The Donald Trump phenomenon has sucked up all the political oxygen in the past two months. It’s so transfixing to watch a rogue presidency take shape that there’s scarcely any breathing room left to devote to more mundane affairs closer to home.
And one of the most compelling aspects of his administration is the mendacity that he and his key spokespeople use so routinely. If a fact gets in the way of their world view, the official presidential doctrine at this point seems to be to simply deny it, or come up with “alternative facts.”
That has spun out a related debate about fake news that’s almost as interesting as Trump’s presidency itself.
The whole tangled, alarming mess has created a much deeper appreciation for the ring of truth in straightforward, demonstrable facts from leaders.
Politicians have always had a certain amount of leeway to indulge in what we all know as simple BS from time to time, particularly during election campaigns. But that manoeuvring room is shrinking, as people realize how acute the veracity crisis in the U.S. has become.
There will be some with a different takeaway. Since Trump did in fact win the presidency, they’ll think that flat-out lying works. But most people, no matter where they live, feel a heightened need to know that they’re getting the straight goods from their leaders.
Premier Christy Clark hasn’t been filling that need lately.
She’s firmly in campaign mode already and she seems to be assuming the usual relaxed standards of “truthiness” apply. She might be in for a surprise.
She made some appearances in Victoria on Wednesday that raise the question.
The Opposition NDP is campaigning on limiting political donations. Clark’s view is that there are only two ways to raise campaign funds — privately or from taxpayers.
She could just issue that warning and be on very solid ground. But she pushed it further, as she has for weeks, and said the NDP is advocating taxpayer-financing of political parties.
They are doing no such thing. They are pushing a proposal that could ultimately lead to that. But telling CFAX listeners that’s “what the NDP are saying they want to do” stretches the facts to the snapping point.
The previous day, she did a social-media interview and blithely stated that the NDP had launched a criminal hack on the B.C. Liberal party’s website. That flowed from a story about personal identifying information from people contributing to the Liberals’ Vancouver Island election platform leaking.
It’s unclear if the party fumbled the data, or if it leaked accidentally, or there was a deliberate hack. (Who would bother to hack Island campaign ideas from a party with such a miserable record on the Island?)
A party official had made some vague, unspecified accusations about wrongdoing. Clark took that position and torqued it.
“The NDP has said it’s going to be the ugliest, dirtiest campaign that we’ve ever had,” Clark told Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer.
The NDP have talked about being tougher and more critical than last time. There has been lots of talk about how they eased off on negative politics in 2013, and weren’t going to do it again this time around.
But her quote as it stands is absurd. They’ve said no such thing. No one would say that, because it’s a stupid thing to say.
She added: “We saw them try to hack into our website the other day. Hacking into websites is illegal.”
If Clark or the Liberals believe that, they need to call the police and file a criminal complaint. Failing that, she needs to release all the evidence the party has that confirms that accusation.
Maybe this episode is as serious as she claims. But there’s also the chance that it’s a trivial bit of nonsense.
If she doesn’t make her case with real evidence, she stands to lose more than she gained with the accusation.
And we’d all be better off if she started doing her own fact-checking, and backed up her observations with provable, established facts.
It’s a very blurry line between enthusiastic campaign bombast and misleading nonsense.
This week, she has been on the wrong side of that line.
