Republicans from Presidential candidates through to the rank and file have embraced truthiness. Of course, Stephen Colbert is famous for having defined truthiness way back in 2005 on his first Colbert Report show:
Colbert chose the word truthiness just moments before taping the premiere episode of The Colbert Report after deciding that the originally scripted word – “truth” – was not absolutely ridiculous enough. “We’re not talking about truth, we’re talking about something that seems like truth – the truth we want to exist.” Since then truthiness has gone through many renditions:
truthiness – the quality of seeming or being felt to be true, even if not necessarily true – Google, Oxford English Dictionary
truthiness – the quality of seeming to be true according to one’s intuition, opinion, or perception without regard to logic, factual evidence, or the like – Dictionary.com
truthiness – the quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts – Urban Dictionary
truthiness – truth that comes from the gut not books – Merriam Webster Dictionary
truthiness – is people making up their own reality, one just “truthy” enough that they actually believe it. – Chris Mooney
truthiness – is what you want the facts to be, as opposed to what the facts are. What feels like the right answer as opposed to what reality will support – Stephen Colbert
In sum truthiness is about the old brain versus the new brain built into all of us. The old or type 1 brain relies on very fast, emotionally laden, survival-oriented neuro-mechanisms to decide quickly what actions to take or conclusions to draw. In contrast, the type 2 brain defers to the longer, rational process of decision making associated with our frontal lobes and newer brain regions. See Daniel Kahnman’s Thinking Fast and Slow for all the details.
Defense Mechanism