The Political Reality of Truth
A look at today's news
My 12th grade English teacher used to say, “people are entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts.”
Well, Mr. Wells, I think it’s safe to say that in 2025, people are fully entitled to their own facts. This of course isn’t the first year, or even the fifth year, of dealing with misinformation, but the scale of it is monstrous. It feels different. It’s not just that you have to check your sources to make sure they’re reliable, it’s that you have to check to make sure the sources you deem reliable aren’t lying to you.
No longer can you blindly trust authority, or expertise, you have to do your own research. And most people don’t have the time, nor the desire to do so. Which makes it so fckn easy for journalists, creators, etc. to cherry pick events to create a narrative.
The widening divide of partisanship combined with the increasing indomitable nature of AI, makes telling fact from fiction even harder, even when we go straight to the primary source. In fact, the primary source can be full of sh*t. Some of the federal documents I’ve read lately are written so poorly it’s embarrassing that they’re publicly available. Lest we not forget the MAHA report.
What I have been thinking a lot about lately, and especially today, is how we live in a world where even the facts can be interpreted as hearsay.
Examples from today alone:
Did Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) identify himself properly before law enforcement officials temporarily detained him at a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press conference? DHS Secretary and the White House are saying that Sen. Padilla did not identify himself and that’s why he was handcuffed and shoved to the ground. The video suggests otherwise, though whether the officials were listening is certainly subject to speculation. While Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) says that the incident reeks of totalitarianism, Speaker Ron Johnson (R-LA) is calling for Padilla’s censure-ship based on his courtroom conduct.
Did Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom talk on the phone this week or not? Newsom claims Trump made it up, citing the claim as evidence that Trump’s mental health is declining. Trump is pushing back that they had a sixteen minute and four second call and that he told him to “get your ass in gear.”
Are these people ICE is detaining criminals or innocent hard workers? Reports indicate that ICE is targeting innocent people, conducting racial profiling and detaining people who are showing up lawfully to their ICE check-ins. And reportedly, ICE is requesting that judges dismiss pending immigration cases (meaning the defendants don’t get a chance to make their case for asylum) and then they are immediately arresting the defendants. On the flip side, the White House is posting Instagram carousels titled “meet the criminal illegal aliens ICE arrested in LA.”
Is LA a war zone right now or not? If you flip on Fox News right now, you’d think that the citizens of LA are destroying the city. That the whole place has nearly been blown to smithereens. On the other hand, if you watched Jimmy Kimmel on Tuesday, you saw a picturesque scene with people walking their dogs and taking selfies in Hollywood. It’s the same with the protests themselves — are they peaceful or not? Depends on who you ask and what camera angle you get.
It’s almost like you get to choose your own adventure— you get to choose how to interpret reality. Again, misinformation isn’t new, but this feels so different. This isn’t like, we are hearing a report of what happened and basing our interpretation off that. We are all watching the same thing. It’s just we get to choose how to interpret the events that we are watching unfold.
And you can find a support system for your view somewhere on the internet. Take the Sen. Alex Padilla video. The vast number of comments on X regarding the footage are, “lock him up”; “NO ONE is above the law.” Meanwhile, on Instagram, people are calling for Sec. Noem to testify to Congress, demanding that people address this, and saying that this is a power grab. Again, same footage, same event, competing narratives.
And then there are those intentionally misleading us to achieve their own agenda. Even today, a SuperPAC supporting Andrew Cuomo for NYC mayor sent out a mailer darkening and lengthening opponent Zohran Mamdani’s beard, which Mamdani called “blatant Islamophobia.”
Mailer:
Mamdani’s post:
Seriously, wtf.
I think this is going to get worse before it gets better. Over the next seven years in particular. And I don’t have any suggestions for it right now to be honest.
All I can say is just to form your own opinions, don’t let those around you color them and don’t let media tell you how to think.
On a lighter note, I have a piece coming on joy being the greatest form of resistance. I wrote it last week and then I tabled it to write Trump/Elon, and then it felt like sh*t really hit the fan, and I didn’t want to publish it and be insensitive. However, I think it’s an important reminder that we need to practice joy, not anger, to sustain ourselves. And that we want to be ready when we need to be. So, keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, try to put down the news for a little bit and go do something fun, then idk pet a puppy or hold a baby or something equally satisfying.
Alright, that’s it from me.
Stay safe and stay vigilant.
-Smartt Takes