The Rise of Blatant Falsehood

Abstract

Abstract This chapter tackles the widespread sense that something has recently gone badly wrong with respect to truth and falsehood in our political discourse. It rejects the idea of a post-truth era, but it also rejects the idea that there is nothing new in our current era with respect to falsehood. Turning to conspiracy theories, it again rejects the idea that there is nothing new, but also rejects various existing analyses of what is new. In the end, the chapter argues that our era is characterized by a new mainstreaming of obvious falsehoods (recognized as such by the mainstream media) in political discourse; and by a new ability for politicians to endorse such falsehoods and still survive professionally.