Paul Krugman: Making Ignorance Great Again

The truth is out there, but it’s buried under a large pile of nonsense, lies, misleading statements, and deception:

Making Ignorance Great Again, by Paul Krugman, NY Times: Donald Trump just took us out of the Paris climate accord for no good reason. I don’t mean that his decision was wrong. I mean, literally, that he didn’t offer any substantive justification… It was just what he felt like doing.

And here’s the thing: What just happened on climate isn’t an unusual case — and Trump isn’t especially unusual for a modern Republican. … Facts and hard thinking aren’t wanted, and anyone who tries to bring such things into the discussion is the enemy.

Consider … health care. … Did the administration and its allies consult with experts, study previous experience with health reform, and try to devise a plan that made sense? Of course not. In fact, House leaders made a point of ramming a bill through before the Congressional Budget Office … could assess its likely impact.

When the budget office did weigh in, its conclusions were what you might expect:… a lot of people are going to lose coverage. Is 23 million a good estimate…? Yes — it might be 18 million, or it might be 28 million, but surely it would be in that range.

So how did the administration respond? By trying to shoot the messenger. Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director, attacked the C.B.O…

So, Mr. Mulvaney, where’s your assessment of Trumpcare? You had plenty of resources to do your own study before trying to pass a bill. …

But Mulvaney and his party don’t study issues, they just decide, and attack the motives of anyone who questions their decisions. … Truth, as something that exists apart from and in possible opposition to political convenience, is no longer part of their philosophical universe. …

And as health care and climate go, so goes everything else. Can you think of any major policy area where the G.O.P. hasn’t gone post-truth? …

But does any of it matter? The president, backed by his party, is talking nonsense, destroying American credibility day by day. But hey, stocks are up, so what’s the problem?

Well, bear in mind that so far Trump hasn’t faced a single crisis not of his own making. As George Orwell noted … in his essay “In Front of Your Nose,” people can indeed talk nonsense for a very long time, without paying an obvious price. But “sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.” Now there’s a happy thought.