DONALD TRUMP is our first post-truth president. And he may well be the first of many.
(..)
Trump’s political methods ultimately rely on the appeal to emotions, such as fear and anxiety,
Trump is by no means the first president to appeal to fear and anxiety. (Note, emotions aren’t necessarily irrational, and in this case they certainly aren’t).
and to personal beliefs over objective truth. Moreover, his victory was secured with blatant lies and misleading rhetoric, along with a doubling down on deceptions when called on them.
No his victory was secured by telling the truth in the face of media lies, and refusing to back down under media pressure.
Glenn Kessler’s highly reputable “Fact Checker” column in the Washington Post evaluated statements made by Trump during the campaign and assigned 64 percent of them with “Four Pinocchios” (the worst rating). By contrast, statements by other politicians get Four Pinocchios 10 to 20 percent of the time.
Glenn Kessler’s “Fact Checker” column isn’t “highly reputable, in fact it has been caught multiple times engaging in manipulations ranging from intentionally misunderstanding what Trump said, e.g., taking obvious metaphors literally, to outright lying.
I could go on to further paragraphs, but you get the idea.
Trump is by no means the first president to appeal to fear and anxiety.
Gleb doesn’t say he was. He says (1) Trump is the first “post-truth president” and (2) one aspect of his post-truthiness is his appeal to emptions such as fear and anxiety. (You can tell it’s only one aspect from, e.g., the next sentence, starting “Moreover”.)
Glenn Kessler’s “Fact Checker” column isn’t “highly reputable”, in fact it has been caught multiple times [...]
I had a look for examples of Kessler being “caught” doing bad things. The cases I found weren’t terribly clear-cut and it’s not clear to me from them that Kessler’s column isn’t “highly reputable” (note: this isn’t the same as “infallible”). But I didn’t spend a long time looking and you may have much better examples. Care to link to a couple of the best ones?
In any case, this is only a lie if Gleb doesn’t consider Kessler’s column highly reputable; and it’s two sentences :-).
(For the avoidance of doubt, I am not intending any defence of Gleb that’s any stronger than “In this specific case, ‘one lie per sentence’ appears to be far from accurate”.)
Trump is by no means the first president to appeal to fear and anxiety. (Note, emotions aren’t necessarily irrational, and in this case they certainly aren’t).
No his victory was secured by telling the truth in the face of media lies, and refusing to back down under media pressure.
Glenn Kessler’s “Fact Checker” column isn’t “highly reputable, in fact it has been caught multiple times engaging in manipulations ranging from intentionally misunderstanding what Trump said, e.g., taking obvious metaphors literally, to outright lying.
I could go on to further paragraphs, but you get the idea.
That doesn’t look like one lie per sentence.
Gleb doesn’t say he was. He says (1) Trump is the first “post-truth president” and (2) one aspect of his post-truthiness is his appeal to emptions such as fear and anxiety. (You can tell it’s only one aspect from, e.g., the next sentence, starting “Moreover”.)
I had a look for examples of Kessler being “caught” doing bad things. The cases I found weren’t terribly clear-cut and it’s not clear to me from them that Kessler’s column isn’t “highly reputable” (note: this isn’t the same as “infallible”). But I didn’t spend a long time looking and you may have much better examples. Care to link to a couple of the best ones?
In any case, this is only a lie if Gleb doesn’t consider Kessler’s column highly reputable; and it’s two sentences :-).
(For the avoidance of doubt, I am not intending any defence of Gleb that’s any stronger than “In this specific case, ‘one lie per sentence’ appears to be far from accurate”.)