For the third year in a row, the now-POTUS has earned recognition for his allergy to the truth.
On Tuesday, the fact-checking website Politico, which the Tampa Bay Times (née the St. Petersburg Times) and the Miami Herald launched over a decade ago, once again bestowed upon President Donald Trump and his ilk (but mostly, nay, solely, Trump) its yearly “Lie of the Year” distinction for some very Trumpian attempts to dismiss Russia’s obvious meddling in U.S. democracy — especially in 2016, which arguably was a factor in Trump’s victory — as lies, or “fake news,” as it were, despite “a mountain of evidence” to the contrary.
Per Politifact’s Angie Drobnic Holan:
Members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, have held open and closed door hearings to probe Russia’s actions. The congressional investigations are ongoing.
Facebook, Google and Twitter have investigated their own networks, and their executives have concluded — in some cases after initial foot-dragging — that Russia used the online platforms in attempts to influence the election.
After all this, one man keeps saying it didn’t even happen.
Yet…
Trump continually asserts that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election is fake news, a hoax or a made-up story, even though there is widespread, bipartisan evidence to the contrary.”
Sure, like 2016, 2017 has seen many deception campaigns, Drobnic Holan argues that this attempt to pretend that Russia’s efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election are a fiction dreamed up by the lyin’ media (or whatever) are of particular importance.
Why?
Because, she argues, “When the nation’s commander-in-chief refuses to acknowledge a threat to U.S. democracy, it makes it all the more difficult to address the problem. For this reason, we name Trump’s claim that the Russia interference is a hoax as our Lie of the Year for 2017.”
Also disturbing, she writes, is the notion that Trump and his supporters think they can construct an inhabitable alternate reality.
Objectively, it’s like nothing we as a country have seen, but those who want to believe that Russia didn’t meddle because they like Trump are going to believe that Russia didn’t meddle. Because they like Trump. And that is the reality in which we all live at the present moment.
This year’s “winner” isn’t dissimilar to last year’s, which was fake news (much of which came from Russia).
While it’s unclear whether sensationalistic web posts from incredibly dubious sources had an impact in 2016 (just read the comments section on your favorite YouTube video…that’s who we’re dealing with), Politifact’s Drobnic Holan recognized “fake news” as its Lie of the Year… You know, like Pizzagate. Or anything Alex Jones spouts. But then, of course, Trump supporters took that phrase and used it to attack news outlets that reported things they didn’t want to believe despite those stories’ accuracy and the journalistic rigor with which they were reported.
(Trump supporters have been known to accuse Politifact of having a pro-Democrat bias, but: Exhibit A, when one President Barack Obama won for his “If you like your health plan you can keep it” spiel.)
Aaaand finally, in 2015, when a Trump presidency was as yet an utterly laughable idea, Drobnic Holan and Linda Qiu gave Trump the LOTY for, simply, his impressive trove of “campaign misstatements” after PF rated more than three quarters oh his statements “Mostly False,” “False” or “Pants on Fire” — in other words, Da Vincian levels of bullshit artistry.
Not that calling him out did much good.
After all, here we are, wondering only what 2018’s big, insane lie will be.
This article appears in Dec 7-14, 2017.
