Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Screeching Weasels and the Gospel According to Convenient Truth

I swear, trying to follow the logic coming out of this administration is beginning to make my head hurt. I’m starting to think the real qualification for a position in the White House isn’t intelligence, experience, or even the ability to form a coherent sentence. Apparently, it’s the ability to scream FAKE NEWS! loudly enough that nobody notices you haven’t actually answered the question.

Let’s start with the terminology, because apparently words have become optional in American politics.

These people love to scream about leaks when information comes out of the administration that makes them look bad. But if the information is fake, then what exactly is leaking? You can’t simultaneously insist that information is fabricated and complain that somebody leaked it. If it never existed in the first place, there’s nothing to leak. That’s not complicated. It’s basic vocabulary, the kind of thing we should be able to expect from people who have somehow managed to get jobs running the federal government.

Then we get to elections.

If they win, the election was fair, the system worked beautifully, and the American people have spoken. If they lose, suddenly there’s fraud, corruption, rigged voting machines, suspicious ballots, and a conspiracy involving practically everyone who works in an election office. Apparently, democracy is a perfectly functioning institution right up until the moment it produces a result they don’t like.

Then the screaming starts again.

Fake news! Lies! Fabrications! Political persecution!

And here’s the part that really makes my head hurt: if these accusations are so obviously false, if the reporting is completely fabricated, and if the people reporting it are deliberately lying, why not prove it? Why not present the evidence? Why not challenge the specific factual claims in court and let the evidence speak for itself?

To be clear, the absence of a lawsuit doesn’t automatically prove a news report is true. There can be legitimate legal, practical, and strategic reasons not to sue. But when people repeatedly insist that damaging reports are completely fabricated, you would think we could expect something more substantial than a press conference featuring three people shouting over one another like a pack of screeching weasels trapped in a leaf blower.

Instead, we get the political equivalent of a toddler covering his ears and yelling, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

And somehow, we’re supposed to accept that as an argument.

The same people who demand absolute loyalty insist that everyone else is lying. The same people who claim to be victims of a corrupt establishment wield the power of the establishment. The same people who insist the media is spreading propaganda are perfectly happy to promote their own version of events, regardless of whether the facts cooperate.

Truth, in this political environment, has become less of a standard and more of a membership benefit.

If a story makes them look good, it’s proof that the media finally got something right. If it makes them look bad, it’s fake news. If an election goes their way, it’s democracy in action. If it doesn’t, democracy apparently needs to be investigated, audited, and possibly thrown out of the building.

There is no consistent standard. There is only the result they want.

And that’s the real problem. It isn’t simply that politicians lie. Politicians have been lying since the first ambitious person discovered that promising something was easier than delivering it. The problem is that we now have people in positions of power who seem to believe that repeating an accusation makes it true, that denying a fact makes it disappear, and that volume is an acceptable substitute for evidence.

It isn’t.

You can call something fake news a thousand times, but repetition doesn’t transform a falsehood into a fact. You can claim an election was rigged, but that claim doesn’t establish that it was. You can accuse every critic of being a liar, but eventually someone ought to ask you to show your work.

That’s how this is supposed to function. Claims are examined. Evidence is evaluated. Accusations are tested against facts. The process isn’t supposed to depend on which political team is currently doing the screaming.

I know, I know. Apparently, that makes me hopelessly old-fashioned. Somewhere along the way, we decided that being loud was the same as being right, that confidence was the same as competence, and that accountability was something reserved exclusively for the other side.

But I’m getting tired of the noise.

I’m tired of watching people with enormous power behave as though they’re helpless victims. I’m tired of watching basic definitions get twisted into political pretzels. And I’m especially tired of the expectation that the rest of us should abandon common sense because somebody with a government title and a microphone has decided that inconvenient facts are no longer facts.

Maybe I’m asking too much. Maybe expecting consistency, evidence, and a little intellectual honesty from our political leadership has become an unreasonable demand.

But here’s a thought: if the news is fake, demonstrate it. If the election was stolen, prove it. If the allegations are lies, provide the evidence that contradicts them.

Otherwise, stop confusing an accusation with an answer.

Because right now, the only thing being proven beyond a reasonable doubt is that the American political circus has hired an awful lot of screeching weasels—and handed them microphones.

And somebody, somewhere, needs to turn down the damn volume.