What in the word?

As flood waters swirled around people’s homes and yards along with spiraling rumors and disinformation about emergency rescue services, I became fed up — fed up with the lies that we now see can have devastating real-world consequences.

For us at Planet Word, where we have always believed that words matter and that people have the choice to use their words for good or ill, I am despairing of the hurricane-force tsunami of lies, hate-mongering, and fear-mongering that we’ve been subjected to…. Is this what we have to look forward to in the future? Can our democracy hold up against this storm of untruths?

Pick any subject of national import, and the onslaught of lies has befuddled and misled and threatened our fellow citizens and neighbors:

Take immigration. Lies and exaggerations are rampant about who immigrants are, impugning their character, questioning whether they’re in this country legally, how they got housing, and obscenely suggesting they eat people’s pets.

Take abortion and health. Supreme Court nominees claimed in their interviews that Roe v. Wade was settled law, deserving their support, and then turned around and voted to overturn it. We hear false claims that women are being allowed to abort third-trimester fetuses in non-life-threatening situations. According to KFF (the Kaiser Family Foundation), “Discussions on this topic are often fraught with misinformation; for example, intense public discussions have been sparked after several presidential candidates claimed there were abortions occurring ‘moments before birth’ or even ‘after birth.’ In reality, these scenarios do not occur, nor are they legal, in the United States.” And there’s the exaggerated false claim that “every Republican, everybody wanted Roe v. Wade terminated and brought back to the states,” as Trump said on Fox News in late August. Candidates question vaccination recommendations, knowing full well that measles or Covid-19 or flu can be fatal, but getting vaccinated can help people fight those killers.

Take the weather and climate change. Lies have been promoted about who is getting post-hurricane assistance and whether they deserve it, especially if they are immigrants. We hear despicable antisemitic tropes about how certain people (usually with Jewish surnames) have the power to control the weather (and cause havoc to rain down, literally, on Republican neighborhoods). But does anyone seriously still believe that we as humans aren’t responsible for the global warming that’s causing extreme weather or killing off species or leading to massive, deadly fires?

Take the elections. Lies about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election continue to dominate one party’s rhetoric despite four years of proof and failed lawsuits to the contrary. Campaigns insinuate that fraud and illegal voting occurred four years ago and suggest that it is likely to recur this year.

Take disinformation campaigns by foreign adversaries. Our security services have incontrovertible evidence that Russia interfered with our elections in 2016, and all indications are that Russia and China (and now Iran, too) are at it again, plying made-up news stories that make Americans question voting integrity. As reported in the New York Times on Oct. 7, 2024, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warns that even after polls close Americans will need to be alert to such disinformation efforts.

Take questioning someone’s identity and birtherism, a racist dogwhistle if there ever was one. In 2008, opponents of Barack Obama falsely claimed that he was not born in America and forced him to provide his birth certificate to prove it. Now, in 2024, former President Trump has continued spewing this same claptrap, this year claiming that Kamala Harris isn’t Black.

Take January 6, 2021. We hear claims to this day that the insurrection was not a rampaging mob but a peaceful group of protestors, objecting to election fraud, despite the lack of evidence of any fraud to this day.

None of this is to say that people can’t legitimately disagree on policies or political beliefs. Differences of opinion are sure to arise when facts are in dispute or difficult to ascertain. But this isn’t what I’m talking about. To paraphrase Mark Twain, I’m talking about lies, damn lies, and sometimes even manipulated and misused statistics.

But often, verifiable facts do exist; there is often an abundance of evidence to prove what’s true — maybe primary sources or photographs or verified video footage or radio interviews. Proclaiming and defending the truth, truth based on reliable, provable facts, is what allows democracies to survive. We need to dig for the facts and the evidence and hear what candidates truly believe if we are to make wise, informed choices in the voting booth.

There are enough topics to legitimately disagree about that we certainly don’t need a volatile cocktail of lies stirred into the mix. Sometimes, like in the hurricane rescue efforts, lives even depend on trustworthy information. I think this quote from the Times on Oct. 10 about Republican Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee, says it all. “Burchett…who has supported former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims of voting fraud, said in a statement last week that ‘there’s been a bunch of misinformation on the internet surrounding relief efforts in my state, and I felt it was my duty to weigh in due to the seriousness of the situation.’”

Maybe he’s had enough of lies, too, and now sees how serious their consequences can be. Maybe now it’s high time for us all to get to work digging the truth out of the rubble.

—Ann Friedman, founder of Planet Word