Lest we forget: A short trip down memory lane

The meaning of post-truth goes beyond being a fool or a liar — “in its purest form, post-truth is when one thinks that the crowd's reaction actually does change the facts about the lie (...) what seem to be new in the post-truth era is a challenge not just to the idea of knowing reality but to the existence of reality itself.” In this regard, although political lies have always existed, “post-truth relationship to facts occurs only when we are seeking to assert something that is more important to us than truth itself. Thus, post-truth amounts to a form of ideological supremacy, whereby its practitioners are trying to compel someone to believe in something whether there is good evidence for it or not.” So, while truthiness locates the responsibility for lying, post-truth is more vague and collectivist in this regard, providing no clear way to define who is responsible, when, and to what extent. Hence, post-truth gives rise to “a world in which politicians can challenge the facts and pay no political price whatsoever.” -- A. Fasce, The upsurge of irrationality: post-truth politics for a polarized world, Disputatio. Philosophical Research Bulletin, 9(13):0-00, 2019 (note the strange page numbering 0-00 -- something is amiss)

Memory can be short. Much is happening. Times are confusing and complex. Sophisticated liars, manipulators and crackpots are a scourge of poxes upon the land. Blithering lunatics with loaded guns roam free in congress. Dogs sleep with cats. There is a fly in the ointment. Transgender bathrooms are popping up all over the place. Christian nationalist extremists are rampaging through the federal courts because they are the federal courts. The horror, the horror . . . . 

Speaking of memory, here's a short blast from the past. This is from a 2018 article by Politico,
Giuliani: ‘Truth isn’t truth’:

President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Sunday claimed “truth isn’t truth” when trying to explain why the president should not testify for special counsel Robert Mueller for fear of being trapped into a lie that could lead to a perjury charge.

“When you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he’s going to tell the truth and he shouldn’t worry, well that’s so silly because it’s somebody’s version of the truth. Not the truth,” Giuliani told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning

“Truth is truth,” Todd responded.

“No, no, it isn’t truth,” Giuliani said. “Truth isn’t truth. The President of the United States says, “I didn’t …”

A startled Todd answered: “Truth isn’t truth?”

Giuliani: “No, no, no.”

Todd said: “This is going to become a bad meme.”

Last week on CNN, he rejected Chris Cuomo’s assertion that “facts are not in the eye of the beholder."

"Yes, they are," Giuliani said. "Nowadays they are."

In May, the former New York mayor pursued a similar line of thought in an interview with The Washington Post about the Mueller investigation: “They may have a different version of the truth than we do.”

The statement also recalled Kellyanne Conway’s statement in January 2017 referring to “alternative facts” offered by the White House about crowd sizes at Trump’s inauguration.

What a pleasant little trip down bad memory lane this has been. I'm all excited (and fortunately, unarmed).

Question: Has “Truth isn’t truth?” become a bad meme?

OK then, how about now? Bad meme or not? Not yet? How about this plausibly true commentary from 2009?:

“People like you are still living in what we call the reality-based community. You believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you are studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”