Category: Politics

 

Relative to Trump, Biden has a reality problem. Biden’s supporters generally have a realistic view of him, seeing Joe as a well-meaning, decent old man who is probably not up to enduring another four years as President. In contrast, the Trump existing in the minds of his base barely resembles the real Trump, except (ironically) in terms of his worst traits and deeds. Biden also does not have the propaganda machinery of Fox News and its more extreme fellows, and his supporters include people who listen to NPR and check facts. As such a propaganda campaign of disinformation is not an option for poor Joe.

While I am wary of conspiracy theories, if we look at Hilary Clinton’s 2016 run and what Biden is doing now, it would not be unreasonable to think that the ruling elites of the Democratic party are intentionally throwing elections. One could also infer that the party is suffering from an ego problem in that some candidates are unwilling or unable to honestly assess their chances. In any case, the Democrats continue to disappoint, the Republicans seem intent on turning America into a white Christian nationalist authoritarian oligarchy griftocracy, and no third party is up to the task of challenging them. Given my values, which I am happy to debate, Biden is still by far the better choice. While I do think that even a fully senile Biden would be better than Trump, my main reason for supporting Biden is, well, everything else that goes with the presidency. While Biden and the Democrats do ably serve the ruling elites, they also endeavor to make things less bad for everyone else and value competence to some degree. Trump, if he follows the Project 2025 plan, will be creating that white Christian nationalist authoritarian oligarchy griftocracy. This will be bad for everyone, including white Christians, who are not economic elites who have the resources to endure the harm this project will inflict. So how can Biden win?

Interestingly, the Supreme Court just gave Biden the tool he needs to easily win, if he were only the sort of person Trump and Fox News claim he is. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted, the ruling on presidential immunity would have the following effect: “Orders the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune,” she wrote. “Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.” While I am not a constitutional scholar, based on the text of the ruling and dissent, Joe could take a wide range of official actions to neutralize Trump and perhaps much of MAGA and ensure he remains in office. Ironically, Trump and his MAGA Supreme Court judges know this is a safe move: unlike Trump, Biden will not do any of these things, even to preserve the United States from the destruction that Trump will bring. But he could and there are presumably those who would argue that he should, for example, send the Joe Commandoes to neutralize Trump and, while they are at it, other key MAGA figures, such as six supreme court justices. But, once again, they know that while Trump will run wild with this ruling, Biden will not—which is yet another reason why Biden should be president rather than Trump. But are there ways for Biden to beat Trump? One option is to use a third-party candidate to pull votes from Trump.

While third-party candidates have proven useful in winning elections, there are moral questions about intentionally using this tactic. One concern is the matter of deceit. Suppose that shadowy Democratic party operatives were to support, for example, RFK in ways that would draw votes away from Trump. This raises stock moral concerns about deception and manipulation. Because of my ethics, I could not endorse this tactic. Fortunately, I can openly encourage people who would otherwise vote for Trump to vote for RFK and do so in an ethical manner by being completely honest. I also openly encourage those Democratic operatives to use this tactic.

Perhaps the only time the MAGA base openly disagreed with Trump and booed him was when he admitted to getting a COVID-19 booster. This indicates that for at least some of the base, their anti-vax ideology is stronger than their MAGA commitment. This presents an opportunity to peel some voters away from Trump.

Trump was initially baffled by the anti-vax sentiments, as were some other Republicans (such as Ron DeSantis), and while they have been happy to change their rhetoric to appeal to these voters, they are not true believers. After all, they all got vaxxed because they knew it would protect them from a dangerous disease. More importantly, one significant achievement of the Trump administration was Operation Warp Speed which resulted in effective vaccines being developed at, well, warp speed. While I generally loath Trump, he and his administration deserve praise for this as despite their other failures, these vaccines saved lives and prevented serious illnesses. So, thank you President Trump for those vaccines. Ironically, this accomplishment can be weaponized against him.

Two of Trump’s many weaknesses are that he loves praise and loves to take credit, as such the success of Operation Warp Speed is something he would very much love to claim. But he also realizes that this objectively good success is seen very differently by his anti-vax base. As such, he has largely stopped talking about it. This, of course, is a situation that can be exploited in a way that allows complete honesty.

Biden and Democrats should praise Trump for the success of Warp Speed and emphasize how he and other Republicans served as role models by taking the COVID-19 vaccines. Unedited, honest clips of him praising the project and recommending the vaccine should be used. But how will this help peel off votes? Fortunately, or unfortunately, RFK is a solid anti-vax candidate who appeals to his fellow conspiracy theorists. That he has admitted to having a worm in his brain presumably only boosts his potential appeal to some elements of the MAGA base. While this is morally dubious at best, Democrats could assist RFK by promoting his anti-vax credentials and contrasting them with Trump’s. To avoid being evil, they would need to steer clear of promoting anti-vax disinformation. This is certainly a viable option since the goal is to get existing anti-vaxxers who would otherwise vote for Trump (but never Biden) to switch to RFK and not to create more anti-vaxxers.  But at this point I think people are probably set in their views on vaccines. There is, of course, a risk of pulling liberal anti-vaxxers away from Biden to RFK and this should be considered before this tactic is used. Fortunately for the Democrats, it is the Republicans who have largely embraced an anti-vax approach within their broader commitment to disinformation and misinformation. As such, this tactic would hurt Trump more than Biden.

While it might be wondered if the effort would be worth it, since this tactic is unlikely to peel off many MAGA voters. However, while Clinton and Biden trounced Trump by millions of votes, the electoral college is such that pulling a few votes away from Trump in key locations could make a difference. Assuming, of course, that votes will even matter in MAGA controlled zones.

Since the colonial days, America has been a land of stark economic inequality with a relatively stable class structure. The institution of slavery and its enduring effects are the most striking examples. While the economic benefits of slavery were concentrated (as some like to point out, not all whites owned slaves), these benefits generated wealth that has been inherited and built upon. In contrast, the poverty of the victims of slavery was also inherited, providing little or nothing for people to build upon. As such, to grasp one aspect of white privilege (or white advantage) all a person needs are the most basic knowledge of American history and a minimal grasp of how inheritance works. While exceptions should be considered when thinking about generalizations, one needs to be on guard against the fallacies of hasty generalization (drawing a general conclusion based on a sample that is too small) and anecdotal evidence (rejecting statistical data based on an anecdote that is an exception). So, while examples like Obama and Oprah are relevant to discussing race in America, they are but two examples among millions. White poverty has been and is real, but this does not disprove the generality of white advantage. After all, the claim that white privilege or advantage exists is not the claim that every white person is doing well and that everyone else is doing terribly. Rather, it is a claim based on statistical analysis of the entire population.

While part of the American myth is that hard working Americans made themselves into successes by their own hard work, the reality is that there are many notable cases of public resources being used to benefit certain broad segments of the population. These segments have consistently consisted of white Americans while largely excluding others. These have also served to build white advantage. Some examples are as follows.

In 1830 the Indian Removal Act resulted in native people being forced from their lands, which opened the ground for the 1862 Homestead Act which overwhelmingly benefited white settlers.

In 1934 the Federal Housing Administration was created to address the housing shortage in America. It was also intended to segregate housing. It succeeded in both goals, providing many white Americans with the opportunity to own houses while pushing blacks and other minorities into urban housing projects. Home ownership was also subsidized with public money through the mortgage interest deduction. And so home ownership became the engine of American inequality.

 While Social Security is considered a general benefit today, when the Social Security Act of 1935 was passed, it intentionally excluded agricultural and domestic workers, who were mostly Black, Hispanic and Asian. The Wagner Act was also passed in 1935 and it gave unions the ability to engage in collective bargaining and set out consequences for unfair work practices. While unionization helped improve the situations of white workers, non-whites were largely excluded from these benefits. Fortunately, unions have become more diverse and “white union members have lower racial resentment and greater support for policies that benefit African Americans.” These are no doubt additional reasons for the right to try to destroy unions.

After WWII, the G.I. Education Bill, Veteran Administration Housing Authority, and Health Care System provided members of the military and veterans with public support for higher education, housing, and health care. While not the only factor, this public support is seen as the foundation upon which the prosperous American middle class was built. Wealth was redistributed to good effect for those who received it. While not all veterans were white (the United States operated segregated Asian and Black units during the war), most benefits were limited to white veterans and a million black WWII veterans were largely denied these benefits. The federal government and states also invested heavily in public higher education and for a while college was relatively affordable.

When the above examples are brought up in discussions of white privilege, some people counter with three true claims. The first is these lie in the past, the second is that things have changed, and the third is that many white people are not doing well.

While these do lie in the past and things have changed, there is still that fact that the effects of the harms and benefits linger. As noted above in talking about slavery, to understand that white advantage is real one just needs a basic knowledge of American history and a minimal grasp of how inheritance works. For example, grandparents who went to college and got a house from the GI Bill were generally able to pass on that wealth to their children, who then passed on benefits to their children. In contrast, the black veterans who got nothing from the bill had exactly that extra to pass on to their families. There will, of course, be stories of white veterans who ended up with nothing to pass on and examples of black veterans who did very well and were able to pass on wealth; but these are the exceptions. But is true that many white people are not doing well. White Americans are obviously not exempt from the economic woes of today, including low wages, grotesque income inequality, lack of affordable health care, food insecurity, high housing costs and so on.

The average white American can look at these past benefits and point out, correctly, that they are not getting the same benefits. As examples, college and housing are extremely expensive and the state is doing little, if anything, to help the average white person. That is, the entitlements of the past are gone or shifted to benefiting the wealthiest, including politicians. While there are many reasons for this, one is racism, and this can be illustrated by the parable of the pools.

Heather McGhee’s The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together includes the history of the closing of public pools in America because of a racist response to integration. The paradigm pool is the 1919 Fairground Park pool in St. Louis, Missouri, which was believed to be large enough for 10,000 swimmers. In 1949 the city integrated the pool, resulting in the Fairground Park Riot in which whites attacked every black person they saw in the area. The pool was segregated again, then desegregated by a NAACP lawsuit. Visits to the pool declined dramatically and the city closed and drained the pool. While this was one example, the closing of public pools to avoid integration led to a case that reached the Supreme Court. The court ruled, in the 1971 Palmer v. Thompson, that closing a pool rather than integrating it was constitutional. Roughly put, closing a pool hurt everyone and hence was not based on racism. While swimming remained (and remains) popular, public pools largely declined in favor of backyard pools and segregated swim clubs. This ended up hurting everyone and set the stage for the harm that followed.

That many white people would accept losing a benefit rather than allowing it to be shared and that denying a benefit to everyone was constitutional did not go unnoticed. In the years to follow, public benefits were subject to cuts for everyone and the propaganda campaigns against them typically included racist elements. Under Ronald Reagan, the United States saw racism employed to get white Americans to accept cuts in entitlements, social programs, and other public expenditures that once  benefited Americans broadly. Bill Clinton kept Reaganomics going and with few exceptions American economic and political policy (and law) has been focused on ensuring that wealth is consistently distributed from the lower classes to the wealthiest classes. When there are attempts to change this siphoning of wealth, these are countered with the usual arguments and rhetoric, including appeals to racism.

Ironically, racism was and is used to get white Americans to agree to policies and laws that hurt everyone (but the rich) including themselves. This is still consistent with white privilege, since whites still enjoy other privileges and the benefits accrued by past generations have not been completely eroded. But the young white people who are trying to pay rent, go to college, or even meet basic expenses are realizing that the system is harming them, and this can lead to the bizarre situation where some people argue that there is no racism or white privilege because white people are suffering. But part of their suffering is due to racism and its role in destroying so many public goods. The money is, of course, still there—it just gets funneled upwards and helps explain why we have so many millionaires and billionaires today.

As the wealth acquired by whites in the past is eroded by the need to use those resources, I wonder what impact this will have. While the right has been exploiting white economic worries, they are also committed to racism. As such, even if they wanted to restore public benefits (which they do not) they would have to give up their racism. The establishment Democrats are also largely committed to the status quo, although they are more willing to allow public funds to benefit the public.  It will be interesting, and probably terrifying, to see the outcome of this—although history does over some suggestions.

In what seems to be a victory for Christian Nationalists, the Ten Commandments must now be displayed in Louisiana public classrooms. This law will be challenged, but its proponents are hoping that the Supreme Court will rule in its favor. Given the ideology and religious views of the majority of the court, this victory is all but assured.  

The 2022 Kennedy v. Bremerton School District ruling provides guidance here as the court ruled in favor of a high school football coach who was fired for praying on the field. The court decided that the prayer was private speech and hence protected. Meanwhile, Republicans in Florida are arguing that “in the classroom, the professor’s speech is the government’s speech…” when it is speech they do not like.  It would be interesting to see what they would say about professors praying in classrooms; I suspect that if it was a suitable Christian prayer, it would be considered private speech.

While I am not a legal scholar, there does seem to be an obvious difference between a coach engaging in a private prayer on the field and a state mandating that the Ten Commandments be displayed in all classrooms. If, for example, a teacher or professor wanted to carry a copy of the Ten Commandments to draw inspiration from before teaching or during committee meetings, that would obviously not present any issues. I, in fact, have a copy of the Ten Commandments in my Ethics class notes since I do a section on religion and ethics. In this context I am using the Ten Commandments as an example of religious ethics rather than proselytizing a specific faith in the classroom, since we are not in the indoctrination business. Coincidentally, this is a work around that proponents of the law have also attempted to use.

As the separation of church and state is well-established, proponents of the law need a narrative that will allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed while they can insist this is not the state promoting a religion. One approach is built on the same justification I use to cover the Ten Commandments in my class: the Ten Commandments are an important part of legal (and moral) history and hence should be included in the relevant lessons. I certainly would not think of teaching a basic ethics class without including them in a section on religious rules-based ethics. Likewise, my colleagues in religion and history would not think to exclude them from the relevant classes. But there are two obvious differences.

One is that academic coverage of the Ten Commandments does not require a state mandate that they be displayed in all classrooms. Providing them to the students in the text, PowerPoints or notes suffices. The second is that my colleagues and I are not, as I noted earlier, in the business of indoctrinating students. In fact, students routinely ask us what we think, since we are careful not to preach our own views. When discussing paper topics, I stress that they should argue for their position and not try to argue for what they think I might think. When grading, I take care to separate my view of their position from a fair assessment of the quality of their work. As I tell my students, people have gotten an A on papers arguing for positions I strongly disagree with, and others have done badly by arguing badly for positions I agree with. I never tell them these positions and stick to generalities.

The clever counter to this is that the law has an amendment that permits display of historical documents such as the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance. Presumably the intent is to try to persuade people that the Ten Commandments is just being displayed as an historically important document and hence all the concerns about the separation of church and state are unfounded. But the obvious problem is that only the display of the Ten Commandments is mandated by law (and a specific version, at that). But even if the law required other documents to be displayed, it would still be reasonable to consider why the Ten Commandments and these other documents were being mandated for display. They did not, for example, mandate that specific content from mathematics, science, or English literature be displayed in classrooms, even those that are foundational. If they were really concerned that classrooms display important documents, they would have presumably included such content in the law.  But maybe that will be the next move to conceal their intentions.

Interestingly, this move does send an unintended message about the Ten Commandments. If we take seriously the argument that they are being displayed just because they are historically important and not for religious reasons, then the message to students is that that they are just historically important, on par with the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance. They are perhaps not the word of God given to Moses by God.  As such, they should be subject to the same academic assessment as any other historical document and subject to the same criticism as any other legal works created by flawed humans for human purposes. The schools should also display other historically important documents, such as select quotes from Marxists, Muslims, Buddhists, socialists, atheists, anarchists, Satanists and others. After all, if it really is about displaying important documents, there are many that deserve a place alongside the Ten Commandments. But it is evident and obvious what the intent of the law is, and it has nothing to do with presenting students with historically important documents.

 

Almost as if to prove that anything can become a front in the culture war, milk is part of the endless battle. Back in 2017, white supremacists were chugging milk as a demonstration of their whiteness and some said that “if you can’t drink milk, you have to go back.” In terms of making some sense of this, they were basing this claim on the ability to digest lactose as an adult being a genetic trait known to be more common in white people than others. Unfortunately for the white supremacists, this trait is also found among cattle breeders in East Africa. While this milk chugging seems to have calmed down, the milk war continues. In fact, this war has been fought for a long time and the focus of the fight is on raw milk.

Raw milk is exactly what it sounds like: it is milk that has not been “cooked.” In the case of milk, “cooking” is pasteurization, which is intended to sterilize the milk. In the beginning, all milk was raw milk. Obviously enough, the main reason to pasteurize milk is to make the milk safer to drink. Before pasteurization, people (usually infants) could die from drinking the milk. It is estimated that in 1858 at least 8,000 infants died in New York City alone from consuming unpasteurized “swill milk.” As pasteurization became widespread and required by law, the consumption of raw milk declined dramatically. But consumption never ceased.

As the organic food movement grew in the United States, raw milk enjoyed some popularity with liberals and was sold at Whole Foods. While Whole Foods has endured, liberals have largely moved on from raw milk. It has now been embraced by some conservatives, which makes sense.

Like pre-Trump conservatives, current conservatives favor deregulation of industry. Removing pasteurization requirements is deregulation, although the dairy industry has generally favored this requirement. Most current conservatives have embraced a distrust of expertise and dislike government telling them what to do. Health experts, as would be expected, say that consuming raw milk is risky and back up this claim with evidence. As would be expected, this simply motivates some people on the right to want raw milk even more, since they distrust these experts and see consuming it as an act of defiance.

In something of a flashback to our last pandemic, a virus has jumped species and presents a threat to human health. This latest virus is avian influenza (bird flu) and it has infected cows and even a very few humans. While this will probably not lead to another pandemic, it is rational to be on guard against allowing yet another strain of flu to spread.

Fortunately, pasteurization kills the flu virus, making milk from infected cows safe to drink. Raw milk, however, can contain the live virus and infect people which is why experts have warned people not to drink it. This is basic grade school science; I remember learning about pasteurization and pathogens and doing an experiment in which we boiled water to kill bacteria. It is also basic food safety: washing foods and heating up certain foods you cannot wash are basic kitchen safety. People do get sick from drinking raw milk. Despite this, Alex Clark of Turning Point saw this as an opportunity to “trigger the left” and sell “got raw milk?” shirts. The original shirts featured a bull, leading to some mockery. But people do advance arguments in support of raw milk consumption.

One argument is based on the claim that raw milk has health benefits that pasteurized milk lacks. While pasteurization does affect milk, milk is also fortified with vitamins and there is no evidence that raw milk has any special health benefits. It is also sometimes claimed that pasteurization involves putting chemicals in milk, and hence raw milk is better because of the lack of chemicals. While chemicals in foods is a real problem, pasteurization is just a process of heating the milk and does not involve chemicals.

Proponents of raw milk also point out that people get sick from contaminated vegetables and yet the government allows the sale and consumption of raw vegetables. The point seems to be that this shows that raw milk should be legal to sell. Ironically, this provides a reason for stronger regulation of foods and more inspections to check for contamination. After all, pointing out that people are getting ill from food is not a reason to reduce food safety, but a reason to increase it. Less regulation, as history shows, means that food is less safe.

I think that the best argument for allowing the sale of raw milk is the freedom of self-harm argument. J.S. Mill makes a reasonable case that a person’s liberty should not be limited except to protect others from harm. While we should try to persuade people to make good choices, if they are only hurting themselves, we do not have the right to restrict them. As long as the raw milk comes with the appropriate warning labels and people are able to make an informed choice to consume it, then they should be allowed to do so. That said, there are some concerns about this freedom.

One concern is that some people will not be making an informed choice because of the false claims being spread about raw milk and pasteurized milk. These false claims can harm people, which means that by Mill’s view of liberty it would be morally acceptable to restrict the spreading of these untruths. This can, obviously, be countered by the claim that they have a right to express their opinions even when they are wrong and potentially dangerous.  But if the consumer understands that raw milk comes with risks and does not have all the claimed benefits, then they have the right to consume it. While folks on the right would agree with me that they should be able to drink raw milk, they would probably oppose my view that people should not lie about raw milk (or lie in general).

A second concern is a general problem with drawing the boundaries of harm.  If Alex chugs some raw milk and gets sick but can recover on his own or pay his hospital bill, they have only harmed themselves. But if Alex chugs raw milk, gets infected with bird flu, and spreads it to their grandparents who die of it, then they have harmed others and they do not have a moral right to spread disease. Given the views expressed by many on the right during the last pandemic, they would disagree with me on this limit—they would either claim that the risk is made up or that they have the right to put other people at risk in this way.

In closing, the battle over milk might seem weird, but it makes perfect sense when you understand the modern right. It will be interesting to see what battleground they choose next

 

 

Back in 2012 I wrote For Better or Worse Reasoning: A Philosophical Look at Same-Sex Marriage in response to the debate over this issue and this is a good time to look back on this debate. Especially since members of the  Supreme Court have signaled their interest in undoing it.

One set of arguments against allowing same-sex marriage involved the alleged harms that would arise. Some of these arguments fully embraced the slippery slope fallacy, often to an absurd degree. This fallacy is when it is claimed that something, usually a bad thing, must inevitably follow from something else and this claim of inevitability is not adequately supported. For example, some people claimed that if same-sex marriage was allowed, then this would lead to bestiality and people marrying animals. They did not offer a casual account of how this would come about.

While these claims might strike people as silly, they are testable. As same-sex marriage has been legal for about twenty years, we would expect to see evidence of these outcomes if the claims were true. None of these claims seem to have come true. For example, people still  cannot legally marry animals. It could be objected that twenty years has not been long enough for these harms to come about, but they will still occur in the future. But if this were true, there should be at least some evidence of changes heading in that direction (other than the legalization of same-sex marriage) and these are lacking. This is as expected by anyone who thought seriously about these slippery slope arguments.

Another set of arguments against same-sex marriage were built on more reasonable claims of harms that would arise from allowing same sex-marriage. This sort of argument does have appeal, as one purpose of law is to protect people from harm. The reasoning was that if same-sex marriage was allowed, then it would reduce the value of marriage for same-sex couples, leading to less marriage, more cohabitation and more divorce. These claims can now be tested empirically: if they are true, we would expect a statistically significant change in marriage, cohabitation and divorce that could not be explained by other factors.

As would be expected, this data has been collected and analyzed. Instead of a decrease in marriage among different-sex couples, there has been about a 2% increase, with a 10% increase in all marriages. Cohabitation has increased from 0-10%, although it is also worth considering economic factors such as the high cost of rent. It is also worth noting that whether unmarried cohabitation is a negative thing is debatable. Lastly, there has been no consistent change in the divorce rate of different-sex couples. So, by the standards of harms presented in the arguments against same-sex marriage, allowing it seems to have had a slight positive impact in that there has been a 2% increase in marriage among different-sex couples. Back in 2012, this is what I expected as it did not make sense that a significant number of people would give up on marriage or get divorced simply because same-sex couples could legally marry. But expectation is not confirmation, so it is good to see the evidence.

It could be countered that 20 years has not been enough time for the harm to come into effect and that the destruction of marriage will arrive at some point. The obvious reply is that we should see some signs of this trend and we do not.  As such, these harm arguments have been shown to be in error. Because of this, attempts to eliminate same-sex marriage based on these claims about harms would be unjustified. But this probably does not matter; I infer that if the fight over same-sex marriage becomes a thing again, these same claims will be made, and the facts will be ignored by those making the argument. This is because that is the same tactic now used by those who argue against transgender rights—they make false claims about harms. But, of course, there were other arguments made against same-sex marriage.

Another set of arguments are those built around religion. One argument is based on the idea that since God married Adam to Eve, this defines marriage in the biblical sense. Clever folks like to say that it was “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Since marriage is supposed to be defined by the Christian faith as between one man and one woman, that is what the law should be.

Another common approach is to refer to Leviticus: “thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” From this it is inferred that same-sex marriage is wrong and should be illegal. Naturally, witty folks like to point out that Leviticus claims lobster is also an abomination “Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.” And sex with lobsters is also right out: “Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.” As far as what Jesus said about same sex relations, he said nothing. This can be confirmed by reading through the New Testament.

Today, the religious arguments are mostly used by people who do not want to have same-sex couples as customers, and these have been used with some success. This does keep the door cracked for using religious arguments against same-sex marriage, especially with the growing success of Christian Nationalism. There are also normative arguments that are not based explicitly on religion.

These arguments include the general argument style in which it is contended that homosexuality is morally wrong and hence they should not be allowed to marry. An obvious concern about this sort of argument is that if people must pass a moral test to be eligible for marriage, then consistency would require applying the same sort of standard to same-sex couples. But as people tend to ignore concerns about consistency, we can expect to see a return of the immoral argument. There is, however, the fact that most Americans do not see homosexuality as immoral, so the moral argument against same-sex marriage would be harder to make in the future.

A variation of the moral argument is the unnatural argument, although this seems to be rarely used for same-sex marriage debates these days. It does, however, get deployed in the culture war over gender and sexual identity so it could get redeployed when the right decides to take on same-sex marriage again. The unnatural argument usually takes the form of claiming that because homosexuality is alleged to not occur in nature, it is unnatural and hence wrong. That homosexuality is widespread in the natural world undercuts this sort of argument, but this does not mean that people will not use it again. As noted earlier, the culture war fight over gender issues involves appeals to what people think is natural, even when they are wrong. As such, this argument type might be used once again.

While there are many other stock arguments used against same-sex marriage, I’ll close with the procreation argument.

 Obviously enough, same-sex couples cannot have children through heterosexual intercourse with each other and this inability to procreate was used to argue against same-sex marriage. One example is that during the hearing regarding Proposition 8 in California the claim that “responsible procreation is really at the heart of society’s interest in regulating marriage” was brought out to defend that proposition.

Same-sex marriage was typically criticized on two grounds relating to procreation The first is that same-sex couples cannot, as noted above, procreate with each other by intercourse. The second is that same-sex couples will be bad parents (for example during the battle over Proposition 8, it was claimed without evidence, that homosexuals are twelve times more likely to molest children).

What if we suppose that these two principles are correct: 1) marriage is to be denied to those who do not procreate and 2) people who are not “responsible in procreation” are to be denied marriage.

The first principle would entail that straight couples who do not want children or cannot have them must be denied marriage. It would also seem to imply that couples who use artificial means to reproduce (such as in vitro fertilization or a surrogate) must also be denied marriage.

The second principle entails that straight couples who are not responsible parents must also be denied marriage.  This would seem to require that the state monitor marriages to determine that married couples are both reproducing and being responsible parents. The state would presumably need to revoke marriage licenses for those who fail to meet the standards (much like the state can revoke a driver’s license for driving violations). While I obviously think the state has a role in child welfare, being a bad parent (or even a bad spouse) would not seem to warrant taking away the right to marriage.

Of course, these arguments seem to have been made in bad faith since those who opposed same-sex marriage did not put forth comparable legislation addressing same-sex couples who did not reproduce or who were bad parents. This suggests that they did not really care about procreation and good parenting as requirements for marriage, these were simply rhetorical tools to attack same-sex marriage.

Those familiar with the current culture war battles over gender issues will have noticed that people still advance a procreation argument against transgender people, usually in the form of memes and social media posts. Aside from the change of target, it is the same argument used against same-sex couples. The argument is that if everyone was trans, then humanity would die off. So being trans is bad and presumably should not be allowed. A little reflection shows how easily this argument is reduced to absurdity. After all, if it was good logic, it would also apply to anyone who has chosen celibacy (like certain monks, priests and nuns) or people who just do not want to have children. In general, the “it would be bad if everyone did X so we must not allow X” arguments are terrible. After all, it would be bad if everyone became a construction worker, since then we would have no one doing any other jobs. But that obviously does not show that we should ban people from being construction workers.

While this sort of argument is bad, the fact that it still gets employed in the culture war over gender identity shows that it is ready to be redeployed in a refight of the culture war over same sex marriage. People who accept it in one context of the current culture war are presumably primed to consider it in another context of the culture ware.

In closing, while the dire predictions made by those opposing same-sex marriage did not come true, this might not matter much if the fight over same-sex marriage is restarted by the right. While same-sex marriage is broadly accepted and most Americans are at least tolerant of homosexuality, it would be foolish for people who agree with same-sex marriage remaining legal to assume that the fight has been settled. It is reasonable to expect that this front of the culture war to be re-opened and that the same old tired and discredited arguments will be once again deployed in the fight. Culture war never changes

 

Trump and his allies have claimed that the Democrats are engaged in lawfare against him and are even proposing defunding those prosecuting Trump. Republicans have also promised to investigate what they claim is the weaponization of the legal system against Trump. Trump has even claimed that Biden planned to assassinate him. For his part, Trump has publicly stated that he plans to capture the justice department and turn it against Biden and other Democrats, showing that he has no objection to the weaponization of the legal system as such. This situation presents an interesting problem in critical thinking and epistemology.

The basic question is whether the claims about lawfare, assassination and weaponization are true. While I need to rely on publicly available information, I must infer that if Trump’s supporters had access to a smoking gun, then it would be all over Fox News and similar sources.

Let us, for the sake of the discussion, imagine a world in which Trump’s claims about lawfare, the weaponization of the legal system and even the assassination attempt are true. In this alternative reality, what would we expect to see? If Biden and the Democrats were engaged in the sort of lawfare and weaponization claimed, then you would expect that Trump would not be afforded the full due process of the legal system. After all, if they are engaged in the sort of behavior being claimed by Fox News and others, they would have no reason allow Trump to hold press conferences during his trial, the trial would not have been held publicly, he would not have been able to hire his own lawyer and so on. However, Trump was afforded due process and, in fact, was probably given some of the best treatment of any defendant in the history of the legal system.

If Biden planned on assassinating Trump and the FBI was deployed to take the shot, then Trump would be dead. After all, if they were sent to Florida to kill him and he was not there (as they already knew in our reality), they would presumably be willing to travel to him to complete the mission. Unless, of course, we assume the FBI in that reality are bad at knowing where Trump is and are too lazy to try again after failing to find him.

Somewhat ironically, if you reflect even briefly on the claims being advanced by Trump and his allies, then you would need to infer that Biden and the Democrats have no compunctions against using the legal system against Trump. As such, they should be behaving like those Trump and his allies compare them to, such as the Soviet Union and various dictatorships. But they are not. To bring up the most obvious fact, Trump is still free to raise money, conduct rallies, give interviews and so on as he runs for president. That is, he and his allies disprove their claims every day.  

Given that Trump’s allies and supporters are not stupid, I can only infer that they know these claims are false while they pretend they are true. In sum, if the claims about Biden and the Democrats weaponizing the legal system were true, Trump would be in prison and not running for President. If the assassination attempt claim were true, Trump would have not been able to make it because he would have been dead. And he and his allies know this.

Continuing with our alternative reality, in a world in which Democrats were weaponizing the legal system as Trump and his allies claim, they would obviously not allow the legal system to prosecute important Democrats and would certainly not allow Hunter Biden, the president’s son, to face trial. They would also not allow Bob Menendez to be tried. However, the department of justice seems to be relatively bi-partisan in that Democrats and Republicans are both occasionally tried and convicted. But all this is true in our world, indicating that the Democrats are not doing what Trump and his allies claim. One could respond that Biden and the Democrats are so cunning and evil that they are allowing Trump to run for president and sacrificing Hunter Biden, Bob Menendez and other Democrats as part of a clever plan. But that is obviously absurd. Again, if the Democrats are as bad a Trump and his allies claim, Trump would be in prison (or dead), Hunter Biden would not have faced trial, and important Democrats would be safe from the legal system (well, safer). There is also the obvious fact that if the Democrats were willing and able to do this to Trump, they would also use the legal system against Republicans across the country. For example, Marjorie Taylor Green would presumably also be on trial for something. As such, ever day shows that these claims by Trump and his allies are lies.

As noted earlier, if we infer that Trump’s allies and supporters believe these claims, we will need to conclude that they are incapable of even the most basic inferences from the readily available evidence. As such, the best explanation is that this is political theater—they all know it is make believe, but are playing along and using it to spin narratives and raise money. Given that Trump plans to turn the Department of Justice against his opponents and enemies, this all could be a rationalization for his planned weaponization, and this is a rationalization his followers and allies could embrace to “justify” when this happens. What is probably the most ironic is that Trump being elected president in 2024 would be the most conclusive proof that he has been lying all along and this seems to be ever more likely.

In politics, it is said that perception is reality. But many philosophers will tell you that what we think is reality is just perception. Very concisely, the notion is that we never directly experience reality, only the ideas in our mind. As such, we do not really perceive people, including Trump and Biden. We just have ideas of them that probably do not match reality. But, laying aside skepticism, we can have ideas that are more or less accurate. Before continuing, I will note that I am a registered Democrat (Florida has closed primaries) and I voted for Joe Biden last election. I’ll be voting for him again. As a philosopher, I’m obligated to present these biases so you can use them to rationally assess my credibility.

Having followed Trump and Biden over the years, I have noticed that Biden supporters tend to have a mostly accurate view of him while Trump supporters tend to be wrong in their beliefs about Trump and Biden, or at least profess to believe false things.

While there are no doubt exceptions, people who voted for Biden seem to have a reasonably realistic view of him. He is an old man, has been in politics a long time, takes moderate positions on almost everything, and is willing to do a few things to make life marginally better for many Americans. He is also consistent in maintaining the foundations of the status quo, such as allowing the fossil fuel industry to do most of what it wants to do. I think that this realism is an important factor in explaining why support for Biden tends to be lukewarm and the most compelling reason to vote for him is that he is not Trump. People are supporting the real Biden, and there isn’t much there to really inspire voters.

While there are exceptions, people who voted for Biden seem to have a mostly accurate view of Trump. He is an old man, there are many issues involving taxes, finances, and mistreatment of women in his past, he tried to stay in power after losing the election, he lies, he is willing to exploit racism and xenophobia, he is primarily interested in enriching himself and his family, and he is now a convicted felon.  These are all compelling reasons to not vote for him. Thus, it is no surprise that most votes for Biden were votes against Trump; people picked the lesser evil.

In contrast, Trump supporters seem to be wrong in their beliefs about Trump and Biden. Their professed conception of Biden seems to match that made up by Fox News and more extreme right-wing outlets. Biden is seen as senile, a socialist or even a communist. He wants to take away our hamburgers, stoves, and cars. He is also seen, by some, as wanting to make children gay or trans. And so on. I am, of course, unsure how many people really believe this and to what extent, if any, they have critically assessed these claims. But this conception of a senile, incompetent mastermind who is making America into a socialist state does give people a good “reason” to vote against this imaginary Joe Biden. This also helps explain the enthusiasm of the opposition: Biden’s supporters see him as a tired old moderate politician, his foes see him as a tired old devil energized to destroy America. This helps to explain the enthusiasm gap.

Some Trump supporters do know what Trump is and before they chose to become his henchmen many of them savagely attacked him. Just look at what his fellow Republicans said about him before he became President. They had an accurate view of Trump and are presumably lying now. The Christian nationalists and racists who hope to benefit from his second term probably grasp what he is (a useful tool), although they usually do not say so openly. For example, Mike Johnson has professed to be so anti-porn that he and his son monitor each other via an app to ensure they are not sneaking a peak at Pornhub. Yet Johnson was at Trump’s trial, supporting a man who committed adultery with a porn star and has lied about it. I don’t think that Johnson is stupid; he knows that Trump is a tool to get what he wants, and so he must bear false witness in praising him.

But I think that many of Trump’s followers are sincere when they claim he is a good Christian, that he is smart, that he is strong, that he cares about them, that the negative claims about Trump are untrue or exaggerated, that he is honest and so on. For the most part, their beliefs are the opposite of reality. Which is fascinating.

The comedian Jordan Klepper has done an excellent job, in a kind way, of getting some Trump supporters into a state of cognitive dissonance involving the facts and their professed beliefs. I don’t think that these people are stupid or foolish. After all, Trump is much better at putting on a show than Biden and Trump has a vast army of people, ranging from Fox News to YouTube grifters, presenting him as a great hero (and Biden as a senile, yet incredibly dangerous, devil). While Biden does have supporters, they are both less enthusiastic and less willing to lie. This helps explain why Trump is doing shockingly well in the polls—his supporters are supporting a Trump that does not exist and opposing a Biden that also does not exist. Biden supporters are, for the most part, reluctantly supporting a mostly accurate conception of Biden and more enthusiastically opposing a mostly realistic view of Trump. In short, Trump is winning the perception war while losing repeatedly in reality. But there is a good chance he will get a second term.

Trump’s defenders might claim that my critical view of Trump is a manifestation of Trump Derangement Syndrome. There is, of course, no way to effectively counter this rhetorical move with logic. If I offer supporting evidence for my claims, such as that presented in court during Trump’s trial, it will be dismissed as lies and as all part of a witch hunt against Trump. If I argue that my view is based on a calm and rational assessment of Trump and Biden, this will presumably be dismissed, perhaps based on the claim that my derangement is so deep that I am unaware of it. That is, they will need to reject evidence, advance conspiracy theories, and question my sanity to address my claims. To be fair to them, this could be their honest conception of me. And from my perspective, they would have broken free of reality. That is a basic problem with the intentional destruction of the idea of an objective reality; there is little common grounded reality to stand on and talk.

 

When accused of racism, Republicans often claim that the Democrats are the real racists. To back this up, it is sometimes claimed that the Democrats are “the party of the Ku Klux Klan.” While I don’t think that Ted Cruz invented this tactic, he did push it into the spotlight back when he defended Jeff Sessions against accusations of racism.  Cruz went beyond merely claiming that Democrats formed the Klan; he also claimed the Democrats were responsible for segregation and Jim Crow laws. As Cruz saw it, the Democrats’ tactic is to “…just accuse anyone they disagree with of being racist.”

Ted Cruz is right about the history of the Democratic party. After the Civil War, the southern Democratic Party explicitly identified itself as the “white man’s party” and accused the Republican party of being “negro dominated.” Some Southern Democrats did support Jim Crow and joined the KKK. So, these accusations are true. But do they prove that the modern Democrats are the real party of Racists? The easy and obvious answer is that they do not.

Despite the racism in its past, the Democrats became the party associated with civil rights while the Republicans engaged in what has become known as the “southern strategy.” In this strategic political move,  Republicans appealed to racism against blacks to gain political power in the south. Though ironic given the history of the two parties, this strategy was effective and many southern Democrats switched parties to become southern Republicans. This was like exchanging the wine in two bottles while leaving the labels the same. As such, while Ted and others are right about the history, they are criticizing the label rather than the wine.

Using this history of the Democratic party to attack the party of today also involves the genetic fallacy. The fact that the Democrats of the past backed Jim Crow and segregation is irrelevant to the merit of claims made by current Democrats or whether they are racist now. What is needed is evidence of current racism. When the logic is laid bare, the fallacy is quite evident:

 

Premise 1: Over a century ago, some Southern Democrats once joined the KKK.

Premise 2: Over a century ago, some Southern Democrats backed segregation and Jim Crow Laws.

Conclusion: The current Democrats are racists (or their claims about racism are false).

 

As should be evident, the premises have no logical connection to the conclusion. However, this fallacy can have considerable rhetorical force.

As noted above, it is also common for Republicans to accuse Democrats if relying on accusations of racism as a political tactic. It is true that a mere accusation of racism does not prove a person is racist. If it is an unsupported attack, then it proves nothing. Both ethics and critical thought require that one properly review the evidence for such accusations and not simply accept them. As such, if the Democrats are merely launching empty ad hominem attacks, then these attacks should be dismissed.  But if the accusations have merit, then this merit should be given the consideration they deserve.

When people make this attack on Democrats, they seem to accept that racism is a bad thing. After all, such as condemnation of current Democrats requires condemning past Democrats for their support of racism, segregation and Jim Crow laws. As such, the critic purports to agree with the current Democrats’ professed view that racism is bad. But the critic condemns the Democrats for making what are alleged to be false charges of racism. This, then, is the relevant concern: which claims, if any, made by the Democrats about racism true? The history of the Democratic party is not relevant to the answer, nor is the empty accusation that the Democrats are the real racists for being concerned about racism.

Another criticism of teachers’ unions is that they spend millions of dollars lobbying politicians to protect and advance their interests. This is bad, or so the reasoning goes, because the interests of the teachers’ unions are often (or perhaps even always) contrary to what is best for students.

When pressed for examples of such interests, critics sometimes allege that “collective bargaining agreements are written like celebrity contracts” and they point to egregious examples such as how Buffalo pays the bills when teachers have elective plastic surgery. These sorts of things do raise reasonable concerns.

It is true that unions sometimes negotiate contracts with problematic provisions.  But this is hardly a defect inherent to unions and the problems are the problematic provisions rather than the existence of teachers’ unions. To use the obvious analogy, corporations spend millions lobbying politicians to protect and advance their interests. This lobbying constantly results in laws contrary to the interests of many other citizens. But this does not justify eliminating corporations or lobbying. The problem is not inherent to corporations or lobbying but is the result of harmful legislation influenced by specific corporations engaged in specific lobbying. Likewise, when unions lobby for and get laws or agreements that prove harmful, the problem lies with the laws or agreements and not inherently in the unions or lobbying.

It could be argued that collective entities like unions and corporations are inherently damaging to the rest of society, and they should be eliminated or weakened. However, the burden of proof would seem to rest on those who hold this position. Also, this solution to the problem of teachers’ unions would need to be applied consistently, thus eliminating all collective entities that interact with the public. This would include all corporations and nonprofit organizations.

It could be contended that the problem is lobbying. If lobbying was eliminated or severely restricted, then it would be a better world. Given that big-money lobbying often has a corrupting and corrosive effect, this does have considerable appeal. However, this is not a problem unique to teachers’ unions. As such, if the solution to the woes attributed to teachers’ unions can be solved by eliminating or restricting their lobbying, then consistency would require extending the same policies to other collective bodies, such as corporations, to protect the public.

Another approach to the matter is to consider whether teachers’ unions are as harmful as their opponents claim. As a specific example, is it true that teachers’ unions collective bargaining agreements are like “celebrity contracts”?

A popular example of a “celebrity contract” provision is the coverage of plastic surgery provided to teachers by Buffalo. While the anti-union narrative is that the union negotiated so teachers could get breast implants and nose jobs, this is not the reality. When the benefit was first offered, plastic surgery was used primarily for reconstruction after a disfiguring injury. However, plastic surgery has changed since this benefit was negotiation. Plastic surgery as elective surgery for “improving” appearance is much more common. As such, it wasn’t that the union  negotiated a celebrity contract.  It is that some people are exploiting a change in plastic surgery. Sorting out this matter did prove problematic, not because of unions but because of issues with the way contracts are handled. There is also the fact that one anecdote about plastic surgery benefits does not show that teachers’ unions are generally bad. If anecdotes about bad behavior warranted eliminating organizations, then corporations would be the first to go.

While plastic surgery might be part of a “celebrity contract”, a hallmark of such an agreement is the payment of large (even exorbitant) sums of money. As such, if unions are benefiting teachers at the expense of students, then large (even exorbitant) teacher salaries should be expected as well as bonuses and perks.  However,  the typical salaries for teachers ranges from $43,491-48,880. While this is not a bad income relative to the national average, it compares unfavorably to the salaries of college educated workers in other professions. There are various myths about teacher pay that people use to argue that teachers are well (or excessively) paid. However, these are just that, they are myths. So, the idea that teachers’ unions are acting to the detriment of students by negotiating “celebrity contracts” for teachers is absurd in the face of the facts. That this is the case should be obvious to anyone who knows teachers—they do not live celebrity lifestyles and typically spend those “summer vacations” working a second job. My parents taught at public schools, and I can assure readers that we did not live a celebrity lifestyle.  They had to work second jobs over the summers to pay the bills. Speaking with teachers today makes it clear that things have not changed. Anecdotally, I am a member of a teacher’s union and I and most of my colleagues do not have “celebrity contracts.” Those are reserved for upper-level administrators and some of the “superstar” professors who can bring in grant money or have celebrity status in academics. But this is not the doing of the unions.

It could be argued that although teachers are not living the high life at the expense of students, unions still spend millions lobbying politicians and this money would be better spent on the students. This is a reasonable point: it would be better if that money could be spent on educating the children rather than going into the ample pockets of politicians. I am sure that other organizations, such as businesses, would prefer to use their lobbying money for more beneficial purposes, such as raises for employees. However, if they did not lobby, then they would be worse off because of the system that people have created. That is why they lobby. The same is true for the teachers’ unions: if they did not lobby on behalf of teachers, then things would be worse off for teachers and students. While it would be wonderful if politicians did the right thing for education and businesses because it is right and beneficial, that is not how most politicians have chosen to work. As such, the fact that the teachers’ unions and businesses spend so much money lobbying is a problem with the politicians and not a problem with unions or businesses.

Considering the above discussion, while it is obvious and evident that while unions can do wrong, they are important for protecting teachers and education. As such, the efforts to eliminate or weaken unions are, at best, misguided.

 

Shortly after Trump was elected president for the first time, Scottie Nell Hughes, a Trump surrogate, presented her view of truth on The Diane Rehm Show:

 

Well, I think it’s also an idea of an opinion. And that’s—on one hand, I hear half the media saying that these are lies. But on the other half, there are many people that go, ‘No, it’s true.’ And so one thing that has been interesting this entire campaign season to watch, is that people that say facts are facts—they’re not really facts. Everybody has a way—it’s kind of like looking at ratings, or looking at a glass of half-full water. Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth, or not truth. There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts.

 

As the claim there are no facts seems absurd, the principle of charity requires considering that she meant something other than what she said. One of the many things I have learned from teaching philosophy is that students often claim to think that everything is a matter of opinion and thus seem to think is no truth. The follow up discussion usually reveals that they do not believe what they think they believe. Rather than thinking that there is no truth, they think people disagree and people have a right to freedom of belief. If the Trumpian “denial” of facts is just that people believe different things and have a right to freedom of belief, then I have no issue with this.  

But perhaps the rejection of facts is not as absurd as it seems as there are philosophical theories embracing this view. One is relativism, which is the view that truth is relative to something. This is typically a culture, though it could be relative to a political affiliation. One version of this is aesthetic relativism in which beauty is claimed to be relative to the culture and objective beauty is denied. Another rejection of facts is subjectivism, which is the idea that truth is relative to the individual. Sticking with an aesthetic example, the idea that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is a subjectivist notion. On this view, there is not even a cultural account of beauty, beauty is dependent on the  individual observer. While Hughes did not develop her position, she and other Trump supporters seem to be embracing political relativism or even subjectivism: “And so Mr. Trump’s tweet, amongst a certain crowd—a large part of the population—are truth. When he says that millions of people illegally voted, he has some—amongst him and his supporters, and people believe they have facts to back that up. Those that do not like Mr. Trump, they say that those are lies and that there are no facts to back it up.”

If it is claimed that truth is relative to the groups (divided by their feelings towards Trump), then this is a relativist position. In this case, each group has its own truth that is made true by the belief of the group. If truth is dependent on the individual, then this is a subjectivist view. In this case, each person has their own truth, but s might happen to have a truth that others also accept.

While some might think this view of truth in politics is new, it dates back at least to the sophists of ancient Greece. The sophists presented themselves as pragmatic and practical and for a fee, they would train a person to sway the masses to gain influence and power. One of the best-known sophists, thanks to Plato, was Protagoras.

The rise of these sophists is easy to explain in terms of the niche that was created for them. Before the sophists arose, the pre-Socratic philosophers argued relentlessly against each other. Thales, for example, argued that the world is water. Heraclitus claimed it was fire. These disputes and the fact the arguments tended to be equally strong for and against any position, gave rise to skepticism, the philosophical view that we (seem to) lack knowledge. Some thinkers embraced this and became skeptics, others went beyond skepticism.

Skepticism often proved to be a gateway drug for relativism. If we cannot know what is true, then it is sensible to infer that truth is relative. If there is no objective truth, then the philosophers and scientists are wasting their time looking for what does not exist. The sincerely religious and the ethical are also wasting their time for there is no true right and no true wrong. But accepting this still leaves twenty-four hours a day to fill, so the question remained about what a person should do in a world without truth and ethics. The sophists offered an answer.

Since searching for truth or goodness would be pointless, the sophists adopted a practical approach. They marketed their ideas to make money and offered, in return, the promise of success. Some of the sophists did accept that there were objective aspects of reality, such as those dealing with physics or biology. They all saw matters of value (such as ethics, politics, and economics) as relative or subjective.

Being practical, they did recognize that the masses tended to profess belief in moral and religious values.  They were also aware that violating these norms could prove problematic when seeking success. Some taught their students to act in accord with the professed values of society. Others, as exemplified by Glaucon’s argument in the Ring of Gyges story of the Republic, taught their students to operate under the mask of morality and social values while achieving success by any means necessary.

Relativism still allows for there to be lies of a certain sort. For those who accept objective truth, a lie is an intentional untruth, usually told with malicious intent. For the relativist, a lie would be intentionally making a claim that is false relative to the group in question, usually with malicious intent. Going back to Trump, for his true believers his’s claims are true because they accept them. The claims that Trump is lying would be lies to them, because they believe that claim is untrue and that Trump doubters are acting with malign intent. The reverse holds for the Trump doubters. They have their truth, and the claims of the Trump believers are lies. This approach has been broadly embraced, with many pundits and politicians claiming that what they disagree with is thus a lie.

Relativism robs the accusation of lying of its sting, at least for those who understand the implications of relativism. On this view a liar is not someone who is intentionally making false claims. A liar is someone you disagree with. This does not mean that relativism is false, it just means that accusations of untruth become rhetorical tools and emotional expressions without any truth behind them. But they serve well as a tool to sway the masses, as Trump keeps showing. He simply accuses those who disagree with him of being liars and many believe him. Or at least purport to do so.  

I have no idea whether Trump has a theory of truth, but his approach remains consistent with sophism. It would also explain why Trump does not bother with research or evidence. These assume there is a truth that can be found and supported. But if there is no objective truth and only success matters, then there is no reason not to say anything that leads to success.

There are, of course, some classic problems for relativism and sophism. Through Socrates, Plato waged a systematic war on relativism and sophism and some exclellent criticisms can be found in his works.

 One concise way to refute relativism is to point out that relativism requires a group to define the truth. But there is no way principled way to keep the definition of what counts as a group of believers from sliding to there being a “group” of one, which is subjectivism. The problem with subjectivism is that if it is claimed that truth is subjective, then there is no truth at all, and we end up with nihilism. An impact of nihilism is the sophists’ claim that success matters is not true. This is not because it is false, it is because there is no truth. Another classic counter is that relativism about truth seems self-refuting: it being true requires that it be false. This argument seems rather too easy and clever by far, but it does make an interesting point for consideration.

In closing, it is fascinating that Hughes so openly presented her relativism (and sophism). Most classic sophists advocated, as noted above, operating under a mask of accepting conventional moral values. But we have seen a new approach to sophism: one that is trying to shift the values of society to openly accepting relativism and embracing sophism. While potentially risky, this could yield considerable political advantages and sophism might claim another triumph in 2024.