A cardinal rule of comedy writing is to make sure your audience has the wherewithal to understand the joke you are telling. Apparently, the Trump campaign would have done well to heed that axiom.
Earlier today it posted a tongue-in-cheek tweet announcing that it was launching a “Truth Over Facts” investigative website.
Not everyone on the Left understood the announcement was not meant in earnest. One commentator detected a parallel between the meme and liberal “comedian” Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness”:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Others, like CNBC reporter Christina Wilkie, quipped:
A number of commentators were struck by the Orwellian ring of the phrase truth over facts. Among them was Daily Beast editor-at-large Molly Jong-Fast:
For others, like the Washington Post’s Isaac Stone Fish, the meme was reminiscent of a slogan the Chinese Communist Party might conjure up.
So where did the phrase “Truth Over Facts” originate. It was first uttered at the Iowa State Fair on Aug. 8, 2019 by a Democrat making the argument for his candidacy. Which Democrat? The video that follows tells all.
What is perhaps most fascinating about the Left’s bemused reaction to the meme is the utter seriousness with which they greeted the equally preposterous gestures on the part of Barack Obama and his administration that urged “’concerned citizens’ to report misinformation about his Affordable Care Act.”
