Why bullshit wins, and how the truth can, too
photo by Rosemarie Voegtli
There’s no such thing as climate change. The people who invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6 were peaceful tourists. Vaccines are fake. In the face of such utter bullshit, how is it even possible to do responsible advocacy communications? If the rules only seem to apply to you and not your opponent, how can you possibly compete for public support?
There’s an old saying that goes something like, “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.” And it definitely feels like that in the nonprofit world today, as the Trump Administration and other bad-faith actors throw around absolute nonsense with zero accountability. But if a left-leaning advocacy group dares to push the truth even the slightest bit, it is vilified. It’s a terrible double standard that puts advocacy groups at a tremendous disadvantage. Our messages–nuanced and backed up by research and common sense–look like they’re stuck in cement, while the flagrant lies go viral.
Why does this happen? Why do the lies have such a powerful effect while the truth is so stagnant? There are a lot of reasons, but let’s take a look at a few:
The most effective lies ride the vibe. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has mastered the art of riding the public’s general distaste for pharmaceutical companies and corporate food makers, and then perpetrating falsehoods with that momentum. He is able then to start with something we all agree upon (that corporations don’t always act in the public interest) and then slip into nonsense (vaccines are bad for you).
The best lies are simple. “How can you say the earth is warming when it’s snowing outside?” It only takes a few seconds to utter this, but it takes a few minutes to explain why it’s nonsense.
The bigger the better. President Trump, in his latest effort to distract from the Epstein controversy, has accused former President Obama of treason. That makes headlines. If he had accused Obama of running a traffic light, it wouldn’t have had the same impact.
The more the better. Trump has demonstrated that a constant flood of untruths is impossible to effectively fact-check. Eventually, the fact checkers just give up.
Platforms help. One of the biggest issues about the b.s. is that it gets amplified on social media and sympathetic bad faith news outlets. There’s a lot of money to be made promoting lies, so it will always find a home.
Normalization. Trump has reached a point where he lies so frequently, and so obviously, that few deny it’s happening. They just write it off as his personality, his style. And that gives them permission to not care about it.
Courage. It takes a lot of courage to tell a bald-faced lie, and repeat it over and over again.
How does our movement overcome this? Not by lying–we are still held to a higher standard than our opponents and will pay a higher price for untruths. But we can adapt our messaging to take advantage of the same factors that make lies so pervasive. Every single factor in the list above can be used to make our messages stronger.
I’ve grown impatient with people in our movement blaming ourselves for what’s happened. We’re not responsible for the ugliness that has risen in the world. We can ride the vibe, and use simpler and bigger messages. We can make better use of our platforms and normalize the truth. The truth can take advantage of all these things.
But the last is the most important: It takes courage. Without the courage to tell the truth, we’re done.