He said there would be a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. He said that he was going to build a wall along the Southern border and make the Mexicans pay for it. In 2016, then Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump, made a series of outrageous claims to provoke voter reactions and attract media attention, from a U.S. and global viewpoint. Trump is a prime example of why dishonesty in politics is increasingly prevalent in current politics. Unfortunately, Trump is one of many political leaders that has used methods of dishonesty in order to serve his own political agenda by creating chaos, therefore, resulting in influencing individual’s thoughts and opinions. These individuals believe exactly what they …show more content…
Post-truth politics can be defined as anyone who creates their own truths, thus appealing to their own emotion and personal belief, as well as expressing it to others. Throughout history, post-truth politics has been used by many political leaders and different media networks in order to influence the thoughts and opinions of individuals. These “truths” are viewed as negatively impacting society. Moreover, the author applies “post truth politics” to various events throughout the article. Beginning with a claim in which Donald Trump states “Barak Obama is the founder of Islamic State and Hillary Clinton; the democratic candidate is the Co-founder”. This claim is clearly false, Trump continued to state it, using the basis of his own personal belief as supporting evidence. An additional example is an instance of Trump claiming that “inner-city crime rates are reaching record levels” , however based on an FBI conducted survey, homicide levels have been at an all-time low. However, public opinion depicted that contrary to the facts, many individuals believed that crime was increasing. Both instances exemplify false truths and portray how political leaders can express their own beliefs without references or factual …show more content…
An integral feature of a civil society is a democracy, which can be defined as a “form of government in which supreme power is invested in the people and exercised directly by them or their elected agents under a free electoral system”. However, post-truth politicians and fake news media are becoming less democratic. Politicians act in undemocratic ways by abusing their power and believing they have full autonomy of the country. This is predominant in Russia, where politicians fail to value truth. In the article “Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, did not hesitate to say on television that there were no Russian soldiers in Ukraine despite abundant proof to the contrary” . Instead of acting as a gatekeeper, governments have full control over what they want society to hear. Therefore, individuals believe these political leaders, based on cognitive ease, a factor that states humans stay away from the facts that would make their brains work harder. If democracy continues to be undermined by post-truth politicians and fake news it will only cause chaos within society, therefore the two factors cannot