Platforming Big Liars four months on from the insurrection
Yesterday, the
Washington Post hosted a live video chat with Josh Hawley, the Republican senator for Missouri. The interview was billed as being about Hawley’s new book on the “tyranny of big tech,” but before discussing that, Cat Zakrzewski, a tech-policy reporter, asked Hawley about tyranny of a different type the coup attempt at the Capitol, which took place four months ago tomorrow, and Hawley’s responsibility for it. (He refused, both before and after the insurrection, to certify Joe Biden’s election victory, and made a fist-pump gesture toward protesters.) In response, Hawley offered bluster about “election integrity,” whataboutism targeting Democrats, and technicalities about supposed legal irregularities in Pennsylvania; Zakrzewski tried to intercede on a factual point, but Hawley pressed on. “Don’t try to censor, cancel, and silence me here,” he said. “Senator,” Zakrzewski replied, “we’
From the Existential Issue: Post-truth and the press
The concept of a “post truth” society has been with us since at least 1992, when Steve Tesich, a screenwriter, defined it in a seminal piece for
The Nation. America’s shame after Watergate, Tesich wrote, compounded by the speed with which Richard Nixon had been pardoned, made Americans disinclined to face unpleasant truths about our country. The media-savvy Ronald Reagan was able to exploit that shame, betting correctly that neither the press nor the public would have the stomach to look too closely at the sordid role he is believed to have played in the Iran-Contra affair. (“Too soon,” as we would say now.) Tesich observed that the cost of a post-truth society ready to believe comforting lies in the place of painful realities was a diminished and vulnerable citizenry. “All the dictators up to now have had to work hard at suppressing the truth,” he wrote. “We, by our actions, are saying that this is no longer nec
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