It is after periods of great hope that great tragedies strike back. Last century, Russia seemed set to become the first nation to free itself of the bourgeoise chokehold, to uphold and protect the dignity of the working poor, and to disdain the demons of industrial capitalism. But demons never die quietly. In desperation, they hijacked and molested this Marxist movement till it became something wicked and unrecognizable. What was supposed to be an epoch of peace and equality instead mutated into one of hideous fascism under Stalin. Faced with righteous human truths of liberty and justice–to which their oppressive systems were anathema–the ruling few sought to destroy truth itself, rather than be themselves destroyed by it.
Today, America suffers a similar crisis of truth. Ian McIntyre explores this in his new book, “Post-Truth.” He posits that “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. And this is a recipe for political domination.” He adds, “the selective use of facts that prop up one’s position, and the complete rejection of facts that do not, seems part and parcel of creating the new post-truth reality.”
I maintain that this crisis of truth is actually a crisis of capitalism, and therefore of white culture, and that this ideological supremacy amounts to a form of white supremacy. Indeed, those responsible for this crisis were not trying to create something new, but rather protect something old—that is, the system of capitalism to which whiteness owes its luxuries.
McIntyre unearths the link between profit-seeking and post-truth politics. From oil companies purchasing politicians and funding climate-change skepticism, to hucksters sowing fear to hawk diet-pills and doomsday gear, the profit-motive poisons everything precious about democracy. It becomes clear that, over time, truth and capitalism are incompatible.
This system does not merely validate and protect the power of white men (the demographic most responsible for our crisis of truth). More so, it embodies whiteness itself.
Capitalism’s domination over nature reflects white society’s domination over vulnerable peoples. They are one in the same, and neither can exist without the other. As late-stage capitalism crumbles, so too does white culture and identity. Thus, the war on truth is white America’s last stand. It is a backlash, a cancer, born in the bowels of fat little liars like Limbaugh and Alex Jones that has somehow metastasized its way to the White House.
To no surprise, this crisis follows a period of great hope and uplift. We had just elected our first black president, and our first female president seemed all but guaranteed. Moreover, the Republican Party was on death row. It was certainly losing the culture war, and was about to lose two major successive elections. Even worse—or perhaps I should say even better—the creature atop its leadership who traitors now call “president” foredoomed the party to eternal humiliation.
Things were looking good—except, that is, for the white man. All around, he saw his stranglehold on society loosening. It’s no wonder, then, why we waged war with the truth: the truth waged war with us. Science threatens our carbon-based capitalism, nascent minorities threaten our power, and soon there will be nothing for us to dominate. I ask, what then is left of the white man?
Alas, a drowning man will grab at a straw. Rather than surrender some power and privilege, white America chose instead to invert unwelcome truths, to upend democratic politics as we know it, and to excite fascist inclinations, all to escape a reality so damning to its existence, and to keep its dying culture on life-support.
Some day, the plug will be pulled. Dominion capitalism cannot survive the Anthropocene and, when it explodes, so too will the culture of whiteness forged by its oppressions.
The fate of America rests upon our reaction to this coming crisis. But this could be a problem because—ah, well, just because.