I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own
How narrative certainty replaced evidence on the American right
For years, the American right presented itself as a movement of skeptics, defined by a posture of suspicion toward institutions, the media, experts, bureaucrats, and official narratives. This skepticism was framed as a civic virtue: a refusal to defer automatically to authority and a demand that claims be justified with evidence. At its best, this instinct can play a healthy role in democratic societies by encouraging scrutiny, accountability, and resistance to institutional abuse. Democracies depend on citizens who question power rather than accept it on faith.
That posture, however, only functions as a corrective when skepticism is applied consistently. Questioning authority loses its value when it becomes selective, aimed outward at disfavored institutions while being suspended entirely for trusted figures or aligned sources. When skepticism is no longer about evaluating claims but about protecting conclusions, it ceases to be a tool for truth-seeking and becomes a mechanism for identity defense.
What has emerged instead is a political culture in which reality itself is treated as conditional. Facts are accepted when they affirm identity, loyalty, or power, and dismissed when they do not. Institutions are denounced as corrupt or illegitimate until the moment they validate a preferred conclusion, at which point they are abruptly rehabilitated as authoritative and beyond dispute. Credibility becomes situational rather than earned, and consistency is replaced by expedience.
This pattern aligns with what researchers have described as "Truth Decay," a documented erosion of shared factual baselines driven by declining trust in institutions and the blurring of fact and opinion. [1]RAND Corporation: "Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life." In this environment, evidence is no longer evaluated by method, reliability, or corroboration. Instead, it is judged by outcome: whether it supports the conclusion one already prefers. Political psychology research has repeatedly shown that individuals process information in ways that protect identity and group affiliation rather than accuracy alone. [2]Kahan (2013), Judgment and Decision Making: ideology, motivated reasoning, and cognitive reflection. These tendencies are further reinforced by modern political media incentives, where research shows that expressions of moral outrage are amplified through social feedback mechanisms, increasing their frequency, visibility, and influence. [3]Science Advances: Brady et al. (2021) on social reinforcement of moral outrage online.
A Case Study in Real Time: Minneapolis 2026
The killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis illustrates how this process unfolds in real time, when ambiguity becomes intolerable and uncertainty itself is treated as evidence of dishonesty. Rather than prompting caution or restraint, gaps in the factual record are quickly filled with confident assertions that leave little room for examination.
Good, 37, was shot and killed by an ICE officer during a traffic stop connected to a federal immigration enforcement operation. Multiple videos of the encounter exist, including body-camera footage and bystander recordings, and several outlets reviewed the available evidence, including a detailed reconstruction of the sequence leading up to the shooting. [4]Reuters: video reconstruction and analysis of what led up to the Minneapolis ICE shooting. The footage shows a fast-moving and chaotic interaction in which officers approach Good’s vehicle, issue commands, and record the encounter as it unfolds.
Almost immediately after the footage circulated, prominent figures on the American right asserted that the video clearly showed Good attempting to run over the officer and that the shooting was therefore justified. Former President Donald Trump, for example, claimed that the agent had been "run over," presenting that conclusion as settled fact despite the video record remaining disputed and incomplete. [5]ABC News: Trump claims the ICE agent was “run over” despite unresolved video evidence. [6]CNN Transcript (Jan. 8, 2026): Kristi Noem calls the killing an “act of domestic terrorism.”
Publicly available reporting does not conclusively establish that sequence of events. Reuters notes that while video shows vehicle movement and proximity to the officer, it does not definitively resolve how or when contact occurred relative to the shots fired, leaving key questions about timing and threat unanswered.
In the absence of definitive evidence, the narrative gap is quickly filled through enforcement pressure and repetition. Official agencies moved rapidly to frame the shooting as self-defense, partisan actors treated that framing as authoritative, and critics were positioned as dishonest or malicious for refusing to claim that the video proved more than it does. Ambiguity itself became suspect, and restraint was recast as bad faith.
When "Manufacturing Stories" Becomes a Strategy
This dynamic becomes easier to understand when the underlying incentives are made explicit. In 2024, JD Vance told CNN that he felt compelled to manufacture stories in order to get media attention. Framed plainly, it is an admission that political actors may manufacture narratives not to clarify reality, but to force visibility in a saturated media environment. [7]The Guardian: JD Vance says he is willing to "create stories" to get media attention.
KFF highlighted the same remark as an unusually blunt acknowledgment of how candidates can amplify misinformation in contemporary media ecosystems. The goal is not to clarify reality or resolve uncertainty, but to force attention, even if the story being pushed is unreliable, unverified, or later contradicted. [8]KFF: analysis of misinformation dynamics citing Vance’s remarks.
That admission matters because it mirrors the broader pattern this article describes. Narrative certainty is asserted first, attention is secured second, and evidence is addressed only afterward, if at all. When facts conflict with the preferred narrative, they are treated not as constraints but as obstacles to be managed or ignored.
What Gets Lost
Democracies require disagreement, but they also require some shared agreement about what is real. People can argue vigorously about values, priorities, and policy outcomes, yet those arguments depend on a common factual baseline. Without that baseline, disagreement stops being productive and becomes unresolvable, because there is no longer a shared reference point for persuasion or accountability.
When reality itself is treated as a loyalty test, facts are no longer evaluated on their merits. They are accepted or rejected based on whether they affirm group identity, reinforce power, or sustain a preferred narrative. In that environment, evidence does not resolve disputes; it merely escalates them, triggering further conflict rather than clarification.
The phrase "I reject your reality and substitute my own" was once a joke, shorthand for irrational stubbornness. Today, it describes a political method. Narrative certainty is asserted first, attention is secured second, and evidence is addressed only afterward, often selectively or not at all.
That approach is incompatible with a shared civic life. It does not merely deepen polarization; it undermines the mechanisms by which democratic disagreement can function at all. When no common reality is acknowledged, persuasion becomes impossible, accountability collapses, and power replaces argument.
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