We live in an age of an exceedingly eerie distortion of human consciousness; an age in which it is commonplace for lies and half-truths to become part of the daily menu of what we consume. The birth of this new age, which may be called the age of the threat of fake news or alternative facts, is virtually coterminous with the arrival of Donald J Trump to the most powerful position in the world. Fact checkers who follow every utterance of US President Trump say that he utters lies or half-truths at the rate of 5.5 per day; making him the lyingest (new word) president in history.

That Trump made it to the presidency, despite spewing lies on the campaign trail daily, is both a sign of America’s hunger for someone who was not part of the Washington establishment as much as it is a white backlash to the Barack Obama era. The election of the outsider Trump was much like what happened when that peanut farmer from the south, Jimmy Carter, was elected in 1976. Carter’s elevation to the presidency was a pushback on the shame the Nixonian era wrought in which lying and hubris were at their previous highest.

The essential elements of the Trump personality, and by extension the Trump presidency, are these:

a) The audacity and capacity to cause many to believe that what they have seen with their own eyes is not true.

b) A strange power to cause many to believe that the things of which he is guilty, such as lying to others, is the practice of others, not him. Who would forget Trump saying that he could walk down 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose a single vote. Yet he claimed, and got many to believe, that Hilary Clinton was the one who did wrong and got away.

c) The amazing ability to flip from one mode of behaviour to another with such ease that you wonder if it is the same man. So on one day, rather for a few minutes, he is presidential and almost suave saying the right things — and people begin to believe him — but the next minute he is this raging name-calling bully, leaving many to wonder what manner of man is this?

We here in Jamaica, and others around the world, have a right to be appalled at Trump. There has never been one like Trump. But we had better look deeper, for some of what is characteristic of Trump is seen in many of us. Perhaps what Trump represents is not difference in substance, but in scope.

Trump attained world power on the wings of a raft of lies and half-truths, but the subscription to, and use of lies and half-truths as a way of getting ahead is not Trumpian in origin.

Alternative facts and half-truths

The reliance on ‘alternative facts’ (a term which first originated with Trump’s counsel Kelly-Ann Conway) is a Trumpian political tool which has replaced nuancing or political spin, which involve speaking in a way so as to deflect attention from the more problematic or embarrassing issue to something positive or less unpalatable. Alternative facts, on the other hand, represent the creation of false narratives — read, lies — which are uttered with frequency and ferocity that people begin to believe them.

I do not think our local political culture is anywhere near America’s in terms of the prevalence of the use of alternative facts in news reporting, opinion journalism, political theatre, or governance. What we have in Jamaica is a culture of half-truths and false promises that infest journalism and political public relations. In fact, some of what purports to be journalism is naked political public relations. The use of half-truths in this endeavour is as Trumpian as it is Anancy-like.

Let’s take some examples. Some months ago, a well known journalist, whose stock in trade is to blame one political party and overlook the transgressions of the other, claimed that the current Government was so good at job creation that it developed 3,000 new posts in the police force and, as such, many young men and women have a chance at a decent career. The truth of the matter is that those 3,000 additional posts were created in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) in 2014 when the establishment of the force was revised simultaneously with the merger of the Island Special Constabulary Force and the JCF. So, to suggest, as this surrogate argued, that “good things a gwaan in Jamaica”, and one piece of evidence is 3,000 vacancies created in the JCF under the present Administration is a half-truth. Yes, the vacancies exist, but they were not created since 2016.

The motive behind a false claim such as this is the desire to create the narrative that Jamaica’s present progress began in 2016 and all that occurred before was pestilence and disaster. The truth is that both political parties have made negative and positive contributions to Jamaica. Both have misled the country on several occasions. The leaders of both have failed to hold themselves fully accountable. But there are many areas of progress to which we can point that have come about through them.

Another dimension of the propensity to purvey falsehoods is the deliberate omission of other facts (actual facts) and thus giving only a partial picture of the reality. That is a species of deception. One recent example is that of a journalist who has commented at length on the Office of the Contractor General’s (OCG) report on Lisa Hanna, but has said nothing about the OCG’s report on the prime minister. In his defence, the journalist, like those who try to defend Trump, claims that his comments on Hanna are truthful. Yes, but where is the outrage about the failure of the prime minister to act on the OCG’s report on him? Some forms of omission constitute attempts to mislead and deceive.

Dual standards and duplicity

Some media practitioners in the USA argue that Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and her predecessor Shawn Spicer have sold their souls to an inglorious cause. By taking on the job of defending the indefensible and often looking the other way or literally lying for Trump are acts that have ruined their reputations for life. I cannot fathom what anyone could expect to gain by taking on a job that requires them to ignore the ethical impulses of their inner being and eyeball others repeatedly and assert things they know are lies.

That kind of action of trading one’s soul for a salary is not unique to Sanders and Spicer. Many journalist are involved in that in Jamaica. But it is not just the telling of blatant lies that is self-destructive, the engagement in actions in which we focus on the wrongs of our enemies, and overlook bigger wrongs committed by our friends, constitutes a kind of duplicity that catches up with us in the long run.

I made this point about the Moravian Church earlier this year. I submitted that the larger problem facing the church is the practice of having two standards by which wrong deeds are judged. When wrong acts are committed by those who are members of the inner circle, regardless of how egregious, the members of the inner circle surround the wagon and suppress the truth or defend their chosen at all costs. But when the accused is one from outside the circle tough action is taken in a flash and the leadership, which seems to have a convenient morality, becomes mobilised.

I first saw this played out between 1985 and 1989. This practice of dual standards has not departed from the church despite the pain of how the events of the 1980s were handled. On the contrary, it became worse, and the events of the last year are emblematic of an endemic practice of dual standards of accountability.

The practice by some in the media of seeking to claim that no wrongs have been committed in Government since February 2016 constitutes a form of Spician soul-selling. Jamaica’s record since February 25, 2016 is a mixed bag: our ranking on the Corruption Perception Index has plummeted; there is a damning OCG report on the $600-million de-bushing scandal; and there is a rushed national identification system Bill. On the other hand, we have stability in the economy, lower unemployment, and stronger business confidence.

But our future cannot be sustained by taking account only of positives, neither can we become our best as a society if we only focus on what’s wrong. We need to address both and the objective must be to advance the interests of Jamaica in a culture of holding each other and ourselves accountable and being honourable. Ultimately, honour, like integrity, is found in the act of being who we say we are, refraining from practising deceit, and being reasonable with each other.

Dr Canute Thompson is head of the Caribbean Centre for Educational Planning, lecturer in the School of Education, and co-founder and chief consultant for the Caribbean Leadership Re-Imagination Initiative, at The University of the West Indies, Mona. He is also author of three books and several articles on leadership. Send comments to the Observer or canutethompson1@gmail.com.