Post-Truth Is Pre-Fascism. Emet Says: Not So Fast.
A Reflection on Chapter 10 from On Tyranny
“To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.” Timothy Snyder’s words in Lesson 10 hit like a Talmudic mic drop. He continues, “If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.” And isn’t that where we find ourselves? The marketplace of ideas has turned into a casino, and the house always wins. Algorithms push propaganda faster than your mother shares conspiracy theories on Facebook, and truth is now just another subscription-based service.
Snyder isn’t being dramatic. He’s diagnosing the preconditions of tyranny. “Post-truth,” he writes, “is pre-fascism.” To which I might add, post-truth is also post-sanity. And potentially pre-apocalypse, if we’re really on a roll.
As a rabbi and a seeker, I keep asking: What is true? What’s real? What isn’t gaslighting me with a spiritual smile? Truth, in Jewish tradition, isn’t a frozen fact. It’s a living pursuit. Equal parts ethical journey and spiritual workout. Spoiler alert: it burns.
The Hebrew word for truth, Emet, uses the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet — Aleph, Mem, and Tav. Our sages taught that this isn’t just poetic. It’s a design feature with a moral point. Truth must be balanced, expansive, and enduring. Remove one letter and you're left with met, which means “dead.” That’s not just a linguistic flex. It’s theology with teeth. Truth sustains life. Lies rot meaning from the inside.
Rabbi Jill Hammer writes, “Truth is not static. It lives in the dynamic tension between tradition and experience.” In other words, if you’re too comfortable, you’re probably doing it wrong. Truth is both sacred and hazardous. Like a sacred cow that bites. In a culture that demands loyalty to personalities over principles, we become the rhinoceroses in Eugène Ionesco’s play. Thick-skinned. Charging forward. Transformed into something we swore we’d never become. Fascism doesn’t arrive in jackboots. Sometimes it tiptoes in wearing your team colors and a friendly grin.
In our tradition, truth isn’t a cudgel. It’s a mirror. And yes, it’s often unflattering. Rabbi Heschel said, “Few are guilty, but all are responsible.” Though let’s be honest: some folks are very, very guilty and also somehow on book tour.
Truth-seeking isn’t just about catching liars. It’s about cultivating the moral nerve to look reality in the eye and maybe make eye contact with yourself while you’re at it. That’s not easy. Especially in a world where your phone knows your preferences better than your therapist.
Truth is relational. Rabbi Sharon Brous reminds us that truth shows up in community, through discomfort, disagreement, and the occasional potluck you regret attending. It’s forged in conversation, not carved in stone. And yes, injustice thrives when truth becomes optional. Like guac at Chipotle, it costs extra and people opt out.
As someone who’s lived in the public eye, I know the seduction of spectacle. It’s easy to mistake applause for integrity, to confuse being loud with being right. And let’s not pretend religion gets a pass here. When belief calcifies into certainty, it stops being holy and becomes a bumper sticker. Sometimes the greatest blasphemy isn’t doubt. It’s arrogance.
This is why truth can’t be just data. It has to be soul work. The mystics teach that each of us carries a spark of divine truth. When we deny it, we dim that spark. When we seek it, even with bad posture and spiritual fatigue, we bring more light into the world.
No, I don’t believe truth is relative. But I do believe it’s relational. And sometimes, reluctantly, I believe it’s funny. Because if we don’t laugh, we’ll cry, and probably start yelling at the news.
We’re watching the consequences of post-truth in real time. Elected officials are selling lies with the confidence of a used car dealer in a blackout. Courts are stacked with ideologues. Science is treated like an optional upgrade. Journalists are branded as enemies. Truth-tellers are exiled. And the rest of us? Just trying to remember our Wi-Fi password while the world burns.
So what do we do? How do we practice truth in a culture trained to scroll past it?
Slow down. Truth whispers. Spectacle screams. Learn to tell the difference before you retweet a cat meme with a political caption.
Seek the whole picture. Emet spans beginning, middle, and end. So should we. Even if the middle part is awkward.
Speak up, with care. Truth-telling isn’t cruelty. But it does require courage. Deliver it with a backbone and a heart.
Protect truth-tellers. Support the people brave enough to name hard truths, even when their hair is messy on TV.
Practice humility. Everyone’s been wrong. Yes, even us. Growth means knowing we might need to update our inner operating system.
Let this be our resistance: To tell the truth. To live in truth. To hold each other accountable for seeking it. And to laugh, not because it’s funny, but because it keeps us from surrendering to despair.