..and now I’m not so worried about an October Surprise. But first read this…
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani said Tuesday that he was using “abbreviated language” when he claimed that the U.S. had seen no terror attacks carried out by Islamic extremists before President Barack Obama came into office.
“You speak in somewhat abbreviated language,” he told the New York Daily News by way of explaining his Monday introduction for Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio. “All human beings speak in abbreviated language at times.”
These are strange post-factual times, and Giuliani’s explanation for his comment is a perfect example of post-factual thinking. He was, of course, “flat wrong” about the “fact” that the U.S. had seen no terror attacks carried out by Islamic extremists before President Barack Obama. But, Giuliani asserts, it doesn’t matter. His explanation is one small step away from saying, “Words have no meaning, so how can anything be said to be true or false?” Moreover, we have become so highly polarized that he is correct.
It doesn’t matter that Giuliani was wrong any more than it matters that Donald trump is wrong about so much so frequently. It simply doesn’t matter. Nobody is changing their minds about anything. So why should I worry about Julian Asange pulling out a dossier in October that “proves” Clinton did this or that nefarious thing? #Clintonsmokinggun might be a trending topic a twitter for a few minutes, but what can even the most shocking revelation change? The people who already hate Clinton will hate her more. The people who like or love her (especially those who like her or love her relative to their feelings for Trump) will shrug.