Just tell the truth, episode five thousand

The post-truth politics of burying Trump with "completely false" narratives will inevitably backfire.

From a post about Democratic messaging going around today:

Narratives are so powerful that they can be sustained even when they’re completely false, because people are drawn to the overarching theme, not the details that the narrative are built from.

I want to stress that this claim isn’t merely false — it’s baseless, and directly at odds with the literature on public opinion. The author cites nothing because he is dealing entirely in convenient speculation. To a certain type of person it will feel freeing and empowering to be told that the truth doesn’t matter in public persuasion, but if Democrats took this advice and just started lying constantly they would be in even bigger trouble with Americans than they already are.