If we weren’t living in a post-truth world before last week, we definitely are now. The violent attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, coupled with the almost immediate invention of a conspiracy theory (boosted by billionaire Elon Musk, the brand new owner of Twitter), leaves no doubt that an alternate reality future is now our actual reality.
By now, you probably know the story. In response to a tweet by Hillary Clinton, Musk editorialized that “there is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story.” Those words were tweeted along with the link to a sketchy outlet alleging that “Paul Pelosi Was Drunk Again, And In a Dispute With a Male Prostitute Early Friday Morning.”
Musk has since deleted his tweet, but he has not issued a correction or an apology. Likewise, Donald Trump Jr. has advanced this narrative, using social media memes, in an even sleazier manner.
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When several prominent right-wingers (with massive Twitter audiences) advance these stories, the false narratives are given more credibility and oxygen. And when the bogus version is the first version you hear—and it gets repeated enough times—it tends to stick. Author and Wharton Associate Professor Ethan Mollick points out that research indicates “If you see something repeated enough times, it seems more true. Multiple studies show that it works on 85 percent of people. Worse, it still happens even if the information isn’t plausible & even if you know better.”
In this case, the alternate narriative had a kernel of plausibility: Paul Pelosi pleaded guilty to DUI in August, and San Francisco has long been one of the most gay-friendly cities in America. Add to this the growing sense—from Rathergate to Hunter Biden’s laptop—that the mainstream media cannot always be trusted to tell us the truth.
The alternative Pelosi narrative was also aided by something the 911 dispatch operator said: “He [Pelosi] states…he doesn’t know who the male is but that his name is David and that he is a friend. He sounded somewhat confused.”
A friend?
Paul Pelosi was under duress when he made this call from his bathroom in the middle of the night. He was understandably confused, as the operator said. Pelosi was also, at times, speaking in code. Maybe the operator misheard him? Nevertheless, this information provided enough fodder for an alternate reality to emerge.
And just like that, an act of violence aimed at the Speaker of the House (the assailant reportedly shouted, “Where is Nancy?”), who was already targeted by the MAGA mob on Jan. 6, has been weaponized to use against Pelosi.
The only trouble? This alternate reality conflicts with what the police are saying and what the attacker told the police about his motive (planning to break Nancy Pelosi’s kneecaps).
Now, I’m not naive. The American public has been lied to in the past. And the police and the media sometimes simply get it wrong.
But what the right is now asking us to believe, in essence, is that we have no way of verifying or confirming that anything is real. It’s possible Donald Trump is still the president. Maybe Tom Brady and the Buccaneers are really 8-0? It’s possible that I’m not really writing this. Maybe we are all living in the matrix?
We are now in a position where you either (a) believe that the police and the media are conspiring to lie to you to help elect Democrats, or (b) believe the owner of Twitter and the former president’s son are wrongly blaming the victim of a violent attack and lying to you to as a service to Republicans.
There are, in other words, two Americas.
In one version, kids are using litter boxes to relieve themselves in schools, the 2020 election was stolen (by the Venezualans?), COVID-19 vaccines are the mark of the beast, JFK Jr. is still alive, Trump had the biggest inauguration crowd in history, Jan. 6 was just “normal tourist visit,” and Paul Pelosi was attacked by a hammer-wielding man after a gay tryst/lover’s quarrel. These are, shall we say, “alternative facts.”
The other America is where I reside.
Which is strange for me. For all of my political life, I have railed against postmodernism, relativism, the sense that there are no absolutes, and people talking about “my truth.” I just never thought the post-truth world would arrive quite so fast, nor did I think that it would be Republicans who were pushing it.
Regardless, the consequences could be tragic. Should this trend continue, it will become untenable. What if immediately after Pearl Harbor, half the country decided it didn’t really happen—and the people who said they saw it were “crisis actors”? What if after the 9/11 attacks, half the nation decided it was an inside job and that George W. Bush was to blame?
How can a nation have meaning, purpose, and a shared national story when we can’t even agree on what constitutes reality?
