I've seen a troubling trend for years among conservative talking heads, and it continues in this election cycle. I've never seen it called out for what it is. Maybe that's because we don't have a name to call it.
All too often conservatives will find a convenient scrap of truth, shake off any confusing context, stretch, pull and bend it back on itself until - voila! - it means something completely removed or even opposite from the fact it started from. Then they use this 'fact' to promote an agenda.
Examples? Where to start? Recently there was Mike Pence trying to turn the Trump/Khan flap into an indictment of Obama's policies (?!?). Start with a dead hero who happens to be Muslim and blame his death on Obama's actions in the middle east, in spite of the fact that the soldier was tragically lost in 2004, long before Obama had any influence on such matters. Instant talking point, as long as no one engages their brain when they take it in.
There are lots of others. Remember when Obama chided the pro-entrepreneur conservatives and reminded them that business doesn't work without infrastructure? It's OK to be be proud of your business, but the roads that allow movement of products, the laws and enforcement of them that ensure a level playing field, the safe and secure environment in which commerce can thrive, "you didn't build that." That's what government is for. So Romney [fact-folded] that into Obama somehow saying entrepreneurs didn't build their own businesses. Got some traction with it too.
All of the Benghazi 'investigation' after Clinton was first cleared, and especially after several prominent Republicans admitted it was nothing but a taxpayer-funded campaign stunt. Climate-gate, in which leaked scientists' emails were interpreted in the worst and most ridiculous manner by people with an agenda and no scientific credentials. Voter ID laws that are supposed to eliminate fraud that is virtually non-existent. I could go on, but I'm just one guy. This repeated tactic, this specific way of lying is a staple of the conservatives. I hope we can:
- Give it a name so we can shine a light on it whenever it shows up and expose the lie immediately.
- Give your own examples so everyone can get the hang of recognizing it and we can call it out. We need to grasp what a staggeringly broad spectrum of conservative policies and claims are driven by these lies, upon which we can slap a common label and make it stick.
The name needs to be short, catchy and its meaning self-evident. Just as importantly, every time we wave this flag we need to include a clear, concise origin of the basic fact and how it got twisted - point out the original truth and expose how the lie was built around it. If this diary gets some interest we can start a poll to select a winning name.
Note: I thought 'truth inversion' would work, but a search revealed that there is already a small but consistent use of “inversion of truth”. Ironically, it is most often used by religious hardliners, political extremists, conspiracy theorists and the like as a term to direct against others while hiding the fact that it is these writers themselves who are stretching or inverting the truth. They use it as an inoculation against criticism of their "out there" ideas. We need to distance ourselves from that practice. That is just one reason why it is so critically important to show the link between original fact and abuse of truth.
Of course it's obvious we need to call out acts of [fact folding] even when they are committed by progressives, but generally I don't think that's much of an issue. Human discourse is an environment awash in spin. Truth will take a beating on all sides, but what I've seen suggests that progressives are fairly consistent in distilling down facts to the point they can be easily conveyed in a tweet, video clip or speech catch-phrase. You lose something in that process, but you still have the essence of the original truth - it hasn't been twisted around until it seems like something it's not.
We need to understand and defend that clear distinction between distillation and [fact folding]. We must also be prepared for conservatives to accuse us of [fact folding] too. That's another reason why it's crucial to include an honest account of how original facts are twisted. At the very least, when we are accused of doing it the dialog will be about real facts, sources, and apparent intentions to deceive, not vague unsupported assertions thrown around as 'proof' to support an ideology.
This needs to get into the popular vernacular. News anchors and fact-checking organizations need to use our new term to identify this pernicious form of lying. We need to shine so much light on it that it becomes so obvious to all that only the tinfoil hat crowd would actually attempt to continue to use the technique.
What do you say, Kossacks? What are your examples of [fact folding], and what's a better name to call it? The path to truth needs better light.