Tag: conspiracy theories

Lies or Policy?

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, speaking last night at the Reagan Library on the future of the Republican Party, said that the GOP should denounce conspiracy theorists, “the ones who know better and the ones who are just plain nuts.” The party needs to embrace the truth: “Pretending we won when we lost is a waste of time [and] credibility.”

This in itself is not newsworthy. But a statement quoted in The Hill gives the game away: The GOP, Christie says, “needs to be the party that’s perceived to be telling the American people the truth.” Excuse me? This is a bit rich:

  1. We don’t need to tell the truth as long as we’re perceived as being truthful.
  2. Calling ourselves THE truth-tellers brands everyone else a liar.
  3. Divert public attention from policy differences by engaging in a food fight.
  4. Force opponents to defend against the name-calling.
  5. Above all, avoid an actual debate about policies that might help actual people.

When “public debate” is instead a shouting match, it’s the loudest voice — not the soberest reasoning — that wins the day. Screaming, “They are lying to you!” without evidence isn’t a factual statement, let alone a clear statement of policy goals. But it’s enough to distract from the real issues. Engaging baser emotions rather than logic and reason is both the tactic and the goal.

Such is the modern Republican Party: with no popular support for its few retrograde policies, it has become single-minded about clinging to power by any means necessary: Jim Crow registration policies, shorter early voting periods, constraints on voting by mail, removal of polling places. Ensure that the people who weren’t going to vote for you don’t have the opportunity.

Does Governor Christie include the hysterical allegations about non-existent voter fraud among the conspiracy theories his party should denounce? Or is that limited only to acknowledging that “Trump lost” and “vaccines work”? Someone should ask him that. Someone should ask him whether he thinks honest debate about actual policy proposals — rather than name-calling — wouldn’t be a better use of everyone’s time.

Ockham’s Razor

Simple explanations — not implausible scenarios or convoluted conspiracies — are most likely to be correct. This well-known dictum is attributed to William of Ockham: Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate. Pluralities — complexities in a theory — must not be asserted without necessity. Never suppose multiple, interlocking explanations when a single, simple reason is sufficient

It is a rule easily tested by common sense and everyday experience. Consider these two well-known, well-worn statements:

  1. The dog ate my homework.
  2. I didn’t do my homework.

Few people would choose (1) as the likeliest explanation: it is neither simple nor particularly credible. The addition of more details about the assignment’s encounter with domesticated animals (“My homework flew out the bus window and a cow ate it”) only serves to make the matter worse.

Donald Trump won’t admit he lost the election; more disturbing, many of his followers can’t accept the simple idea that although 74 million people voted for Trump, setting a record, over six million more voted for Mr. Biden. Having heard the phrase “rigged election” over and over, they conclude — without examining the premise — that it must be rigged; their guy lost, after all. Enter Sidney Powell, loudly proclaiming that Trump’s defeat could only be the result of fraud; and, moreover, a fraud so far-reaching that it was orchestrated by none other than Hugo Chavez — who died in 2013.

News flash for Messrs. Trump and Giuliani, and for Ms. Powell: That is how democracy works. “Your guy” doesn’t win every time; sometimes the other guy, the other party, the other philosophy of government, wins the day and has its chance.

Special attention should be paid, these days, to that phrase: Philosophy of government. For the Republican Party has ceased to have anything resembling an organizing principle; instead we have terse slogans (“Small government! Freedom!”) and a determination to use politics to remain in power, rather than to craft compromise legislation that will serve their constituents. The present spectacle — a legislature that cannot legislate, cannot provide financial relief for millions of people forced into unemployment during a pandemic — is more than just a case in point: it is a fitting finale to years of brinksmanship and gamesmanship instead of statesmanship, the logical conclusion to a decades-long showdown between a party that believes in government and compromise, and a party that believes only in its own ability to exercise raw power.

Nobody believes the kid who says, “The dog ate my homework.” Absent hard facts, the simpler solution is most likely true. Unlike the case of the wind blowing papers into the path of a grazing bovine — multiple credible witnesses swore they were on the bus and saw it happen — nobody has yet offered a single actual fact suggesting election fraud on any scale, let alone of a magnitude necessary to produce 81 million votes. The dog didn’t eat the homework, and Donald didn’t win the election. Both of them — and all of us — would be better off if they accepted reality.