differ. The federal government oversees the nation’s borders. Even though the last two Nebraska governors have spent in the neighborhood of $2 million on deployments at the Texas border — money the state could have spent elsewhere — federalism remains federalism.

Moreover, while the reasoning behind the deployments has been interdicting drugs and catching criminals, data from the U.S. Border and Customs Protection agency reveals that 90% of illicit drugs seized on the southern border are at ports of entry. Plus, despite inflated numbers of illegal crossings tossed around at the debate and a spotlight on some horrible murders committed by undocumented migrants, the border is not “open,” asylum seeking is down 40% and, according to a Northwestern University study covering a century and a half of migration, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States.

— Even though Ryan Waters, Oklahoma’s superintendent of public education, insists it is, the Bible is not a history book. Waters is requiring Sooner State teachers to add Bible instruction to their classrooms immediately or face consequences. While the Good Book remains the planet’s most popular tome (five billion copies and counting) and a spiritual guide for a gazillion Christians, it is neither “A Patriot’s History of the United States” or “The American Pageant,” two of the 10 most searched high school history books used in the country.

There’s more: Louisiana now requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed prominently in its public schools classrooms. Both states are part of a movement to immerse public education in Christianity, arguing — without a shred of self-awareness — that the Bible and the Commandments are needed because children are being “indoctrinated.” Cue the First Amendment challenges, which maybe we’ll read about someday in an actual history book.

— Speaking of history and truth, the Supreme Court recently gutted an undeniable American truism on which we have counted for over 240 years: No one is above the law.

Not any more. Six Supremes held that a president — specifically former President Donald Trump — could, with complete immunity, commit a felony such as theft, fraud, even murder, if the crime was part of “official” duties. The decision not only undoes a basic American truth, it reduces us to a monarchy, challenging the very nature of a democracy and changing the nation on a par with the Dred Scott decision.

Democracies depend on good information. Sifting the facts from the false and the fake is more than being well-informed: It’s a civic responsibility.

Unless, of course, we just don’t care.

George Ayoub’s columns appeared in the Grand Island Independent, Omaha World-Herald and Kearney Hub. His work has been recognized by the Nebraska Press Association and the Associated Press. He is a member of the adjunct faculty and Academic Support Staff at Hastings College.