America needs a place for truth in politics, says author
Aug 5, 2021, 3:27 PM
WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 28: U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) (5th L) speaks as (L-R) Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) listen during a news conference after a procedural vote for the bipartisan infrastructure framework at Dirksen Senate Office Building July 28, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Thomas Koenig, a Harvard Law student, thinks we can reach more bipartisan agreement with a new "truth" faction focused on facts over politics. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY — Now is the time to move away from political fundamentalism on the left and right in America. It does the nation no good if the dueling fundamentalist groups embrace lies and shun truth, says a political analyst.
A student at Harvard Law School, Thomas Koenig wrote an interesting new piece published Tuesday in “The Dispatch” called Instead of a New Party, How About a New Faction?
Faction: a small organized dissenting group within a larger one, especially in politics., e.g. “the left-wing faction of the party.”
Koenig joined Inside Sources host Boyd Matheson to discuss the need for a faction that tells the truth in politics today.
“There are Americans out there — I believe this because I know them — who are open to changing their minds when the facts change. They’re open to being persuaded by reason and debate and argument,” Koenig said.
Hear the full conversation on the Inside Sources podcast.
Not left, not right, just the facts
Koenig writes that the nation is ready for a new faction in politics, seeking and telling the truth as its core identity. Both sides of the political spectrum would lend support to these Truth Seekers.
Boyd said he has been calling these Truth Seekers in Congress the Ball & Strikes Brigade for some time.
Sen. Mitt Romney addresses the Utah Republican Party 2021 Organizing Convention Saturday, May 1, 2021, in West Valley City, Utah. Romney was booed as he addressed the Utah GOP convention. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
On the right, they have had enough of Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 US Capitol insurrection. Their colleagues on the left are ready to walk away from “cancel culture” and “defund the police.”
Drawn from both political party, this cross-partisan faction holds both “the simple yet profound assumption that in politics, truth matters, and that politics ought to respond to and cope with reality rather than seeking to overcome it,” Koenig writes.
And sorting facts from misleading and downright fake information can be frustrating:
Many Americans Say Made-Up News Is a Critical Problem That Needs To Be Fixed
Politically homeless
Americans drawn from the extremes on the right and left are finding the centrist middle a place without leadership.
“A lot of Americans are more reality cognizant. They’re interested in the truth. They’re willing to go where the facts may lead them. So right now they’re not really being represented,” Koenig said.
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., speaks to reporters after House Republicans voted to oust her from her leadership post as chair of the House Republican Conference because of her repeated criticism of former President Donald Trump for his false claims of election fraud and his role in instigating the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 12, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
He said he believes for those with an open mind and a willingness to compromise, there might yet be a common space for a group of moderately pro-choice Americans and a group of moderately pro-life Americans “under one single partisan house.”
“There’s a lot of people out there who are feeling these things but they don’t seem to have anywhere
to go,” he said.
Truth-telling leaders still exist in politics
“I think of people like Mitt Romney in the Senate. I think of people like Liz Cheney in the House. These people have been certainly willing to stand up for the truth and reality, even when their party might be going in a different direction,” he said.
Listen to Inside Sources with Boyd Matheson weekdays on KSL NewsRadio 102.7 FM and 1160 AM from 1 to 3 p.m.
