The media is scrambling to find ways to deal with Trump’ s botulism-riden rotten fish bouillabaisse of lies.
Only five days into the reign he’s is on what would be calling a winning streak if his goal was to see if he and his surrogates could beat the world record how many untrue things one person could claim in the shortest period of time.
Fortunately lots of people from bloggers to members of the mainstream media are calling him out in one way or another.
David Corn, in discussing how to differentiate Trump’s untrue statements added a third possibility he wants us to take seriously. This is that there may be falsehoods made out of ignorance and manipulative lies; but that some of what he said may be based on delusions.
He gave an example of easily refuted statements he made as his claiming he saw thousands of people across the river cheering the destruction of the Twin Towers.
Bernie Sanders just said on live TV that Trump’s illegal voter claim was delusional.
Most recently the falsehoods or lies came come fast and furious. No need to go over all of them.
My point here is that there is another way to confront the issue of the alternate truthism of Trumpism that doesn’t exclusively involve proof that can easily debunk the lie.
You all are familiar with Occam’s Razor: the problem-solving principle attributed to William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347). This is the “principle can be interpreted as stating Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. (Wiki)
Unless you grew up in a cave, you know about Mr. Spock. His famous, often uttered line, was “but that would not be logical.”
While nit-picking logicians have fun analyzing whether Spock was as logical as most of us think, he epitomizes logical thinking. (For example Basics: Logic, aka “It’s illogical to call Mr. Spock logical”.)
It is up to the media to give everyone a basic lesson in logic in addition to proof to discredit lies.
Let’s go back to the birth certificate story which President Obama tried to debunk by releasing his original birth certificate. The birthers never believed it, and afterwards Trump doubled down. Of course logic would tell us to look at the simple explanation, using the application of Occam’s Razor to conclude that Obama was born in Hawaii.
There’s a good explanation about the irrationality and history of birtherism on a new-to-me version of Non-Wikipedia site called Rational-Wiki, a rather cynical snarky website which, from what I can tell, endeavors to be faithful to the facts:
A birther is anyone denying that Barack HUSSEIN Obama is eligible by birth to be the President of the United States.[2] In addition to the right wing of the American political establishment, a populist contingent of birthers has grown around the blogosphere and sympathetic "news" outlets. These media voices appear to be working according to the following maxims:
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—Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, Charles Pierce |
Birthers hit the goddamn roof when you point out the blindingly obvious fact that their ideas and associates are fundamentally racist. So it's really worth doing if you need a laugh. rationalwiki.org/...
Here’s are some memorable logical quotes from Spock:
"Logic is the beginning of wisdom ... not the end."
"Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country"
"Insufficient facts always invite danger, Captain."
"Space Seed," Season 1, Episode 22
"... When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
"Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country”
This one is especially relevant today:
"Without followers, evil cannot spread."
"And the Children Shall Lead," Season 3, Episode 4
I can see, hell, I would be delighted to see a reporter dealing with Kellyanne or Spicer when they utter a particularly juicy lie, use my line, guaranteed to go viral:
“…… to quote Mr. Spock, that would not be logical.”
P.S:
Live long and prosper….