Knowledge, Truth, and Belief: John Oliver Breaks down political discourse

 John Oliver has a way of pointing out knowledge questions and problems in his evaluations of politics and media. Here he is pointing out the knowledge problems created when discourse appeals to emotion while masquerading as an appeal to reason.  That part runs from about 3:30 until 8:20.

How this point relates to Knowledge:

Starting at about the 3:30 mark, Mr. Oliver takes issue with Trump's surrogates.  The first he examines is an actor.  He begins with an ad-hominem attack, calling him "an IMDB page awarded actor."  He also calls him "stupid."  The speaker in question, however, parrots a widely debunked myth that Obama is "a Muslim" who "Doesn't worship the Jesus I know and love."  Which is not a reason to attack anyone.  But what Oliver is really after is a trend during the Republican National Convention:  A tendency of speakers to talk about what "people feel," rather than facts.

The claim is repeated that people feel unhappy, left out, threatened, and unsafe in the USA.  The implication is that the Republican nominee will bring needed change to a dire situation.

Oliver points out, however, that the assertions made by politicians are meaningless.  When Paul Ryan says that "people feel like the economy is stuck" his point is invalid.  Who cares what people feel?   Numbers will give us a clearer picture of the economy.  I agree.

But I don't.

If I'm unemployed, or afraid to leave a job I'm unhappy with because I don't perceive opportunities out there, then I might feel like the economy is stuck.  And I might be inclined to buy into the narrative that the economy is, in fact, stuck.  After all, it is for me.

Then again, I might also recognise that things have changed for the better, especially compared to where they were before.  A graph like this might help:

The crash at the beginning of the Obama presidency in 2009 was followed by a steady increase in the number of jobs available.  It would appear the graph is moving in the right direction.  But as much as many of the pundits I read would like people to see good news in the economy, many people don't.

Late in Olver's piece he shows how Trump and other speakers declare that crime is on the rise, when in fact it's not.  And that's the point where they interview former speaker of the house, Newt Gingritch, who essentially says that you can give people statistics all you want, but they won't change feelings -- which affect how people vote.

My favorite part of Oliver's presentation is this one:

The graphic next to Mr. Oliver shows the thought process that he attributes to Newt Gingritch, who says that facts are more important than feelings.  I believe the = sign in Feelings = Facts may be better interpreted as "Feelings are equally as important as Facts" (at least in the context of an election.  To me, this equivalency is a disturbing feature of our electoral politics:  Politicians, pundits, and mass media have a lot of power to manipulate feelings, and therefore, they can have an extraordinary influence on what their audiences believe.  Even if what they want people to believe is absolutely false.