“Just the facts, Ma’am” --- Sergeant Joe Friday

OK, the famous TV detective on Dragnet (badge 714) originally did not say exactly that phrase, but by 1959 the series adopted the catchy words because folks liked it.  And yes, men are just as capable to wander away from the questions asked in a police interview as women, but back then women were often stereotyped as flaky creatures.

The long lasting series was the prototype for every cop show that followed because the facts really mattered when you’re trying to catch the bad guys and viewers could play detective too.   We also expected to get the facts from TV news anchors like Walter Cronkite or Tom Brokaw as well. Ditto for newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington post.  Facts were double checked and corrections were duly noted.   Reporting on issues like Watergate and Vietnam eventually served to end the Nixon presidency and the (then) longest war in US history.  The flip side to that era of Journalism was that Americans realized they were lied to by their government. And rightly or wrongly, the media was found guilty of reporting those lies. The erosion of faith had begun; we lost our political virginity.

Fast forward fifty years and facts are readily available from more sources than ever, especially with the advent of the internet.  Google gives us the world at our finger tips.  News is available 24/7 in your pocket or purse.  However, despite this vast trove of information, many folks seek only those sources that reflect their ideology and their “tribe.”  Nor do they see a need for utilizing numerous sites like FactChecker or PolitiFact (whose continued existence depends on accuracy) because they don’t want to challenge their vision of reality.

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Now we are in a very odd election season full of a number of old and new scary facts.  Numerous polls have reported that 40% of the Republican electorate still believe that President Obama is a Muslim (25 % of all Americans agreed in 2011). Since 2011 pollsters from Newsweek, Gallup, Pew Research, the National Opinion Research Center, NPR and many others have revealed gems like these: 25% of Americans do not believe in evolution.  30% think “death panels” were included in Obamacare. In 2010 pollsters noted that half of the new Congressmen didn’t believe in the reality of global warming.  I will go out on a limb here and say that they haven’t changed much, despite the nearly total (90%) agreement within the world’s scientific community that we’re all in a heap of trouble. And renowned pundit Matthew Rozsa click here recently posted "Googling ‘Ted Cruz lies’ pulls back an astonishing 7,890,000 entries."

Want more? (1) Donald Trump got a “Pants on Fire” rating recently for his tweet claiming that blacks kill 81% of white homicide victims. PolitiFact said: “The statistics on white victims are exaggerated five-fold.” (2)  The Donald has also stated repeatedly that Obama wants to take in 250,000 people from Syria. Actually, the administration’s current plans are to increase refugees from ALL countries (including Africa, East Asia, Europe, Latin America, etc.) from 70,000 in 2015 to 100,000 in 2017 (hot pants again).  (3)  Ben Carson has also earned his share of debunked statements, to wit: “Thomas Jefferson helped craft the Constitution.”  Actually, Jefferson was in France until 1789 and could not participate in the top secret talks. Also, in defense of a supportive conservative Christian group, Carson said “The Family Research Council, according to some government agencies, is a terrorist group.”  Although the Council has been labeled by the Southern Law Poverty Center as “extremist”, the Center is actually a non-governmental agency.  A spokeswoman for the Center, Heidi Beirich responded thusly: “We have no terrorist list.” No public agency lists the FRC either.

Democrats have their share of inaccuracies also.  Hillary Clinton has said the gun lobby is “wholly protected from all lawsuits.”  PolitiFact ruled her statement false: “Clinton is talking about a law (the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act) that says the gun industry is protected from liability in certain instances (tort claims) but the law also specifies several situations in which the gun industry is susceptible to lawsuits.”  Bernie Sanders is particularly adroit with facts and statistics (sometimes getting too deep in the weeds for many) but when he said “Climate change is directly related to a growth in terrorism” he was criticized by Sci Check (which specializes in checking scientific accuracy).  They noted some support for Sanders derived from a 2003 Pentagon report, a National Resource Report in 2012 and a number of various military leaders. But Sci Check concluded (and I paraphrase here): There is a complex web of casual factors behind the Syrian conflict and the ISIS terrorism that has emerged. Global warming could lead to a severe drought causing displacement and migration which contributes to instability followed by violent conflict. They conclude: “But increasing the probability of a possible factor in a conflict isn’t the same as being a “directly related” cause for terrorism. The evidence so far does not support Sander’s claim.”

This writer does not suggest that everyone must check all the facts, all the time. And people have rightly viewed many politicians as snake oil salesmen for a very long time. However, that does not allow us to turn our heads and hearts away from the task at hand-preserving democracy.  Ignorance really is not bliss.  And please, please, please VOTE! 

Allow me to quote Bill Moyers, that sage journalist who has contributed so much to all of us: "Ignorance will kill democracy as surely as the big money that funds and encourages the media outlets, parties and individuals who spew the lies and hate. The ground is all too fertile for those who will only believe whatever best fits their resentment or particular brand of paranoia.  It is, as an old song lyric goes, "the self-deception that believes the lie." The truth will set us free; the lie will make prisoners of us all."