When a Nation Embraces a False Reality

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Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said that “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” That’s a simple, profound and true statement.

Moynihan’s words have particular relevance for our country and society after Donald’s Trump’s shocking 2024 election victory. To put things directly, Trump was able to win because he and his followers convinced most of the country to believe in his falsification of factual truth.

Factual truth is distinct from ideology or bias or personal opinions of any kind. Rather, for example, the factual truth is that my name is Robert Jay Lifton, I am a research psychiatrist who studies the psychological roots of war and political violence, and I am writing an article for Scientific American. This is a declarative sentence that makes an irrefutable point. That irrefutability is the source of the appeal of factual truth.

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In contrast, when factual truth breaks down—with a denial, say, of the outcome of a legitimate election—there can be a rush of factual falsehoods inundating a whole society. That is because factual untruth requires continuous additional untruths to cover over and sustain the original one. And the defense of continuous falsehoods relies on more than repetition; it relies on intimidation and can readily lead to violence. Philip Roth had both the falsehood and the violence in mind when he spoke of the “ indigenous American berserk .”

What results from this situation is malignant normality, society’s routinization of falsehood and destructive behavior. That can produce psychic numbing, the inability or disclination to feel, which can reach the point of immobilization.

Children in Hiroshima one year after the bomb.

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Malignant normality has much overlap with the term “sanewashing.” That term does connect with a wider audience but can become glib and vague. Malignant normality, in contrast, has a greater suggestion of a psychological experience on the part of individuals and groups.

Given how widespread falsehoods and lying have become, any reference to the value of truth telling can seem counterintuitive. But … Read More