On the day earlier than the third anniversary of the brutal, lawless invasion of Ukraine, “Fox Information Sunday” host Shannon Bream pressed Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth on whether or not it’s “honest to say” that Russia’s assault was unprovoked. Hegseth responded that it’s “honest to say it’s a really difficult state of affairs.”
This can be a good illustration of the distinction between an advanced query and the issues of answering a easy query truthfully. The reply to the query “Does this costume make me look fats?” could also be easy sufficient, however answering it truthfully will be fairly troublesome in some circumstances.
Hegseth is hardly the one outstanding Republican official who has dodged the query for the reason that president outrageously claimed that Ukraine “began” the struggle. Mike Waltz, Trump’s nationwide safety advisor, additionally repeatedly refused to reply the query.
Typically determining who began a struggle is difficult. However this isn’t World Battle I or the War of Jenkins’ Ear. In fact Russia began it.
Provided that the reply to the query is so uncomplicated, why is answering it so difficult?
It’s not as a result of Russia will likely be offended by an correct response. The West has offered billions in navy support to Ukraine and heaped sanctions on Vladimir Putin and his regime in response to the legal invasion. Saying as soon as once more that Russia began the struggle wouldn’t change the geopolitical equation within the slightest.
No, what makes this difficult is that Donald Trump is aping Putin’s speaking factors about who began the struggle. Publicly contradicting Trump creates issues for any Republican official who dares to take action.
If Trump says basset hounds can fly, they should say it too. That is the dynamic that has bedeviled the GOP since Trump received the presidential nomination in 2016.
However as repugnant as I discover the ethical and mental corruption driving Republicans’ collective determination to lie to guard Trump’s ego and keep away from the wrath of his followers, it’s price preserving in thoughts that such corruption is a characteristic of politics extra usually. Furthermore, Trump’s success in so corrupting our politics depends on the widespread view that his critics are corrupt.
In recent times, Democrats have talked themselves right into a type of cul-de-sac by agreeing to implement false pieties about all the things from identification politics to Israel to inflation. When Joe Biden was nonetheless president, the stress to insist that he was as match as a fiddle and as sharp as a tack led them to prop up a fatally unpopular president.
A lot of the media was rightly seen as complicit in that venture. I’ve lengthy argued that journalism just isn’t resistant to such corruptions. The worry of offending one’s readers or viewers drives extra media bias and self-censorship than ideology does.
Fox Information is so frightened of its viewers that it pandered to their starvation for affirmation of the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. It misplaced nearly $800 million to a libel lawsuit as a consequence — all as a result of telling the easy fact would have been so very difficult.
The Related Press, which is going through petty retaliation for its refusal to honor Trump’s petty try and rename the Gulf of Mexico, has an extended history of trying to smuggle ideological arguments into its supposedly goal protection. Anybody who adheres to the AP Stylebook, a hegemonic pressure in journalism, can’t seek advice from “unlawful immigrants,” should capitalize “black” and has to watch right-think on transgender pronouns. And even after officers in Israel confirmed that an Israeli lady and her kids had been crushed to loss of life by their captors in Gaza, the AP continues to report that they merely “died in captivity.” No, they had been murdered in captivity.
Even dictionaries aren’t resistant to this sort of corruption. After Democrats accused Amy Coney Barrett of bigotry for utilizing the phrase “sexual choice” throughout her Supreme Courtroom affirmation listening to, Merriam-Webster changed its definition of the time period in actual time to again up the declare that it was “offensive.”
Social media, partisan polarization and politicization of establishments have fueled an erosion of belief throughout society. This is a perfect milieu for a president who cares not for facts or fact however solely about his personal self-importance and glory. And that’s how answering the easy query “Who began the struggle?” acquired so difficult. Telling the reality requires a level of braveness that’s disqualifying in Trump’s circle.
