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Sunday 7th of December 2025

2020 Presidential election A joint statement [Sen. Ted] Cruz issued about the senators' challenge to the vote nicely captured the post-truth aspect of the whole: It never alleged that there was fraud, only that there were allegations of fraud. Allegations of allegations, allegations all the way down. Timothy Snyder, New York Times, January 9, 2021 © 2020 Kwiple.com
2024 Presidential election From the moment I got into the race,  the decision that I made was really simple. I would rather lose by telling the truth than lie in order to win. I feel no differently today because this is a fight for the soul of our party and the soul of our country. Chris Christie, Windham, NH, January 10, 2024, announcing he's suspending his campaign © 2024 Kwiple.com
Autocrats say Better the lie that keeps the peace than the truth that disrupts. Sa'di of Shiraz, The Gulistan (Rose Garden) of Sa'di © 2022 Kwiple.com
Bad news  As we lose people who produce facts, we are in danger of losing the very idea of truth. Timothy Snyder, Malady © 2021 Kwiple.com
Bad news Right-wing claims that fact-checking is a left-wing conspiracy to censor the right and must be resisted at all costs © 2016 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theories The emotional appeal of a conspiracy theory is in its simplicity. It explains away complex phenomena, accounts for chance and accidents, offers the believer the satisfying sense of having special, privileged access to the truth. Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, October 2018 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say Better to get your news directly from the President [Trump]. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth. Lamar Smith, Tea Party Republican © 2017 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say Don't bother me with facts © 2017 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say The emotional truth is first. The factual truth is secondary. Hasan Minhaj © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy is not only a form of state, it is not just something embodied in a constitution; democracy is a view of life, it requires a belief in human beings, in humanity. … I have already said that demcracy is a discussion. But the real discussion is possible only if people trust each other and if they try fairly to find the truth. Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy [T]he history of modern democracy, in the United States and many other parts of the world, including much of Europe and Latin America, has been riven with a constant tension between the rule of expert truth, on the one hand, and the rule of majority instincts on the other. But too much of either in isolation — elite knowledge or popular consensus, without the corrective of the other — constitutes a danger to the whole edifice. Sophia Rosenfeld, Democracy and Truth © 2021 Kwiple.com
Elections Elections are not about finding the truth; if they were, there couldn't be such a thing as a loyal and legitimate opposition. Instead, we would have to assume that losers who persist with their position are simply liars. Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules © 2021 Kwiple.com
Facts During the first day of public impeachment hearings on Wednesday, Mark Meadows, one of Mr Trump's most loyal congressional allies, said: “Everyone has their own impression of what truth is.” When conservatives embrace relativism, facts have clearly lost their use. Edward Luce, Financial Times, November 13, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Facts To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then  no one can criticize power because there is no basis on which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights. Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century © 2017 Kwiple.com
Fascism Fascism proposed the notion of truth that transcended reason and was incarnated in the myth of the leader. The myth was literally embodied in the person of the leader. For fascists, incarnation was the opposite of representation. Federico Finchelstein, A Brief History of Fascist Lies  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Fascism The prominent fascist leaders of the twentieth century — from Mussolini to Hitler — regarded lies as the truth incarnate in themselves. This stood at the center of their notions of power, popular sovereignty, and history. An alternate universe where truth and falsehood cannot be distinguished rests on the logic of myth. in Fascism, mythical truth replaced factual truth. Federico Finchelstein, A Brief History of Fascist Lies  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Fox News Fox knew. From the top down,  Fox knew "the dominion stuff" was "total bs." Yet despite knowing the truth — or at minimum, recklessly disregarding that truth — Fox spread and endorsed these "outlandish voter fraud claims" about Dominion even as it internally recognized the lies as "crazy," "absurd" and "shockingly reckless." The colorful choices of words used by so many Fox employees all try to capture the same basic truth about these inherently improbable allegations: These claims were false, and obviously so. Dominnion Voting System v. Fox News Network [references to exhibits omitted] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Fox News A mountain of direct evidence demonstrates actual malice without resort to motive or other circumstantial factors. But why did Fox peddle this false narrative to its viewers? Fox's correct call of Arizona for Joe Biden triggered a backlash among its audience and "the network [was] being rejected." Rival networks such as Newsmax took advantage of the opening by promoting "an alternative universe" of election fraud. So Fox went on "war footing" caring more about protecting its own falling viewership than about the truth. Dominnion Voting System v. Fox News Network [references to exhibits omitted] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Global warming Climate scepticism is being driven out by climate cynicism. A sceptic questions the evidence for a given claim and asks whether it is believable. A cynic questions the motives of the people who deploy the evidence, regardless of whether it is believable or not. Any attempt to defend the facts gets presented as evidence that the facts simply suit the interests of the people peddling them. David Runciman © 2017 Kwiple.com
Internet Don't believe everything you read on the Internet. — Thomas Jefferson Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth © 2019 Kwiple.com
Liars say I LOVE TRUTH! Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump : Oct 28, 2022, 9:10 AM © 2022 Kwiple.com
Lies Falsehood flies and the truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead. Jonathan Swift, The Examiner No. XIV (Thursday, November 9th, 1710) © 2021 Kwiple.com
Lies In all democracies, politicians occasionally lie to cover up scandals or exaggerate their legislative accomplishments. In the United States, the rise of the right-wing news media in recent decades has tempted politicians to play to their own supporters without worrying whether their rhetoric is inflammatory or fair. But the construction of an alternate reality that obviates the very possibility of conducting politics on the basis of truth is a novelty in this country. And it is increasingly becoming obcious that it will serve a clear purpose: to prepare the ground for egregious violations of basic democratic norms. Yascha Mounk, New York Times, December 21, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Lies Lying is the message.   It's not just that both Putin and Trump lie, it is that they lie in the same way and for the same purpose: blatantly, to assert power over truth itself. Mascha Gessen, New York Review of Books, December 13, 2016 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Lies The Republican Party is no longer just obfuscating the truth or defending the president when he is accused of wrongdoing. Rather, Mr. Trump, Fox News and Republicans in Congress seem to be actively using falsehoods to prepare an assault on the institutions that allow American democracy to function. Yascha Mounk, New York Times, December 21, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Objectivity The goal of objectivity is not to give equal time between truth and falsehood – it is to facilitate the truth. Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth © 2019 Kwiple.com
Post-truth [P]ost-truth amounts to a form of ideological supremacy, whereby its practitioners are tying to compel someone to believe in something whether there is good evidence for or not. And this a recipe for political domination. Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth © 2019 Kwiple.com
Post-truth [P]ost-truth is not so much a claim that truth does not exist  as that facts are subordinate to our political point of view. The Oxford definition focuses on “what” post-truth is: the idea that feelings sometimes matter more than facts. But just as important is the next question, which is why  this ever occurs. Someone does not dispute an obvious or easily confirmable fact for no reason; he does so when it is to his or her advantage. Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth © 2019 Kwiple.com
Post-truth Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. … Post-truth wears away the rule of law and invites a regime of myth. Timothy Snyder, New York Times, January 9, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Post-truth Post-truth refers to blatant lies being routine across society, and it means that politicians can lie without condemnation. This is different from the cliché that all politicians lie and make promises they have no intention of keeping – this still expects honesty to be the default position. In a post-truth world, this expectation no longer holds. Kathleen Higgins, “Post-truth: a guide for the perplexed,” Nature, November 28, 2016 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Public discourse Criticism seeks to engage in conversations and identify error; canceling seeks to stigmatize conversations and punish the errant. Criticism cares whether statements are true; canceling cares about their social effects. Jonathan Rauch, The Constitution of Knowledge © 2021 Kwiple.com
Selfie I never, ever cheated. I don't condone cheating. But I would sometimes spread misinformation. That is a great tactic. Misinformation can be very important. Rand Paul © 2015 Kwiple.com
Selfie When I can, I tell the truth. Donald Trump © 2018 Kwiple.com
Snapshot His words can be counterfeit. His gestures are genuine. Donald Trump portrayed by Frank Bruni © 2017 Kwiple.com
Snapshot When he can, he tells the truth. When he can't, he talks. Donald Trump portrayed by Stephen Colbert © 2018 Kwiple.com
Snapshot This president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values.  Donald Trump portrayed by James Comey © 2018 Kwiple.com
Snapshot He is an unbelievable politician. Donald Trump portrayed by Anthony Scaramucci, White House Communications Director © 2017 Kwiple.com
Social media In a leaked memo, a Facebook executive, Andrew Bosworth, describes this willful disregard for truth and meaning: “We connect people. That can be good if they make it positive. Maybe someone finds love. … That can be bad if they make it negative. … Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack. … The ugly truth is … anything that allows us to connect more people more often is “de facto” good.” In other words, asking a surveillance extractor to reject content is like asking a coal-mining operation to discard containers of coal because it's too dirty. Shoshana Zuboff, New York Times, January 29, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Social media Social media is not a public square but a private one governed by machine  operations and their economic imperatives, incapable of, and uninterested in, distinguishing truth from lies or renewal from destruction. Shoshana Zuboff, New York Times, January 29, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union Today, we may be witnessing a collision between the power of a remedy meant to curb presidential misconduct and the power of faction determined to defend against the use of that remedy on a president of the same party. But perhaps even more corrosive to our democratic system of governance, the President and his allies are making a comprehensive attack on the very idea of fact and truth. How can a democracy survive without acceptance of a common set of experiences? Adam Schiff, preface to Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report © 2019 Kwiple.com
Trumpism As long as Donald Trump is breathing,  the odds are that he will run again in 2024. This has become clear not because his ambitions have changed — Trump is no longer concerned with his business except to prevent its collapse — but because Republicans are all in for Caesarism. The party as a whole now has one truth, which is whatever Trump says, even if it is different after breakfast than before. Edward Luce, Financial Times, July 29, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I am not going to be rushed into having him testify [under oath to Special Counsel Robert Mueller] so that he gets trapped into perjury. And when you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he's going to tell the truth and he shouldn't worry, well that's so silly because it's somebody's version of the truth. Rudy Giuliani © 2018 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say That [the Mueller Report] was a proud moment because I knew he's been telling the truth from the beginning, and now it's been proven by our Justice Department. Attendee at Trump's 2020 campaign kickoff rally quoted by The Atlantic, June 19, 2019  © 2019 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Truth isn't truth. Rudy Giuliani © 2018 Kwiple.com
Truth Early in this [Trump] administration, it was reasonable to say that plausibility was the new truth: The mere existence of a believable opposing claim was sufficient to rebut a balanced assessment of the totality of evidence. But when skepticism is a whole system of thought, assertion is the new truth. A claim no longer needs to be believable. It simply needs to be made. Greg Weiner, New York Times, September 13, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Truth Give a man a mask, and he will tell you the truth. Oscar Wilde © 2023 Kwiple.com
Truth I think we know that the most reliable path to truth is through communication of like-minded and disparate thinkers who devote serious time to trying to get the truth  — and there's no algorithm for that. Daniel C. Dennett, New York Times, August 25, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Truth  If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom. Rex Tillerson, VMI commencement address, May 16, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Truth If you want to speak truth to power  – I'm going to go out on a limb here and say – you have to include the truth part. Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, Oct. 5, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Truth [I]n a feat of Trump-inspired marketing, Ms Daniels announced this month that she would launch a new, limited-edition line of perfume. The name of the fragrance? Truth. Financial Times, August 28, 2018, on Stormy Daniels © 2018 Kwiple.com
Truth It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding © 2017 Kwiple.com
Truth The issue for me is not to learn how to adjust to living in a world in which facts do not matter, but instead to stand up for the notion of truth and learn how to fight back. Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth © 2019 Kwiple.com
Truth Nobody with a terminal illness goes from the United States to Europe for a piece of Bavarian cream pie and then when they get there and they don't have it he says, “Ah, I'll just have some coffee.” There's no truth to that. Jerry, in the “The Soup Nazi” episode of Seinfeld © 2015 Kwiple.com
Truth Once any string of words is considered as true as any other, any course of action comes to seem as legitimate as any other. Yascha Mounk, New York Times, December 21, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Truth Post-truth is pre-fascism. Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century © 2017 Kwiple.com
Truth There's no proof of anything, there very well could be. Donald Trump, acknowledging that there is no evidence for his claims that Middle Easterners are among the Honduran migrants heading toward the U.S. © 2018 Kwiple.com
Truth Truth does not change, only our awareness of it. Malcolm X, Autobiography of Malcolm X  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Truth The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.  attrubuted to Gloria Steinem © 2016 Kwiple.com
Truth We don't have a policy that stipulates that the information you post on Facebook must be true. Facebook, defending its decision to not take down a video created by Trumpists that depicts Nancy Pelosi as drunk and that its fact checkers labeled as “false” © 2019 Kwiple.com
Truth Well, I'm not sure. Jeff Sessions, who claimed during his confirmation hearing that he doesn't believe in religious tests, responding to the follow-up question, “And a secular person has just as good a claim to understanding the truth as a person who is religious, correct?” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Truth When attention is your currency,  the difference between the true and the false matters much less than the difference between the compelling and the boring. Megan Garber, The Atlantic, January/February 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
 
Wannabe autocrats say 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, telling veterans he and his kiss-asses are the sole source of truth about trade and other issues © 2018 Kwiple.com