We are living in a 'post-fact' or 'post-truth' world. Not merely a world where politicians and media lie - they have always lied - but one where they don't care whether they tell the truth or not. When Putin annexed the Crimea he claimed there were no Russian troops in the Ukraine, not only was he lying but saying that facts don't matter.
Likewise, when Trump said that he saw thousands of Muslims dancing in the streets after 9/11 or that Mexico purposely sends "bad people" to the U.S. he too was saying that facts don't matter. When fact-checking agencies say that Trump lies 78% of the time and he is still elected President, millions of the American people too are fact free.
Recently, on live radio, Scottie Nell Hughes - a Trump surrogate- drove a stake into the heart of knowable reality: "There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, as facts," she declared on "The Diane Rehm Show."
Mr. Trump's major surrogate Kellyanne Conway, went on CNN on Monday to defend her boss about his statement that Trump made about a disabled New York Times reporter disparaging him. "Why is everything taken at face value?" she said. "You can't give Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt on this and he's telling you what was in his heart? You always want to go by what's come out of his mouth rather than look at what's in his heart."
Of course, Ms. Conway wants us to live in Trump's fact-free, reality exempt world.
Conway wants us to accept only what Mr. Trump says now, that he never mocked the N.Y. Times reporter- not what he said then - over the evidence seen and heard by our own eyes and ears. She wants us to overcome the dissonance by looking for the "truth" in his heart, not the words that come from his mouth. In other words, not believe what our lying eyes and ears see and hear.
Conway elaborated on her views on Fox News yesterday. "It doesn't matter what I say because we are living in a computer simulation. That's what the world is. A computer determines whether something is a lie, not you or I. You're not going to get proof that we're not in a simulation, because any evidence that we get could be simulated. Just admit that Trump is a computer simulation like all of us are and stop asking me questions about his statements. Don't you see, reality does not exist."
