We have entered what has been called the post-truth period of politics in which emotions and personal beliefs are more influential than objective facts in shaping public opinion. Political parties should offer different policies to deal with problems in our society. However, solving these problems is not possible if we do not share a common reality.

Newt Gingrich, a prominent supporter of Donald Trump, said in an interview with CNN in 2016 that “facts” based on the feelings of voters are more important in a political campaign than actual facts collected by scientists.

In a recent interview with Fox News, Donald Trump said that scientists predict that sea level will rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years. This statement is not true, and it is wildly inaccurate. Global mean sea level already has risen over 10 inches since 1880, and it is predicted to rise 10-12 inches by 2050, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Approximately 300 million people around the world are projected to be displaced from their homes by 2050 because of this rise in sea level at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Trump has been making statements similar to this for many years, and he has been corrected over and over. Nevertheless, he repeats these statements even though he knows that they are lies. I wonder if his followers know that he is lying, or do they actually believe his lies?

Florida is perhaps the state most threatened by the ongoing rise of sea level. Miami plans to spend 3.8 billion dollars to protect the city from future floods caused by rising sea levels. Nevertheless, Florida recently passed a law known as “don’t say climate change” that deletes most references to climate change from state statutes. The objective of this law is to change Florida state policies so that addressing climate change and rising sea levels are no longer priorities.

The recent hearings on the COVID-19 pandemic by the House of Representatives Oversight and Accountability Committee highlight this problem. Several members of this committee claimed that the COVID-19 vaccine was not effective. There is overwhelming factual evidence of the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines. Studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that death rates among persons vaccinated with the bivalent vaccine were 93% lower than death rates of unvaccinated persons in 2022!

An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2022 estimated that as many as 12 million Americans chose not to be vaccinated for COVID-19 because of misinformation that the vaccine was not effective. It was predominantly Republican politicians who promoted this misinformation. The COVID-19 death rate after the introduction of the vaccine was 76% higher for registered Republicans than for registered Democrats.

What can be done to address the problems caused by post-truth politics? Several solutions have been proposed: a commitment to fact-checking of public statements, a crackdown on intentional misinformation on social media outlets, and limiting free-speech protections to not include intentional misinformation.

Can you imagine if other aspects of your life were not based on the truth? How confident would you feel about your doctor’s care if the results of diagnostic tests were based on the feelings of the person interpreting the tests rather than the actual results?