Living not by lies but ignoring the truth

Reverend Dwight Longenecker has reviewed Rod Dreher's new book "Live Not by Lies", and his review essay is interesting. In fact, I would go so far as to call it fascinating: it brings to my mind an essay by Connor Cruise O'Brien called "What can become of South Africa?", in which he speaks of the potential of ideological rhetoric to "boggle the mind" and completely drive out ordinary, humble respect for everyday reality. Reading Fr. Longenecker's essay, I can't tell whether he actually does not see the contradictions in his writing, or whether he simply wants to know if his readers have paid attention, because he wrote the following paragraph in his glowing review of Mr. Dreher's book:

 No matter what you believe about the legality of Joe Biden’s election, the fact remains that half the country believe Donald Trump and his Trump army were planning a coup. The other half of the country believe Joe Biden accomplished a coup through a rigged election. Again, no matter what the facts are–the result is that the Joe Biden presidency appears to be propped up by military might. Calling up 25,000 troops to Washington this week was not just for “security”. It was clearly a show of strength by the winning side. It was a display of military might to remind the other half of America who won and who is in charge. 

 In case anyone has forgotten, one of the books praised in this review essay bears the title "Live Not by Lies". That context makes the above quote from the article quite remarkable. 

Trump supporters, Capitol Hill protests 
by Elvert Barnes

Consider the phrase: "no matter what you believe". For people who actually want to not live by lies, it has to matter what you believe. If you don't make an effort to align your beliefs with the truth, if you don't try to discern that truth and live by it, then you face something between a severe risk and an absolute certainty of living, in some important way, by lies. Despite its equivocation, however, the first sentence contains a statement backed by evidence: roughly half of Americans polled by Ipsos do consider the attack on the capitol an attempted coup. The second sentence, claiming the other half of Americans believe the Democratic Party carried out a coup by rigging the election, does not. A number of polls have asked Americans their opinions about the fairness and accuracy of the US election. The most recent polls I can find, taken close to the time Fr. Longenecker published his review, indicate 65%, or about two in three Americans, consider the election fair and accurate. All of the polls I have seen suggest the number of Americans who believe the Democrats managed to manipulate the election results so severely as to constitute a coup has generally hovered at about a third, and while that number rightly gives rise to concern, it does not come close to the fifty percent the phrase "the other half" suggests.

That brings us to the next sentence, and its introductory phrase: "no matter what the facts are".  The next part of the sentence, "the result is that the Joe Biden presidency appears to be propped up by military might," expresses a wholly subjective impression, one impossible to either prove or disprove. The sentence as a whole conveys an unwillingness to submit the writer's chosen impression to the facts and evidence. Yet a commitment to live according to the truth requires exactly that submission. Indeed, living by the truth only means anything when the evidence is inconvenient and the facts unwelcome. Here. Fr. Longenecker glosses over one undisputed if unwelcome fact: every qualified fact finding body determined the Joe Biden's election took place in accord with the constitution of the United States. Mr. Trump had ample opportunity to appeal to the courts, and they ruled the election proper and legitimate. Literally hundreds of judges, election security experts, and public officials, a respectable proportion of them Republicans, ruled the Biden-Harris ticket had won. Joe Biden's presidency rests on the foundation of the United States Constitution, and the procedures the constitution and laws set out for determining the will of the people in a presidential election. 

The next sentence presents an unsupported opinion without qualification: "Calling up 25,000 troops to Washington this week was not just for 'security'." Everyone has a right to their opinion, but ignoring the facts in this case, again, runs counter to a commitment to live according to the truth. On January 6th, a violent rally by partisans of the outgoing president included multiple participants who invaded the halls of Congress, some of them clearly expressing an intent to murder any legislator who did their constitutionally mandated duty. The authorities had evidence these same people, or their allies, intended another violent attack on inauguration day. Since the United States is a heavily armed society, and since American experience shows, all too well, the havoc a disaffected person with a rife can wreak, the authorities had good reason to believe they would need a significant force to secure the inauguration. 

The overall effect of this paragraph presents the election of Mr. Biden in a vaguely sinister light, mostly by glossing over some facts and ignoring others. I have no reason to doubt it presents Fr. Longenecker's emotions regarding the outcome of the election quite well, but a commitment to live by the truth requires, among other things, making a distinction between feelings and facts, between the wished for and the provably real.