Perhaps the most poignant exhortation during Joe Biden’s inauguration address was a call for the truth to prevail.
Faced with crises ranging from a coronavirus pandemic to economic calamity to a recent insurrection against our democracy, the new president also took time to address an existential threat to the nation.
“There is truth and there are lies, lies told for power and for profit,” Biden said. “And each of us has a duty and responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders, leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation, to defend the truth and defeat the lies.”
Without mentioning names, Biden delivered a rebuke to his predecessor. More important, he delivered a call for reality to displace the fantasies that have driven divisions among Americans.
Most prominent among those were Donald Trump’s persistent lies that he won the presidential election. But Trump was merely a symptom of a great malaise that has infected the nation’s discourse.
Misinformation is given a loud voice on social media, repeatedly shared and giving credence to the axiom that, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
Speaking of misinformation, that quote is most often attributed to Mark Twain. But QuoteInvestigator.com can find no evidence that Twain said or wrote those words.
That helps highlight the difficulty of finding the truth in an age when we are inundated with information. As Vox.com wrote recently: “The blossoming of false and unreliable news on the internet is a cultural, political, and technological phenomenon that’s hard to get your head around, let alone tackle. Conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation run rampant on the internet, and it’s often difficult for people to tell what is true and what’s not.”
Lies have fueled conspiracy theories that the coronavirus is a hoax and that vaccines are dangerous. They also have fueled a false belief that Trump actually won the election — culminating in an attempted coup at the United States Capitol.
As Kate Starbird, a University of Washington professor who studies misinformation, wrote on Twitter as the Capitol was under attack: “What’s happening today is surreal. And horrifying. And yet, for researchers studying these online networks and the participatory dynamics of disinformation, there’s this strange comfort — everyone else can finally see what we’ve been seeing . . . for years.”
There is nothing new about misinformation, but it is amplified in the digital age. And it leads to questions about why somebody would believe something their uncle shares on Facebook instead of reports from reliable media. It leads to questions about why people would believe QAnon rather than verifiable research.
Saving our democracy from lies will require hard work and discerning minds. It will require civics lessons to educate students about how our government works, an independent and robust media as codified by the First Amendment, and citizens to understand the difference between facts and propaganda.
The future of our nation depends on it.
As President Biden said: “Together we shall write an American story of hope, not fear. . . . The story that inspires us and the story that tells ages yet to come that we answered the call of history. We met the moment. Democracy and hope, truth and justice did not die on our watch, but thrived.”
