#1,020: Whatever Became Of the Truth?

January 06, 2025 / Kurt F. Stone

Once upon a time there were newscasters like Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor, and David Brinkley - solid experienced journalists - who were unimpeachable sources of broadcast truth. What news they broadcast 5 nights a week was rarely - if ever - questioned; they were the voices of truth, reason and Mt. Sinai. Those who did not like what they were hearing - about the war in Vietnam, racial relations or the economy to name but three - did not question the veracity of their reportage . . . but merely the painful reality of the times. This is no longer the case.

The heirs of newscasters/journalists like Cronkite, Chancellor and Brinkley (among others) are no longer bound by what may be called “the truth,” but rather by what their corporate sponsors wish the public to see, hear and believe. And when it comes to the news-gathering public, it would seem that most seek those who broadcast what they want to hear or already believe, as opposed to those of us who are doing our darndest to learn what in the hell is really going on. Print media, I am sorry to say, is largely in the same creaky boat. When billionaire publishers of newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post can, at the last moment, decide not to endorse a presidential candidate (Kamala Harris) for fear that they might be on ITs bad side should he be elected, is more than an act of craven cowardice; it is an egregious betrayal of journalistic integrity.

Precisely 2 weeks from today, the 47th POTUS will take the oath of office. One can make book on the White House Office of Communications announcing that the gathered crowd was in the millions . . . far larger than any gathering since Moses descended from Mt. Sinai, Tablets in hand. Of course, the crowd size will be exaggerated to the point of being an outright, obvious lie, which is only fair, considering that IT won the election on the basis of a long, long string of lies. To have heard him tell it during - and even after - the campaign, “He is,” in the words of New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker “ . . . about to take over a nation ravaged by crisis, a desolate hellscape of crime, chaos and economic hardship.” Indeed, just the other day, IT declared on social media “Our Country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World! This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective and virtually nonexistent leadership. . . . The USA is breaking down - A violent erosion of Safety, National Security, and Democracy is taking place all across our Nation. Only strength and powerful leadership will stop it.”

This is, of course, pure nonsense. By many traditional metrics, the America that the MUMP Regime inherits from President Biden 2 weeks from today is actually in far better shape than that bequeathed to any newly elected president since George W. Bush moved into the White House on January 20, 2001. For the first time in nearly a quarter century, there will be no American troops at war overseas. New data reported in the last few days indicate that murders are way down, illegal immigration at the southern border has fallen even below than where it was when IT left office, and roaring stock markets, finished their best two years in the past quarter century.

Moreover, jobs are up, wages are rising and the economy is growing as fast as it did during ITs presidency. Unemployment is as low as it was just before the Covid-19 pandemic and near its historic best. And to top it all off, the United States is producing more oil and natural gas today than ever before . . . and far more than any other country. These are all facts - the truth - which can be verified if only:

One is willing to do a bit of research . . . which not everyone is willing or capable of doing;
One doesn’t mistrust anything that comes from a source they’ve been convinced is part of a conspiracy whose sole purpose is disproving whatever their MAGA leader says, and
One accepts the fact that there is such a thing as the truth.

It goes without saying that for many Americans all these positive trends have yet to make a difference in their daily lives; consequently, they firmly believe that Biden and his team are talking through their hats. For in reality, these naysayers do, in the main, live from paycheck-to-paycheck, carry high credit card debt, cannot afford to buy a home, remember when gas prices were under $2.00 a gallon (March of 2020, during the Obama Administration), can read you line and verse about how both inflation and prices for such staples as eggs, milk and meat are all far too high (actually, the rate of inflation has returned close to normal), and on and on. In short, they swallow much - if not all - of what IT endlessly ragged on about during the campaign, and concluded the race by saying that he had scored one of the largest victories in history. (For those who care to check, the final vote showed It receiving 49.8% of the vote (77,303,428) to V.P. Harris’ 48.3% (75,018,929 votes) . . . hardly a crushing victory.

If history repeats itself, we can expect to see the 47th POTUS continue to tear into his predecessor’s record of doing nothing, of pardoning his son Hunter, and of being a doddering old fool. As time goes by, he will make fewer and fewer promises (except renewing his gift-wrapped 2017 tax cut to the execrably hyper wealthy), and assert in no uncertain terms that what the public may perceive as failures, is really the fault of ultra-liberal, communistic collaborators. He will, in turn, have any number of “Come to Jesus” moments when he learns that no one can deport 12-20 million illegals (tons of whom have lived in this country for decades . . . many working at Mar-a-Lago) all in one fell swoop. Who’s going to pay for it? Who’s going to hire the busses, planes, trains and ships? Similarly, one man cannot simply shut down FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. and all that entails with a simple performative utterance.

Indeed, it’s going to be hard enough for IT to get many of his cabinet nominees approved by the United States Senate. As deeply conservative as the new Majority Leader - South Dakota’s John Thune – may be, he is both affable and an institutionalist. As Senate Minority Leader, Thune was one of the few Republicans in that chamber who acknowledged Joe Biden’s 2020 win, telling reporters, “At some point you have to face the music.” During Biden’s presidency, Thune voted with Biden 35 percent of the time, which placed him in the top half of GOP senators who have voted in support of some of Biden's policy priorities.

Just how long IT and his loyalists are going to be able to bend reality and truth to fit their agenda is anyone’s guess. Convincing so many Americans that two-times-two isn’t necessarily the truth is both highly dangerous and the mark of a dictator-in-the-making. It brings to mind a quote by the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky who, in one of his earliest (and most difficult) novels, Notes From the Underground, (written in reaction to Nikolay Chernyshevsky’s appallingly bad ideological novel What Is to Be Done? (1863), put into the mouth of his anonymous narrator the following simple piece of insolence:

Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.

This bit of sarcastic wisdom has stayed with me for nearly 60 years. Indeed, I typed out the quote, and hung it on my dorm room door a long, long time ago.

There are those who find health in seeking the truth; there are others who make a living convincing others that there is no objective truth . . .

G-d help us all!

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