What is a “fact?”
My philosophy is this: “humble yourself towards life.” It’s a saying I created when I truly began to respect others’ views. When I really embraced the notion that others with differing opinions were not people of my mindset seeing what I was seeing yet skewing their stated judgement of it to achieve an end, but rather people who truly felt their opinion was fact, I realized an invaluable tool for instantly getting beyond that person’s facade. From that point on I began talking less and probing more, not only to better understand others’ views, but to grasp the gist of who people were and what drove different people’s outlooks.
We humans are merely participating in something vastly bigger than our species. What we call “words” are nothing more than our own intellectual devices to help us cope with a reality grander than anything we are capable of conceiving. We humans live in a world with its own agenda and absolutes, however our ability to capture them using our logic, intellect and language are terribly insufficient and leave us clamoring in an exploitable state of confusion.
When a human intellectual derivative (worded theory) of one of Earth’s absolutes encompasses a wide variety of mentalities, one achieves what is called a “fact.” A fact is not truth, rather it is a widely agreed upon intellectual tool that successfully serves a purpose. At one point the world being flat was a fact, only to be supplanted by theories of it being round. The flat-Earth truth served its purpose of keeping many human beings from prematurely sailing too far from land and now the round world truth helps us place communication satellites in orbit miles above the Earth’s surface. While there are still flat-earthers, most of humanity believes the Earth is round not because it is actually round, but because we achieved wide-spread agreement. If a new science were to emerge that determined otherwise, we humans would be subject to the new reality and would only be able to form new words and theories around it.
When people in my party, the Democrats, say things like “common sense gun laws” or Climate Change is an “absolute fact,” I cringe, because I realize they are just as bull-headed as those they seek to impose these supposed truths on. We’re supposed to be the smart ones yet we can’t figure out that the other side doesn’t think along the same track as us. A gun law can’t be “common sense” unless the sense is actually common. This would mean the common share of constituents would persuade a common share of House and Senate representatives to vote for such a law. Calling anything short of that “common” means we are too full of ourselves. Climate Change is not a fact unless it gets wide spread acceptance, which would include climate change deniers’ organic agreement. Otherwise, it is not worthy of the title, “fact.” The purpose of a fact is not to demonstrate that the components of your logic add up based on your own rationale, rather it is to achieve a collective mentality that engenders collective action; group action to benefit the collective can take place with minimal-to-no resistance when facts are achieved. A fact means a line of reasoning that spans enough mindsets and rationalities that a populace, together, can achieve something. In other words, stop calling Trump voters dumb and figure out what their interests are if you want to make any liberal progress.
Personal “facts” are an individual’s personal outlook combined with their intentions. Most of us liberals and Democrats think Donald Trump being an idiot and the worst president America has ever had is a fact. But to a vast section of this country he’s a genius and the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time. This is their truth based on their outlook of white male supremacy along with their intent to “make America great again” or, in other words, return it to its economic vitality when white males had unassailable power. The key to defeating Donald Trump in 2020 is less about bolstering our liberal logic with things that make sense to us, and more about establishing truths that serve our agenda yet conservatives can acquiesce to.
There’s no doubt that many voted for Donald Trump in reaction to a black presidency. Combined with a slow-growing economy, many conservatives immediately ran to the truth they knew, that white male presidents create strong American economic growth. With the current irresponsibly grown strong economy and now the Fed delaying its eminent demise by lowering the interest rate they feel they’ve made the right decision. Why change things?
Donald Trump is performing terribly in many ways. Infrastructure, the deficit, healthcare, foreign relations and homelessness are just a few ways he’s underperforming. Trading all these things for economic growth is like forsaking an oil change, tuneup and new tires for a paint job, chrome rims and a sound system. Sure we can brag that things look good but what about the engine that makes a car serve its actual purpose. America’s engine, a unified citizenry, is what truly drives our country. In my book, “To Pimp a Nation,” I explain how placing profit over purpose ruins the essence of anything. Just like how pimps destroy a woman’s humanness and potential contribution to humanity to make her a profit tool, Donald Trump is sacrificing America’s character to make it more profitable. The buck used to stop with us when it came to war and now European nations are rebuilding their armies because Trump decided he wanted to save money. We all know what happens when European powers build big armies. We had a thriving economy where native born Americans had first pick of the jobs and new arrivals passing through Ellis Island took the menial tasks and worked their way up to full American status. Now Trump doesn’t want anybody coming in. We used to be mindful of the National Deficit and now we have forsaken it for the illusion of prosperity. We had a cutting edge healthcare system but insurance companies, solely with profits in mind, pimped it out to the point that Barack Obama spent nearly all of his political capital getting 20 million people covered by the ACA. Trump has been working day and night to repeal it just to get those profits back to insurance companies, neither of which provide actual medical care or do the labor to pay for it. Donald Trump has no alternative plan because it is more profitable to not have one.
The surest way to win in 2020 is to nominate Joe Biden. He’s a white man, which fits into Trump supporters’ truth about who should be running this country. He will do a lot for minorities because his having a unique legacy depends on it. There’s no new ground to cover with white male domination but plenty of unchartered territory with minority advancement. I’m sure his presidency would be full of legislative achievements where he gets to take credit for helping minorities. Also, given that he’s a white male, those against minority progress would scrutinize his efforts less. Progress means power, which will eventually enable women and other minorities to truly contend for the presidency.
Our facts didn’t correspond with reality in 2016 and we are paying for it now. Let’s not make the same mistake again by getting too far ahead of ourselves. Let’s find ways to connect to Trump supporters and explain how Donald Trump has taken bill money and renovated the house. We have temporary economic prosperity at the expense of the deficit, infrastructure, healthcare, foreign relations and even internal discourse. He hasn’t even explained if and how he has secured our electoral system. Many states still have old outdated voting machines and just last week, for the second time, Senate Republicans have blocked election security measures that would require states to have back-up paper ballots. Let’s establish some facts that discourage Trump voters from voting for his second term.