FTLDS: Fact, Truth & Logic Deficit Syndrome

Trust me I’m a deranged crackpot and I have FTLDS

As we all know, we are experiencing an epidemic of FTLDS among the American people. One example is the president relying on a young promoter of reality-detached, socially divisive, crackpot conspiracies and lies. The New York Times writes that a couple of days ago the president retweeted 11 of the liar’s tweets:

“The tweets by Mr. Kirk, 26, who runs Turning Point USA, a conservative student group, hit just the right marks for the president. One tweet accused the World Health Organization of covering up the coronavirus outbreak, and upbraided Democrats for opposing the president’s decision to cut the group’s funding. Another claimed Democrats were appeasing Beijing and not doing enough to help Americans left jobless by the pandemic. A few covered some of the president’s longstanding grievances, such as the conviction of Roger Stone and claims of voter fraud. A well-worn conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden’s dealings with China even made an appearance. ..... In fact, Mr. Trump first introduced his more than 77 million Twitter followers to the phrase “China Virus” in a retweet of a post by Mr. Kirk on March 10 that linked two Trumpian obsessions: China and the border wall. “Now more than ever, we need the wall. With China Virus spreading across the globe, the U.S. stands a chance if we can control our borders,” Mr. Kirk wrote.” 

The far right conservative student group earned an unacceptably low fact accuracy rating, which I define as a Mixed or lower rating.

That the president of the USA has turned to a radical right crackpot conspiracy theorist and incoherent liar for socially divisive talking points is evidence of how bad the FTLDS epidemic has become. Fact, truth and sound reasoning[1] have been infected and destroyed by this virulent social pestilence. The damage it can cause is potentially catastrophic.

Unfortunately, there is no treatment or vaccine on the horizon because federal law free speech bars any meaningful attempts to treat the cause of the disease (lies, deceit, dark free speech) or at least reduce its severity. Lies and crackpot conspiracies cannot be taxed or impeded in any way and thus unvaccinated Americans are vulnerable to this heinous scourge.


Footnote:
1. Technically, humans do not use formal logic in their normal thinking. Instead they apply reasoning. Reasoning consists mostly of biased unconscious thinking and sometimes some usually biased conscious thinking. For politics, reasoning is usually more illogical than logical. Thus, the president's young new political strategist comments that building the wall on the Mexican border will control the pandemic is not an application of logic. He is applying biased reasoning to arrive at illogical and false beliefs and statements.