The Washington Post
feature "Fact Checker" this week introduced a new category into its "Pinocchio"
rating system, the “Bottomless
Pinocchio.” Heretofore, the
rating system used by fact checkers around the world has comprised only four levels
of Pinocchios:
One Pinocchio: Some shading of the facts. Selective telling of the truth. Some omissions and exaggerations, but no outright falsehoods.Two Pinocchios: Significant omissions and/or exaggerations. Some factual error may be involved but not necessarily. A politician can create a false, misleading impression by playing with words and using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people.Three Pinocchios: Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.Four Pinocchio's: Whoppers
The new Pinocchio is called the "Bottomless Pinocchio," and is awarded to politicians who repeat a false claim so many times that they are, in effect, engaging in campaigns of disinformation.
The bar for the Bottomless Pinocchio is high: The claims must have received three or four Pinocchios from the Fact Checker, and they must have been repeated at least 20 times.
The Washington Post
Fact Checker reports that it has found no
statements from other politicians that qualify for the Bottomless Pinocchio,
although it has so far found 14 Trump statements that "immediately
qualified" for the award.
- For instance, the President has made the claim that his tax cut was the "biggest in history," which is just flat-out wrong. This has been pointed out frequently, yet Trump has repeated the falsehood 123 times.
- The president has stated that
the United States has “lost” billions of dollars on trade deficits. No economist would agree with that statement, but Trump has said some version of it 131 times.
- He has also claimed repeatedly that U.S. Steel will build nine new facilities in response to his tariffs. U.S. Steel has said no such thing.
It's important to recognize that the Post's new category is not just a cutesy way of maligning the
President. It is one thing to claim,
knowingly or not, that a false fact or statement is true. Most politicians have done that numerous
times. When confronted, they may claim
to have been misunderstood or they may interpret what they said differently, but
they rarely repeat the claim once it is been exposed as false.
To have repeated proven falsehoods multiple times may
seem to us just bizarre, one more example of the President's disconnection from
reality. At this point in Trump's
career, one is tempted to laugh it off as one more piece of evidence for his
ignorance. But that is to seriously
underestimate the implications of these Bottomless Pinocchio's. These statements have become official government
disinformation, "newspeak" in the vocabulary of George Orwell's 1984, deliberate attempts by the
president to change the nature of reality for political purposes, to claim that
black is white, peace is war, or freedom means slavery .
This is not benign behavior. It is characteristic of the true demagogue.
I don't think I'm exaggerating: these are the
beginning steps toward autocracy. The
presidency is a position of enormous power.
Especially in this time of extreme polarization, the President's statements, no
matter how bizarre, will be taken as truth by many of his supporters ... and by some of those many others who are confused by them. And then it's not too long before many people have trouble differentiating.
Suddenly, we have two distinct versions of
the truth. The demagogue is preparing
the way. Whether Bottomless Pinnochios
become the first steps toward democracy's fall depends, it seems to me, on our
reaction. Will we take it
seriously? Our will we allow the
president to change the nature of reality for his purposes?
It is easy to pass Trump's behavior off as merely
farcical. That is to seriously
misunderstand the Bottomless Pinnochios' threat to our democracy.
Next: Several authors have recently
written on other steps toward autocracy. I
will work with those in the next post.
