Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.
There are two problems with fact-based or data-based policy arguments. These problems are not insurmountable, but they are problems that must be addressed.
The first problem with any fact-based policy argument, whether it is a federal or state policy or a policy that is advanced in a company or a nonprofit organization, is that facts alone can never justify a change of action. Facts need values to move them in the same way that fuel cannot drive you to the hospital. You have to put the fuel into a car or a truck or a bus or a motorcycle.
Facts by themselves tell you how the world is. But if you want to change the world, or indeed some part of it, you need a reason or a set of reasons to justify and motivate you and others to change it. And those reasons must concern values of some kind -- justice or liberty or care or God's calling, whatever it is.
The same holds in court trials. A prosecutor cannot convict a defendant with facts alone, even eyewitness reports that the defendant shot someone in cold blood. The attorney, and the jury and the judge, must rely on laws (which are public values) that must be upheld. If you can prove that in fact someone broke the law, then your facts have done the job for you.
Fact-based or data-based arguments frequently presume that the facts or data alone will guide us in our actions. But without a clear value or set of values to guide us, the facts are inert. The same facts could be used to guide us in different directions depending on the values that we embrace, values which themselves may need support.
If the facts show that excessive smoking can cause cancer, then it must be determined whether the country or a given state is more concerned about promoting the values of economic freedom and economic growth or the values of health and public safety. Indeed, we have not outlawed smoking in any state, but many restrictions have been imposed upon the tobacco industry.
The same value conflicts arise when we are addressing factual debates concerning the coronavirus and public and private decisions that are needed concerning vaccines and masks.
The second problem with fact-based or data-based arguments is that there are frequently rival accounts of what the facts or data actually are. In trials, for example, each side presents and defends their view of the facts. In discussions of poverty, conservative and liberal social scientists present and defend their views of the facts. For every Brookings Institution, there is a Heritage Foundation. In quantum mechanics physicists have a range of factual disagreements about the motion of subatomic particles.
Admittedly, some camps in politics present views of the facts that are so strained and indefensible that it can seem unjustified to call their facts "facts" rather than make-believe or plain lies. Yet in politics there is no tribunal of reality to disqualify arguments given in electoral or issue politics on the grounds that the facts they employ are bogus or fake. In the end, there are only the votes cast by politicians and the votes cast by citizens for politicians and referendums.
The upshot is that both problems with the facts must be addressed by all sides. Having a fact-based argument in itself is insufficient because facts alone don't prove anything or guide any actions. Even if you hitch your facts to values, even widely accepted values, you still must confront others who dispute your account of the facts.
In short, wielding well-justified facts is always a good thing in moral arguments, in political arguments, and in organizational arguments. But having good facts is nothing to boast about. You must defend them vigorously and you must drive them with values.
As Democrats and Republicans continue to struggle over how to address child care, health care, universal pre-K, climate change, and paid parental leave in the social services bill, it is critical for the public to understand that strong arguments for new policies require a combination of convincing accounts of the facts and convincing accounts of the values.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.