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Help lying go out of style

Help lying go out of style
Arkadiusz Warguła/Getty Images

Denn is Founder & CEO of PolicyKeys™ Where Can We Agree?

The Fulcrum recently asked its readers to share their thoughts on the following question: What is your take on how we restore honor when lying has become fashionable? Below is a reader response.


There needs to be a recognized standard of journalistic fairness. If you trust the people who are watching the media, allsides.org, mediabiasfactcheck.com, and thefactual.com, pretty much every media outlet is spinning stories from their own point of view with a non-neutral tone.

There’s this thing called measuring, it’s used in science, baking, farming, cooking, home building, pumping gasoline, or metering electricity, you get the point. It’s 2023, and for some reason we have decided not to measure what “folk” who essentially are long on virtue, or so says Aristotle, have to say what they’re hearing—and their opinions in some sort of believable way, outside of polling Democrats and Republicans and their party lines—and trying to force independents into one of those molds. Well played, duopoly.

Instead of listening to your favorite echo chambers, who are telling you what you want to hear, why not strive to understand the subject first, and stop supporting outlets that don’t help you do that? The thing about finding out what it is we can actually agree on, after personally filtering out all the lies (thanks for wasting our time—media outlets) is that the solutions don’t look like anything you’ve heard before. Why? Because, no one covers that beat.

Public policy is really, really complicated. There are thousands of variables, it’s impossible for anyone to be expected to scan through all that and look for patterns, throw out the lies, reconcile conflicting facts, sort the arguments fairly with a minimum of spin consider short-term and long-term goals, honor emotions, plan for unexpected outcomes, apply and measure probability to the various solutions, oh, and then repeat for the next subject. Everyone is conflicted with their points of view, but somehow we reflect on the mess, and try to make up our own minds. Kudos to those who really try, you are far and few between, and it’s almost an impossible task.

There’s this thing called the Wisdom of the Crowd, if that were ever harnessed, maybe with the help of a little AI, we might get commentary on public policy we can trust. Until then, same old same old.

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Just the Facts: Impact of the Big Beautiful Bill on Health Care

U.S. President Donald Trump takes the stage during a reception for Republican members of the House of Representatives in the East Room of the White House on July 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump thanked GOP lawmakers for passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla

Just the Facts: Impact of the Big Beautiful Bill on Health Care

The Fulcrum strives to approach news stories with an open mind and skepticism, striving to present our readers with a broad spectrum of viewpoints through diligent research and critical thinking. As best we can, we remove personal bias from our reporting and seek a variety of perspectives in both our news gathering and selection of opinion pieces. However, before our readers can analyze varying viewpoints, they must have the facts.

What are the new Medicaid work requirements, and are they more lenient or more restrictive than what previously existed?

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The Crux of the Schism: What defines being American?
U.S.A. flag
Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash

The Crux of the Schism: What defines being American?

Undeniably, the U.S. body politic is in crisis today and has likely been unraveling for more than a decade. The rancorous polarization best exemplified by the demonization of MAGA on one side, and the elite establishment on the other, has become a daily preoccupation in many circles. True, there is undoubtedly a large group of Americans in a broadly defined center whose voices get drowned out by the extremes who scream the loudest. Yet despite this caveat, we are arguably witnessing the most ominous threat we’ve faced since the Civil War tore us asunder more than 150 years ago.

Much scrutiny focuses on the political, economic, and social aspects of the schism, all of which are important and in play. However, I would venture to guess that at its core, the disunion lies in the clashing concepts of what being an American signifies, and further, how these concepts have collided over the course of three centuries. While often not debated forthrightly, the battle can be distilled down to two conflicting views on the fundamental question of what constitutes being an American.

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Hey Bro! Do You Think Trump Has Your Back?

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Hey Bro! Do You Think Trump Has Your Back?

This is an open letter to all bros. You're angry. You're disillusioned. And you have every right to be. The question is, what do you do about it? How do you do something that's going to improve your life, your future?

Does the answer lie in a political party? Both Republicans and Democrats certainly want your vote. However, you don't feel that you can look to the Democratic Party for help. They seem to be particularly interested in women, people of color, and immigrants. They haven't spoken to you or done anything for you.

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