Andrew Smith writes:
The news that 'post-truth' was
the Oxford word of the year should not have surprised anyone. It's been
everywhere in 2016.
Whether it was Brexit, Trump or any of the political issues
in between, our newspapers and screens have been saturated with people telling
us we’re in a post-truth age.
It's an odd phrase that conjures up
images of a previous political age, one before populism where the truth reigned
supreme.
The problem is that nobody is exactly sure when this age was.
Was it in 2010, when Nick Clegg
helped to treble the same student fees that he promised to scrap?
Was it 2003, when Tony Blair and George Bush told us that we were 45 minutes from
destruction?
Maybe it was the 1990s, when Bill Clinton insisted he did not have
sexual relations with that woman?
Perhaps people mean the 1980s, when
Iran-Contra saw shady arms deals with Iran on side of the Atlantic, and
Orgreave, Hillsborough and Westland on the other?
It's not as simple as saying that truth has become
irrelevant.
But when neither side is trusted to begin with, it's much harder for
one to claim the moral high ground.
Take the US election, for example.
Never had two less liked or trusted people competed for the highest office in
the world. Trump got elected on a litany of half-truths, distortions and
impossible promises.
As I write this it has been announced that he is to pay a
$25 million settlement over allegations he ran a fraudulent university.
However, his opponent was
hardly known for her honesty, either.
Over time, Clinton has become a by-word for
scandal.
Even prior to the announcement that the FBI were re-opening their
investigation, more than two
thirds of voters
perceived her to be dishonest.
We can dispute the extent to which her untruths
and perceived failures should have mattered, but they were obviously important
to many American voters.
It was an election in which trust had come to mean
nothing more than a matter of degrees
Looking closer to home, the Brexit
referendum may have seen Out win the day with their misleading talk of Turkish
immigration and their widely discredited £350 million claim.
But they were up
against a side that promised leaving would mean a very dodgy and highly
misleading £4300 annual loss for every family.
Would a win based on the threats and intimidation of a bullying government
really have represented a win for truth and honesty?
Obviously distrust in politicians
is nothing new.
It would be tempting to join Chilcot in asserting that Blair's
'dodgy dossier' and case for the war in Iraq set public trust back by years, but that's only part of
the story.
Upon leaving office, Blair had a
public trust rating of -30, but the rot started well
before then.
Even on the eve of winning a second majority in 2001, two
thirds of the public already
regarded his Government as being just as sleazy and untrustworthy as the dying
days of Major.
Fundamentally, the problem is
that most of us expect our politicians to lie and deceive.
That's why Ipsos
Mori has found that only
16% of us expect them
to tell the truth.
It's not that we're in a 'post-truth' age, as much as we are
a 'post-trust' one.
Nobody expects our political leaders to be saints, but it
appears there isn't even a base level of trust any longer.
There was a strong
anti-intellectualism that underpinned the Leave case, with Michael Gove
memorably telling Sky News that "people in this country have had enough of
experts".
But if the voices of academics, scientists and economists are to
be disregarded, along with those of politicians, then whose version of
truth will people listen to?
Like Brexit, Donald Trump didn't
come from nowhere.
It's easy to conjure up images of his supporters as being
bigoted, racist and idiotic, but if people had trusted the Democrats more then
he would never have been able to win in the first place.
Last week, David Renwick wrote a
long profile
piece about Obama's
last days in office.
It includes lots of thoughts on Trump and on Clinton, but
very little in the way of introspection.
Obama has lots to say about the role of
the media, but next to nothing on his own failings or the stupidly high
expectations he set and failed to meet.
There's even less about the
shortcomings of his chosen successor.
And that's part of the problem.
To
talk of 'post-truth' politics is to paint all of those who we disagree with us
as irrational beings who have been manipulated by forces outside of their
control.
It is to assume that they do not care if they are being lied to and
have no interest in finding out.
It assumes elections are straight choices
between truth on one side and lies on the other, when they are nothing of the
kind.
It abdicates those who've lost these votes of any responsibility for
their own untruths.
None of this is to excuse Trump or
to support Brexit (I voted Remain), but to recognise them as part of a long
drawn out process.
It's extremely easy for politicians to blame the electorate
or the media when, for the large part, it's them that need to change.
It's not
just a problem with individuals, rather it is about the entire culture of our
politics.
To say that we're living in a
'post-truth' era is one thing.
But what if that truth, and the trust that it
was built upon, disappeared a long time ago?
If mainstream politics can no
longer command the trust of the people, then it's little wonder that increasing
numbers are looking to the fringes.
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