Epistemic Crises on the Run

I ignored an inner voice of conscience today. Prepping to run around the lake today (about four miles, which has been my plateau/limit for a while), I was trying to choose between things to listen to. I could continue the "Christmas Present" playlist I've been using for running workouts. Or I could hear the latest episode of On the Media, which promised a dire report on the "epistemic crisis" we face.

My inner voice groaned at the thought of the media show. Don't you know pretty much everything they'll say already? Do you really need this hit to your sense of hope and well-being? Can't we just enjoy some more Christmas music?

I chose the show, ignoring my inner voice.

And yeah, it's depressing. The episode's title says it all: "The Disagreement is the Point." The first segment, featuring Vox writer David Roberts hits a lot of the points I've been making about the impeachment hearings. It seems obvious to me and to many within the "legacy media" (neat term, better than "mainstream media," perhaps) that Trump has done exactly what he's been accused of. Heck, he and his staff have admitted it, reveled in it.

Every witness, even those that were expected to be amiable to the President, supported the same story: Trump, via Giuliani, was pursuing his on shadow diplomacy and intelligence-gathering with and in Ukraine, efforts that had as their goal not national interests but Trump's personal need to embarrass his political enemies. He delayed military aid approved by Congress to Ukraine with the understanding that this would pressure Ukraine into opening investigations into the Bidens and into (again, multiply debunked conspiracy theories about) Democratic servers. He only ended the delay and (in a call with Sondland) cried "no quid pro quo" when it became clear that the gig was up.

I find it necessary to reiterate this narrative, even if only for myself, because it seems like the facts involved just aren't apparent to everyone.

The GOP response has been largely one of obfuscation, throwing up disinformational chaff in the form of multiple (and multiply debunked) conspiracy theories about how Ukraine, not Russia, was behind the 2016 election meddling. Or that Joe Biden, not Trump, is the person who really deserves investigation (amazing how this became a pressing issue only as Biden emerges as a front-runner in the Democratic presidential primaries).

The problem here, Roberts stresses in the On the Media interview, isn't that Republicans make different conclusions based on the facts. It's that they operate from a completely different basis, a Trumpian basis, for what kinds of information should be valued. The show quotes Rep. Devin Nunes crowing that the impeachment hearings are a failure for Democrats because their ratings aren't very high. In any sane world, Roberts notes, the question of how entertaining an investigation like this would be ridiculous. Are these facts true? Did the President and the President's operatives do these things, and why?

But whether an allegation is true seems to have taken a back seat to the question of whether an allegation is damaging to my team. It's a "tribal epistemology," says Roberts. We decide ahead of time which side we're on and then represent or evaluate facts on that basis.

The Republicans don't have facts on their side here (as even many conservative writers not supporting impeachment concede). The best they can do, then, is make the process of fact-finding seem boring, overly complex, or purely partisan. They want people who aren't especially engaged with the facts of this case to dismiss the entire thing as Democratic pique. They want people to get angry at and tired of the process, the very question of whether Trump did something wrong.

And it looks like they might be succeeding.

Senator John Kennedy (Louisiana, alas), this morning asserted that "no one can know" for sure who was behind the 2016 election interference. It's the "you can't prove it's not [Ukraine]" defense beloved of people arguing for indefensible positions.

My question, aside from how to sustain some kind of hope amidst this epistemic divide, is whether I reach out to my representatives, of whom Kennedy is one. Is it worthwhile to call and leave a message? Is there any chance whatsoever that they'd listen?

Would I be "entertaining" enough to be heard?