THE TRUTH WON'T MATTER

"I have a gut," Donald Trump announced in 2018, "and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else's brain can ever tell me." The president's gut would go on to inform him that climate change is partisan propaganda; that COVID-19 might be cured through the injection of bleach; that any election that fails to produce a Trump victory must be rigged.

- Megan Garber

Trump gut-trusted the nation into political crisis. His first term emphasized the fragility of American democracy. A second would threaten the foundation of that democracy: the public's willingness to accept that reality is a shared resource.

Facts are work. They require study; they require curiosity; they require patience; they require humility. Democracy requires the same. The demands of both become greater in an information environment teeming with stories that are ever more suspect-a place where truth has plausible deniability. Trump will ease the burden, he suggests: You can outsource your mind to his gut. You would be foolish not to. Science lies to you. Hollywood lies to you. The media lie to you. Books lie to you. Courts lie to you. Teachers lie to you. Other people lie to you. Democracy lies to you. The only thing you can trust, in this dizzying world, is the inveterate liar who would never lie to you.