This time, I’m quoting an ardent opponent of President Trump, blogger Matthew Yglesias:
“I have no idea what the 8,000 or so employees of the US Fish and Wildlife Service do. But if Elon Musk tweets tomorrow that he has uncovered vast quantities of fraudulent spending in the USFWS, my assumption will be that he’s full of shit. Not because I have any strong views about the agency, but because I have a well-founded view that Musk tweets a lot of nonsense and, more specifically, has a habit of wildly overstating and mischaracterizing facts about federal spending.
By contrast, if Barack Obama says tomorrow that there’s a ton of waste in the USFWS that he was never able to tackle due to the political clout of Big Fish, my assumption will be that there’s something fishy with this agency.
…but anyway the heuristic “don’t believe a liar” can fail you.”
And Yglesias cites examples where Trump was right, even though the entire liberal world mocked him.
Mathew Yglesias is my man! The ability to look at things rationally is ultimately more significant than momentary political sympathies. That is what can overcome the barricades of a divided society.
But Yglesias goes further and reminds us that there is another side to this. In a sharply divided society, if I tell my supporters something, they will almost certainly believe me. If I shout lies to the world, only my supporters will believe me, so I end up hurting them more than others. And if I don’t shout lies, I will be overshadowed by political rivals in the same camp.
The irreconcilable political divide breeds an atmosphere of censorship and also an atmosphere where both sides lie brazenly and do not consider it immoral. Politically, this is disastrous for both sides, because when supporters of either party believe the rumors, they will push their representatives to take very radical steps and will see pragmatic solutions as “treason.
