In the first place, if you are like me, you believe Trump's post-election acts reflect an ongoing effort to delegitimize Biden’s victory in a safe and secure election and call into question the validity of our democratic system.
But there is more to Trump's devious antics. His cult of personality effectively spreads disinformation that poisons the American public's ability to perceive the truth. Faced with the reality of his defeat, his supporters believe his lies and support nonsensical conspiracies – dangerous threats not only to democracy but also to domestic tranquility.
Paul Rosenzweig, senior fellow in the National Security and Cyber Security Program at the R Street Institute, senior counsel to Kenneth Starr in the Whitewater investigation and a deputy assistant secretary of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration says …
“Trump and his bitter-end supporters are advancing a variant of that bogus claim and Trump is purging from his administration anyone who would question his lies. In doing so, he is destroying yet another critically important American norm – the expectation of a peaceful transition of power and the loser’s acceptance of the loss of an election …
“Belief in the integrity and accuracy of our election system is critical to our nation. Without that belief, faith in the entire edifice of American governance crumbles. And yet destroying that edifice seems to be precisely what President Trump intends. He traduces the norms of electoral transition that are the hallmark of American democracy.”
(Paul. Rosenzweig. “Donald Trump has assaulted our democracy.” USA Today. November 23, 2020.)
Trump's Attacks On the Election
Back on November 4, faced with defeat, Trump claimed voting fraud – without providing evidence – and said: "We'll be going to the US Supreme Court.”
Trump has aggressively ramped up his allegations of election fraud in the weeks since his projected loss, tweeting dozens of debunked theories. He and other Republicans have filed over 30 lawsuits across six swing states in an attempt to contest the election results.
Most of lawsuits have been shot down or withdrawn and no court has found even a single instance of fraud. Out of at least 36 cases filed, including some not directly involving Trump but which could nonetheless affect his standing, at least 24 were denied, dismissed, settled or withdrawn.
(Pete Williams. “Trump's election fight includes over 30 lawsuits. It's not going well.” NBC News. November 23, 2020.)
If the election result is ever challenged in the Supreme Court, it would usually first require legal teams to challenge it in the these state courts – and the US attorney general has allowed federal prosecutors to probe the allegations.
State judges would then need to uphold the challenge and order a recount. The Supreme Court could then be asked be asked to weigh in.
Trump's long-shot wish for the U.S. Supreme Court to adjudicate contested vote totals in several key battlegrounds has failed to materialize as state election officials move toward final certification of results.
As Trump’s lawyers have been alleging widespread voter fraud in several states and claiming that the Democrats “stole the election from Trump,” there has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud, and the campaign’s lawsuits have been dismissed time and time again.
For example, Trump is still contesting the Pennsylvania vote. His lawyers on Sunday, November 22 filed an appeal one day after a judge dismissed a lawsuit that sought to block the certification of Pennsylvania's election results. It's the latest effort by the Trump campaign to stop certification, despite a scathing ruling on Saturday from U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann. Brann said …
“This Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence … This claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together from two distinct theories in an attempt to avoid controlling precedent.”
(Jan Wolfe and Tom Hals. “U.S. judge calls Trump claim challenging Biden win in Pennsylvania 'Frankenstein's Monster.'” Reuters. November 21, 2020.)
Federal law says states have until six days before members of the Electoral College gather in person to certify election results and determine their electors, a date known as the "safe harbor" deadline.
(Audrey McNamera. “Trump campaign appeals Pennsylvania judge's decision to dismiss lawsuit that seeks to delay certifying election results. CBS News. November 22, 2020.)
The Supreme
So far, Trump's appeal to the high court has been met with silence.
The justices have not responded to the president's request to join a still-pending Pennsylvania Republican challenge to that state’s tabulation of late-arriving mail ballots.
The court has also yet to formally consider the state GOP petition asking the court to toss the ballots. In order for the justices to take up the case, it would first have to be discussed at a weekly private conference and the matter has still not been scheduled.
Trump has no other Supreme Court election appeals pending or likely to reach the court before states finalize their results.
“Cases usually are accepted on an appeal if they present issues of great legal importance that must be timely decided. The Pennsylvania case may become irrelevant both legally and politically,” said Jan Baran, former RNC general counsel and longtime Republican election lawyer.
(Devin Dwyer. “Trump's bid for Supreme Court election intervention has yet to materialize.” ABC News. November 18, 2020.)
Why People Believe Disinformation
Trump knows he lost the election. He cannot accept defeat because he is embarrassed and so egotistical that doing so would affirm his unpopular, reckless leadership. He will never concede. He needs to create a false narrative to be able to walk off the stage without admitting he lost so he can maintain political viability, maintain a firm grip on the base of the Republican Party, especially in case he wants to run again.
And, sadly, most of Trump's supporters cannot accept the truth either. They are extremely vulnerable to the rampant disinformation – false or misleading information that is spread deliberately to deceive.
Polling before election day showed a majority of Trump's supporters believed he would win by a landslide. They thought this primarily because these voters consumed information in a closed ecosystem that wasn't giving them facts or an accurate assessment of the current political situation – conservative media and social media that affirmed these biases.
Trump supporters still believe he won and any “loss” was due to cheating. According to a recent Monmouth University poll from November 12 to November 16, roughly three-quarters (77%) of Trump backers say former Vice President Joe Biden’s election win was due to fraud despite there being no evidence to back this up. Fully 88% of Trump voters believe we need to wait for more information on the count before we know for sure.
(“More Americans Happy About Trump Loss Than Biden Win.” Monmouth University Polling Institute. November18, 2020.)
Dannagal Young, political psychologist and associate professor at the University of Delaware, says it's particularly dangerous when elites spread disinformation, because the reader's mind is less likely to do the critical thinking if he or she thinks someone they respect has already done this for them. “This is why the rhetoric of elites like politicians or journalists or people we respect is so powerful because, again, their status serves as a cue," added Young.
As a result of media coverage, people are more aware of disinformation but nobody seems to think they will ever be duped by it – what Young calls the "third-person effect." The third-person effect hypothesis predicts that people tend to perceive that mass media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves, based on personal biases.
"Everyone is susceptible to disinformation. We think that other people are, but we're not. It's such a logical fallacy because we can't all be right or it wouldn’t be a problem,” said Young.
(Fergal Gallagher. “Why millions don't trust the election results, despite no evidence of widespread fraud: Experts.” ABC News. November 22, 2020.)
When people believe they’re immune to disinformation, it’s very difficult to change their minds once they’ve taken hold of a false narrative. Research suggests that debunking a falsity can actually have the opposite effect and help propagate the original falsity if not done properly.
Young suggests debunking be done using the "Truth Sandwich Effect,” whereby you preface the falsity with what is true, discuss the false allegation and then reiterate what is true.
Various studies have shown that repetition can actually persuade people to believe even things they already know are not true. The Truth Sandwich Effect derives from the work of linguist George Lakoff, an expert on strategic language and the framing of civic arguments. His proposed formula, summarized on Twitter, goes like this:
Truth Sandwich:
Start with the truth. (If you lead with the lie, you privilege it.)
Indicate the lie. (Divert the truth and avoid amplifying the specific language of the lie if possible.)
Return to the truth the lie is designated to hide. (Don’t allow the distraction/diversion to work)
Always repeat truths more than lies.
While the truth sandwich might not always work in a hard news situation, it could be applied to an analytical piece after the original news is reported. In the analytical take, a truth sandwich might look as follows:
Lakoff explains: “Avoid retelling the lies. Avoid putting them in headlines, leads or tweets. Because it is that very amplification that gives them power.”
"Trump is subjecting American democracy to a brutal test. The press has become complicit with Trump by allowing itself to be used as an amplifier for his falsehoods and frames."
– George Lakoff
The point of such an approach is to double down on the truth, as Lakoff suggests, rather than to simply state it. He argues for the sandwich technique because simply rebutting the assertion can have the effect of reinforcing the falsehood in readers’ minds.
“It’s like when Nixon said, ‘I am not a crook,’ and everyone thought of him as a crook,” Lakoff told Stelter. “The point is that denying a frame activates the frame.”
(Susan Benkelman. “The Sound of Silence: Strategic Amplification.” American Press Institute. December 11, 2019.)
Responsible leaders move followers away from biases, prejudices and unreasonable positions in order to bring about the common good. Trump is doing the exact opposite – in a dangerous time of tribalism, he is playing on the biases and fears of his supporters, not speaking truth about the election outcome and helping destructive conspiracies root ever deeper in our country. By doing so, he is undermining our Republic and its democratic institutions. Many Americans – especially White Nationalist Americans – are ignoring how easy it would be for this democracy to fall apart. Some are even actively participating in the destruction while vowing revenge and anarchy.
"Just stick with us, don't believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening."
– Donald Trump in Kansas City the summer of 2018, urging the attendees of the VFW annual convention to ignore the journalism of the mainstream media
No comments:
Post a Comment