{"id":93122,"date":"2019-07-25T10:26:28","date_gmt":"2019-07-25T14:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/the-mueller-hearing-and-the-death-of-facts\/"},"modified":"2019-07-25T10:26:28","modified_gmt":"2019-07-25T14:26:28","slug":"the-mueller-hearing-and-the-death-of-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/the-mueller-hearing-and-the-death-of-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mueller Hearing and the Death of Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mueller Hearing and the Death of Facts<\/b><\/p>\n

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Listening to former special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s testimony<\/a> on July 24, the nation heard a duel over the facts. <\/p>\n

Not what the facts imply, not our response to them, but what the facts are. <\/p>\n

Founding Father John Adams once said, \u201cFacts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.\u201d <\/p>\n

But this is no longer Adams\u2019 America, where facts were unalterable.<\/p>\n

As a scholar of philosophy<\/a> and what I call<\/a> the \u201cpost-truth\u201d era<\/a>, I believe Mueller\u2019s testimony shows<\/a> that at least in the political world, \u201calternative facts\u201d have replaced actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence.<\/p>\n

Competing dreams<\/h2>\n

It has been established that the Russians hacked the 2016 presidential election<\/a>. That is one of the few generally accepted facts to emerge from the Mueller investigation.<\/p>\n

But did President Trump invite or otherwise cooperate with this interference? And, once an investigation into these questions was taken up by Mueller\u2019s Office of Special Counsel<\/a>, did the president attempt to interfere with it? <\/p>\n

The dream for Democrats<\/a> was that, upon hearing the facts directly from Mueller, the American people might finally begin to pay attention and realize that there was incontrovertible evidence that Trump at least obstructed justice in his repeated efforts to derail<\/a> and discredit the special counsel\u2019s investigation<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Even if Mueller did not introduce any new information beyond the confines of his report \u2013 which he did not<\/a> \u2013 the hope was<\/a> that simply by seeing and hearing his report come to life, Americans could finally agree that even if there was insufficient evidence to conclude that Trump conspired with the Russians, the country could at least understand that he threatened, lied, enticed and otherwise interfered with the investigation. It would be like seeing the movie rather than reading the book.<\/p>\n

The dream for Republicans was to introduce a new set of facts<\/a>, which they offered<\/a> with largely no evidence<\/a>, seeking to question the integrity of the investigation from the start. They pursued this line relentlessly.<\/p>\n

Competing takes<\/h2>\n

The problem with facts these days is not that they do not exist. It\u2019s that with a steady stream of propaganda fed to the electorate on a daily basis, the facts are beholden to your political point of view<\/a>. <\/p>\n

At the break in the Mueller hearings, here were the top three headlines from Fox News:<\/p>\n

\u201cMueller flustered, asking lawmakers to repeat questions at tense hearing\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMueller admits he was friends with Comey during heated House hearing\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s how much the Mueller investigation cost taxpayers\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Over at MSNBC, there was an alternate universe:<\/p>\n

\u201cMueller testifies under oath that his report does not exonerate Trump\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMueller: A president could be criminally charged after leaving office\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMueller confirms Trump asked staff to falsify records to protect himself\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The problem is not that any of these headlines are technically false. It\u2019s that cherry picking what \u201cfacts\u201d get reported creates a skewed perception of reality.<\/p>\n

In May, Rep. Justin Amash, a Republican (who became an Independent<\/a> in July), held a series of town halls<\/a> on why he favored Trump\u2019s impeachment. Several media outlets reported<\/a> one of the attendees didn\u2019t even know what all the fuss was about. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was surprised to hear there was anything negative in the Mueller report at all about President Trump,\u201d Cathy Garnaat said<\/a>. \u201cI hadn\u2019t heard that before. I\u2019ve mainly listened to conservative news and I hadn\u2019t heard anything negative about that report, and President Trump has been exonerated.\u201d <\/p>\n

With polls showing that fewer than 10% of Americans have read any part of Robert Mueller\u2019s report, it\u2019s possible that many rely on news coverage to tell them what it said. Indeed, when the report was released back in April, a poll showed that only \u201c46% of Americans had heard something about the Mueller Report<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats appear to be nursing the hope that once something happens, people will wake up and care about the facts again. Once the report is released \u2026 once people read the report \u2026 once Mueller testifies \u2026 facts will matter again. <\/p>\n

The death of facts<\/h2>\n

But to watch the spin by both Republicans and Democrats<\/a> about the hearing \u2013 \u201cRepublicans and Democrats filtered Robert Mueller\u2019s Capitol Hill testimony through their own prisms Wednesday,\u201d wrote ABC News \u2013 one wonders if this is a false hope.<\/p>\n

At this point, does it really matter? <\/p>\n

Even if the Mueller report had been definitive, some have speculated that half the country would have rejected it anyway<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Perhaps, in order to promote an agenda, you need not offer \u201calternative facts,\u201d but simply discredit the other side\u2019s fact finders. Or, as Trump once put it<\/a> \u2013 in response to a question about why he attacks the media so much, \u201cI do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after Mueller concluded his testimony, Trump stepped out onto the South Lawn to talk to reporters.<\/p>\n

Once again, he called the Russia investigation a \u201cridiculous hoax\u201d and a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d \u2013 after Robert Mueller had explicitly told lawmakers that the Russia investigation was neither a witch hunt nor a hoax. In a final tweet, before departing for a fundraiser in West Virginia, Trump tweeted \u201cTRUTH IS A FORCE OF NATURE.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

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Lee McIntyre is the author of:<\/header>\n

Post-Truth<\/a><\/p>\n