“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
America is sick. Not just in the ways you can measure, poverty, debt, violence, but in the way you know doesn’t settle into a graph. We’re sick in the mind, in the gut, in the soul.
Donald Trump didn’t create the sickness, but he knows how to feed on it.
He doesn’t just lie. Lies admit there’s still a truth worth bending. Post-truth politics torches the bridge entirely, forcing us to walk only on the leader’s narrative.
His story is simple: the economy is perfect, the jobs are plentiful, the nation strong, and always because of him. When the numbers say otherwise, he doesn’t challenge the math. He silences the messenger.
In August, Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after a weak July jobs report and substantial downward revisions to May and June employment data. He called the figures “rigged” and accused the agency of political manipulation. Critics warned the firing gravely undermined the credibility of an institution long viewed as nonpartisan.
Meanwhile, in March, the administration disbanded the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee, which offered independent guidance on economic data integrity. Economists have raised alarms, likening these moves to authoritarian interference in data transparency.
Trump also cracked down on the press. This spring, he ended permanent press pool access for major wire services like Reuters and Bloomberg, tightening control over who questions him in real time. And following the Associated Press’s refusal to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America,” the AP was barred from White House pool entries, even as courts later allowed the ban to stand temporarily.
This isn’t clumsy ego. It’s calculated demolition.
And it works.
In a post-truth America, people don’t weigh evidence, they weigh loyalty. If the bridge collapses, the crops fail, the rent is overdue, they don’t ask why. They ask who. And Trump has already given them the answer: Biden. Immigrants. Globalists. The deep state. Anyone but him.
That’s the real con. The blame is pre-loaded. His stump speeches trod the familiar ground: Biden’s “sabotage,” inflated tariffs, foreign meddling, scripts ready even before the collapse arrives.
In this context, fact-checks don’t land. Facts are tribal markers. If they serve the leader, they’re true; if they hurt, they’re fake.
And the damage cuts deep. When you teach millions that truth is optional, you cut the anchor. Institutions rot, trust evaporates, reality becomes negotiable.
Trump doesn’t need his followers to believe every word. He just needs them to believe nothing else. When all sources are suspect, his version stands, because it feels like winning.
Krishnamurti warned that adjusting to a sick society isn’t health, it’s surrender. Millions are conforming, smiling at the deception, oblivious to what they’re giving away, including the ability to know they’re being lied to.
The collapse will come. Tariffs, cronyism, debt, reality has a way of making itself known. But even then, Trump’s narrative won’t vanish, it’ll morph. The wreckage will be Biden’s fault, the saboteurs struck once again, only Trump can restore order.
And the terrible truth? That narrative may survive the wreck.
We’re witnessing the death of shared reality. In July, the Council of Economic Advisers quietly stopped publishing its monthly “Economic Indicators” report, a staple for decades. Simultaneously, examples like AP’s ban show the press is being reshaped into compliant echo chambers.
This isn’t spin. It’s sabotage.
The question isn’t whether Trump lies, he will. The question is whether calling it a lie is enough.
It isn’t.
If we want a way back, we must rebuild our cultural commitment to truth:
Support transparent, accountable institutions.
Tell reality-rooted stories that hit harder than lies.
Teach how manipulation works before it sinks in.
Act now, before sickness becomes all there is.
Because if truth becomes just another opinion, we may never see reality again.
The truth is losing. But it’s not gone. The question is, do we care enough to fight, especially when it feels hopeless?
Because adjusting isn’t health. It’s giving up.
Disclaimer: Jim Powers writes opinion columns. The views expressed in this editorial are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Polk County Publishing Company or its affiliates. In the interest of transparency, I am politically Left Libertarian.
