Excerpt from new book release:
Disinformation: How the Obama Era Led to a Trump Era © 2025

(by Tom Ersin; 1/20/25) [2-minute read]
 

“Value rigidity … is an inability to revalue what one sees because of commitment to previous values. … If your values are rigid you can’t really learn new facts. … If you’re plagued with value rigidity, you can fail to see the real answer even when it’s staring you right in the face.”

(Pirsig, Robert M.; Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values; 1974.)

“You know, it really doesn’t matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”

(Trump, Donald, R-N.Y., billionaire real estate mogul, reality show personality; as cited in Friedman, Barry; “Would God Be so Good?”; Esquire; 7/29/2013.)

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In the Obama era, the GOP disinformation campaign found its footing but ultimately failed, at least in keeping President Barack Obama out of office. With the backing of tea party big money, the say-anything race-baiting politics of Newt Gingrich and others made a strong run and much was learned. Primarily they learned that the milquetoast, fence-straddling equivocation of a Mitt Romney at the top of the ticket was not going to cut it.

In 2015 emerged their messiah. Prepared by a lifetime of chimerical self-promotion, Donald Trump was cast as a successful billionaire businessman after a decade of fictional reality show image-building. This was buttressed by his knack for manipulating and leveraging the new age of unaccountable social media opinion and “news.” Mr. Trump successfully injected himself into the political arena starting early in Obama’s presidency by championing the ludicrous “birther” conspiracy theory that Mr. Obama was not born in the U.S.

Then in 2016 America chose its first reality show president.

A perfect Stormy of developments combined to “elect” Mr. Trump. Between illegal Russian election help; hapless interference by the FBI director; the candidate’s secret illegal payoff to an adult-film actor; the candidate’s total absence of integrity and shame allowing him to lie and offend with impunity; and the Electoral College, he was elevated to the White House with a 2.1% popular vote loss. Many said it was a fluke.

In 2020, a majority of the electorate overcame their value rigidity. They rejected the fluke. They saw the Trumpian depravity and elected President Joe Biden with an Electoral College landslide and a 4.5% popular vote win.

In 2024, however, the fluke was reborn as the greatest con in American political history. Memories became short. False grievance reigned. Biases were inflamed. Disinformation prevailed. Value rigidity infected a plurality of voters who could not see the facts in front of them.

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Call it a blind spot if you will, certainly for those “traditional” Republicans who’ve always voted GOP and failed to look at the galactically exceptional reasons not to this time.

“If your values are rigid you can’t really learn new facts.” Robert Pirsig presciently described many of those Americans who initially were excited by a vacuous celebrity who made entertaining outrageous statements, a nihilist candidate promising to blow everything up and spit in the eye of science and virtue. Later, they couldn’t, wouldn’t admit their mistake.

“If you’re plagued with value rigidity, you can fail to see the real answer even when it’s staring you right in the face.” Donald Trump took advantage of one of the most powerful weapons not available to people of integrity: disinformation. He counted on the rigid values of his base of voters and, as it turns out, most of the “persuadable” voters in the middle.

The Founding Fathers debated and built into the Constitution safeguards to maintain rectitude at the top of the executive branch. They built in impeachment to recall corrupt leaders and guard against potential monarchs. They built in emoluments clauses as protection against foreign and domestic bribery.

But the Founders never foresaw the ultimate danger of a highly skilled national confidence artist. A clearly corrupt and guilty Donald Trump beat impeachment twice and the emoluments clauses consistently during his first term. He convinced enough people knowingly to reelect him so that he could avoid a further wave of legal justice and likely prison time. He’s that good.

Donald Trump allowed an estimated 200,000 additional COVID-19 deaths during his first term because he thought properly handling the pandemic could hurt “his” economy and cost him reelection. He tried to extort a desperate ally for illegal political gain. He incited an insurrection after he lost reelection, then conspired to overturn that loss. He stole numerous top-secret documents after his first term loss, then conspired to keep them after he was found out. (And, no, all presidents do not do this.) He solicited, welcomed, and employed illegal Russian help to win his first election, then conspired to obstruct the resulting criminal justice investigation. These facts are virtually beyond dispute among unbiased experts in the fields of infectious disease, Constitutional law, and criminal law.

But almost half the electorate didn’t see or didn’t believe the facts though those facts were “staring them right in the face.” His disinformation is that good.

He says crime is up though it’s down. He says a deadly domestic terrorist attack was the result of runaway illegal immigration though the lone killer was a U.S. citizen and veteran. He says he’s being persecuted by the justice system though he really is a criminal. He says the Jan. 6 attack he incited on Capitol Hill was a peaceful patriotic “day of love” though almost 1,000 of his followers were convicted of crimes as a result of their violence; more than five people died — many legislators and staff thought they might die — and 140-plus Capitol police were injured defending Congress.

He says up is down. People believe him. He’s that good.

Mr. Trump won reelection in 2024 as a 32-time convicted felon, with several other colossally serious criminal indictments pending — on Election Day he was out on bail in several jurisdictions — and with multiple standing judgments for fraud and defamation totaling over a half billion dollars. He stole money from his own charity (which was funded by outside entities) and legally was forced to shut it down forever. He is an adjudicated sexual assaulter. He’s that good.

Many of his first term Cabinet secretaries, White House administrative staff, top generals and admirals, and multitudinous Republican luminaries told the country not to vote for the guy because he would be a huge danger to national security. He won anyway. He’s — that — good.

In 2024 “the stupid party” — as Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) characterized his own GOP — won the presidency. The Republican “dark vein of intolerance,” per Secretary of State Colin Powell (R-Va.), expanded the GOP’s base instead of eroding it.

“If your values are rigid you can’t really learn new facts.”

__________

Complete absence of integrity is a rhetorical superpower, by definition only available to the corrupt. In this era of unrestricted unethical digital media, only disinformation has value for about half the people. Irrational fear, loathing, and selfishness are what sells. On Election Day 2024 a plurality determined that humanity, integrity, veracity, and spirituality are worthless elements of American leadership.

The primary issue is timeless: We need to maintain an ongoing appraisal of our national values to keep them from getting rigid, a truism since the birth of the republic.

Today, the same timeless issue remains. But with the seemingly endless expansion of anything-goes social media and massive disinformation campaigns fueled by massive amounts of political dark money, we must learn how to fight the untruths on a national, high-tech level.

Democrats must figure out a way.

Individuals can start at home. Don’t insult me with the rationalization: “I don’t like the man but I like his policies.” That is pure value rigidity looking for an excuse to ignore the facts staring you in the face. We reelected a president whom virtually no thinking person would want to be a role model for children. What makes a good role model? The same human elements that are at the heart of good governmental policy. Character. Values. And perfection within these elements is not required to offset an avalanche of Trumpian character flaws and a MAGA abyss of basic humanitarian values.

If you wouldn’t want your offspring to emulate him, how can you think his policies are virtue-driven?

Teach children well, at school and home. Civics and humanities studies. Critical thinking in classrooms and at the dinner table. Character. Values.■

 

[Tom Ersin has been a full-time professional writer and editor since 2010 and holds degrees in communications and counseling. He’s a long-time political observer and has written a half-dozen nonfiction books on 21st century U.S. politics.] Click here to purchase book. Please leave a rating.