Truth out there, but harder to find

Our institutions are taking a beating in the world of public opinion, and I think I know why.

By institutions I mean those organizations that provide a measure of stability and security in our lives — our governing bodies, established religions, businesses and industries, news media and the internet, and other established bodies that we used to trust. There are a host of reasons why we no longer believe in them, and I’m convinced there is one root cause for our disillusionment — the lack of truth in what they tell us.

I’m talking about the hard, unadulterated truths they should be owning up to but aren’t. They’ve turned us into a dishonest society, so naturally we don’t trust much anymore.

Fresh from the news of the day is a perfect example, in the U.S. Supreme Court. We were repeatedly told during earlier confirmation hearings that the Roe decision, giving women the right to abortion, was “settled law.” Then, once the would-be justices were confirmed and a supermajority of conservatives fell in place, they overturned it.

In other words, they lied their way in. Is it any wonder why, according to a recent Gallop poll three-quarters of Americans no longer have confidence in the Supreme Court?

Then there’s the presidency. Since Richard Nixon resigned under pressure for covering up (that is to say, lying about) illegal activities his campaign did to get him re-elected, there’s been a growing perception that the executive branch isn’t being honest with us. Then Donald Trump took it to the next level, telling thousands of lies during the rise and fall of his presidency, from his false accusation that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. to his baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He may have undermined the office of the presidency, but he did far more damage to our democratic institutions with his biggest lie, and anyone who doesn’t see that is either blind to reality or a liar themselves.

Meanwhile, the legislative branch is more than borderline dysfunctional, it’s dishonest. Remember those Trump-era confirmation hearings when the Republicans cheated? For most of a year, they held up an Obama appointment, saying it was too close to the 2016 election, then when it served their agenda, they muscled through their appointment in record time just before the 2020 election. They may not have broken the law doing that, but they clearly lied about it in 2016.

I don’t know about you, but I call that cheating. It’s a stain upon the Senate as an institution that won’t easily be washed away.

Then there’s the media, which has become saturated with outlets and hidden political agendas. Once upon a time, “fair, full and accurate” were watchwords for good and independent reporting, and there are still plenty of reporters and newspapers that abide by those standards, but they’re being bested by algorithms that steer us toward our own biases.

The truth is out there, but it’s getting harder to find.

Of course, there are a lot of other institutions that people have quit believing in. Churches and their attempted coverups of sex scandals and child abuse have helped to push most Americans away from houses of worship. The internet has come under the control of a few trillion-dollar tech companies that collect and sell our personal information as if we’re a commodity.

Too many of our institutions have become dishonest. And when lies take over public discourse, nothing is believable anymore.

Perhaps history will record America’s decline from the moment when telling the truth was no longer valued.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

[email protected]