Ep 108 - Back Porch Files: I Fact-Check My Own Side Too

The most dangerous political post is not always the one that challenges everything I believe. It is often the one that tells me exactly what I already think. The post that attacks Donald Trump, embarrasses a Republican, confirms some ugly suspicion about MAGA, and arrives polished to a mirror shine for immediate sharing. That is the post most likely to walk past my defenses without showing identification.

A fact doesn’t become trustworthy just because it’s wearing your team’s colors.

When something flatters my worldview, it does not always feel like new information. It feels like recognition. Of course he said that. Of course they did that. Of course this is true. The claim fits the pattern so perfectly that my brain wants to stamp it APPROVED before the evidence has even entered the building.

Sometimes the claim is true. Sometimes the quotation is accurate, the video is complete, the headline is fair, and the story is every bit as appalling as it first appears. But sometimes the quotation is fake. Sometimes the video begins five seconds too late. Sometimes the photograph is years old. Sometimes the chart has been built with the statistical integrity of a carnival game. Sometimes the entire thing is nonsense wrapped around a conclusion I happen to agree with.

That is why I fact-check people on my own side. I do not do it because I believe misinformation is distributed evenly across American politics. I do not believe that. The modern MAGA movement and much of conservative media have built an ecosystem where distortion, conspiracy theories, selective context, and outright falsehood are tolerated, rewarded, and frequently monetized. But their dishonesty does not give me permission to become careless. The other side being worse does not make my side correct. Agreement is not evidence.

When I encounter a political claim online, I try to find the original source. I do not treat a screenshot as proof. I do not assume quotation marks make a quotation authentic. I do not assume a video begins where the event began. I do not assume a chart is honest because I like its conclusion. And I do not assume that ten accounts repeating the same story means there are ten sources. Sometimes there is one weak source bouncing around the internet wearing ten different hats.

I look for the full video. I read the actual article. I search for the transcript, the court filing, the government report, the original photograph, or the source of the statistic. I ask whether the source supports the claim or whether somebody has taken one real fact and stretched it until the conclusion snaps loose from the evidence.

Sometimes I find enough to say the claim is true. Sometimes it is partly true but framed dishonestly. Sometimes the basic fact is real and the conclusion is not. Sometimes the available evidence is contradictory or incomplete. And sometimes the only honest answer is, “I cannot confirm this.”

That sentence does not perform especially well online. It does not have the heat of certainty. It does not fit neatly into a dramatic caption. It does not make anybody feel as though the universe has once again confirmed their political instincts. But it is still an answer. I do not need certainty badly enough to manufacture it.

When I see a post that appears false, incomplete, or misleading, I often leave a comment and say so. I may provide a link. I may point out the missing context. I may explain that the headline does not match the article. I may say the video has been cropped in a way that changes the meaning. Sometimes I simply say that I cannot verify the claim.

I am not under the illusion that every correction produces a magnificent change of heart. Sometimes the person reconsiders. Sometimes they edit the post or take it down. Sometimes they argue, move the goalposts, or treat the fact-check as a personal betrayal. Sometimes they ignore it completely.

But the person who posted it is not the only person reading. There are people who open the comments and never say a word. They do not click “like.” They do not join the argument. I may never know they were there. But they see the original claim, and then they see that somebody has challenged it. They see a source. They see missing context. They see that the story may not be as settled as the post made it sound.

That is often the real reason I comment. I may not be able to stop the post, but I can put one small speed bump in front of it. I can give the next person a reason to slow down before sharing it. Sometimes the best I can do is make the misinformation work a little harder.

One of the strangest features of political tribalism is the idea that correcting a false claim about someone means defending that person. If I say a story about Donald Trump is inaccurate, some people hear, “So now you are defending Trump?” No. I am rejecting one false claim about Trump. Those are not the same thing.

I can believe Trump is dishonest, dangerous, corrupt, reckless, and profoundly unfit for office without believing every allegation made against him. I can oppose MAGA without pretending every anti-MAGA post is accurate. I can believe a Republican politician has done ten terrible things and still say the eleventh thing did not happen.

Trump has done enough real things. I do not need imaginary ones. I do not need a fake quotation to explain why I oppose him. I do not need a misleading chart. I do not need a video that starts six seconds late and ends six seconds early. The documented record is more than sufficient.

Correcting one false allegation does not erase the rest of that record. It does not clear the defendant. It means I am throwing out one piece of evidence because it does not belong in the courtroom. I am not defending the person. I am defending the standard.

The most common defense of inaccurate political content is that “the larger point is still true.” Maybe the quotation was fake. Maybe the statistic was wrong. Maybe the video was misleading. But supposedly none of that matters because the broader argument remains valid.

My response is simple: then use the real examples. If the larger point is true, it deserves evidence that is true too. If there are plenty of documented examples, there is even less reason to defend a fabricated one. A strong argument does not need counterfeit support.

Bad information does not sit harmlessly beside good information. It changes the conversation. Instead of talking about the actual corruption, the actual dishonesty, or the actual abuse of power, we end up talking about the bogus post. The target of the criticism gets to step away from the real issue and point at the mistake. The argument is no longer, “Look what this politician did.” It becomes, “Look what these people are willing to believe.”

That is a gift. Bad evidence does not strengthen a good case. It gives the defense an exhibit.

I also try not to apply the same volume to every mistake. I do not treat a typo like propaganda. I do not treat an honest error like an organized lie. People misread articles. They rely on sources that turn out to be weak. They remember quotations incorrectly. They post too quickly. I have done that too.

There is a difference between being mistaken, being careless, being reckless, and deliberately deceiving people. Intent is not always easy to know. I can often establish that a statement is false without being able to establish that the person knew it was false. So I try not to call someone a liar unless I have a solid basis for saying they lied.

But carelessness is not harmless simply because it falls short of deliberate deception. If someone has a large audience and is making serious accusations, that person has a responsibility to do more than glance at a meme and hit record. Good intentions do not make bad information accurate. Political passion does not erase the damage.

And all of this applies to me. It has to. I do not get to demand corrections from everyone else and treat my own errors like classified material. I can misread a source. I can miss context. I can rely on early reporting that later changes. I can state something too broadly or draw a conclusion that goes further than the evidence allows.

Fact-checking does not make me immune to error. It gives me a responsibility when the error is mine. If I am wrong, correcting it is not optional. I should say what I got wrong, explain what the accurate information is, and make the correction visible enough that the people who saw the mistake have a reasonable chance of seeing the fix.

I should not quietly delete the post and pretend it never happened. I should not blame the audience for taking my words to mean what my words actually said. I should not hide behind the claim that my larger point was still correct. The correction is part of the original responsibility.

My credibility does not depend on pretending I have never been wrong. It depends on what I do after I discover that I was.

That matters even more because I post a lot of content. I produce podcast episodes, videos, social media posts, graphics, clips, and written commentary. I am not merely deciding what I believe in private. I am asking people to trust what I publish and, sometimes, to share it with others.

When someone shares one of my videos, that person is putting a small piece of their own name behind mine. They are telling friends, relatives, or followers that the content is worth watching and reliable enough to pass along. I take that seriously.

I do not want someone to share my content, defend it in the comments, and later discover that I gave them bad information. I do not want them embarrassed because I skipped the full article, ignored the original source, or trusted a screenshot that should have raised questions. I want people to be able to share my work without crossing their fingers.

That does not mean I can promise perfection. I cannot. What I can promise is effort, transparency, and correction. I can try to verify the factual foundation. I can identify opinion as opinion. I can acknowledge uncertainty. I can correct the record when I get something wrong.

Accuracy also protects my ability to be heard later. If I use bad information, it makes me look bad in that moment. And frankly, it should. But the damage rarely ends with that single post. The error can be brought up later, even when the new information is accurate.

A troll or detractor can say, “Why should anyone believe him? Remember that other video?” That argument does not logically disprove a new, well-supported claim. But public credibility is not a formal logic exercise. People remember mistakes. Opponents preserve them. One careless claim can become a standing exhibit dragged into every later discussion.

I cannot prevent bad-faith people from attacking accurate work. They will do that no matter how careful I am. But I do not need to make their job easier by handing them a legitimate example of carelessness.

I watch conservative and MAGA content creators make that mistake constantly. They post some dramatic claim with absolute confidence, and the real story is sitting right there. Sometimes it is in the article they are discussing. Sometimes the full video is easy to find. Sometimes the quotation can be checked in less time than it took them to record the rant.

They are not decrypting intercepted military communications. They just have to open another tab.

But they do not. They post the claim. Someone stitches the video. Someone finds the full quotation. Someone pulls up the document. Someone shows the missing context. And suddenly the original creator looks ridiculous.

At best, they look like a goober who could not be bothered to check. At worst, they look like someone who knew exactly what they were doing. Often, I cannot tell which explanation is correct. Was it dishonesty, laziness, incompetence, or simple indifference to accuracy? Once the audience has to choose among those possibilities, the damage is already underway.

I see that happen over and over, and every time I think the same thing: I do not want to be that guy. I do not want to be the clip that gets stitched because somebody else performed the search I should have done before I hit post. Being first is not worth being publicly wrong.

None of this changes because the careless creator happens to be on my side. That is the real test. It is easy to demand evidence from people I already distrust. It is easy to call conservative misinformation propaganda. The harder question is what I do when the bad information helps me.

If their misinformation is propaganda but ours is enthusiasm, I do not have a standard. If their misleading edit is manipulation but ours captures the larger truth, I am not defending honesty. I am defending usefulness. And if honesty matters only when it hurts my opponent, honesty is not a principle. It is a weapon.

I am a progressive. I believe in evidence, science, responsible journalism, transparency, and accountability. Those values mean nothing if I apply them only to people I dislike. They have to survive contact with people I respect. They have to survive contact with my audience. They have to survive contact with me.

I believe MAGA is dangerous. I believe Donald Trump has done enormous damage. I believe the conservative information ecosystem has made dishonesty easier to spread and harder to correct. But the seriousness of that threat does not give me more room for bad evidence. It gives me less.

The more serious the accusation, the more careful I should be. The more dangerous the movement, the less willing I should be to weaken the case against it with something false. I do not need to soften my opinions. I need the facts underneath those opinions to be real.

So I return to that post. The one that says exactly what I believe. The one that attacks someone I oppose. The one that would probably get shares, comments, and attention. The one that feels true.

But I cannot verify it. So I leave it alone.

Nobody sees that decision. Nobody congratulates me for the misinformation I did not spread. Nobody applauds the correction I never had to issue. There is no viral moment attached to restraint. But that invisible decision is part of the work.

Credibility is not something I announce. It is something I build, one post at a time, one correction at a time, and one quiet decision not to share something at a time.

I would rather make a slower argument that is true than a viral argument that is false. I would rather admit uncertainty than manufacture confidence. I would rather correct myself than protect my pride. And I would rather lose an argument honestly than win one with something that was never true.

SOURCES

How and Why Misinformation Spreads, including the role of identity, emotion, repetition, and social norms — https://www.apa.org/topics/journalism-facts/how-why-misinformation-spreads (American Psychological Association)

Why people are more likely to believe misinformation from sources within their own political or social group — https://www.apa.org/topics/journalism-facts/misinformation-belief-action (American Psychological Association)

Research on partisan differences in political misperceptions and susceptibility to false claims — https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abf1234 (Science)

Research finding partisan differences in the sharing of misinformation can help explain unequal exposure across political groups — https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07942-8 (Nature)

Study of fake-news sharing during the 2016 election, finding that sharing was highly concentrated and more common among conservative users — https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aau4586 (Science)

Research finding conservatives were more likely to encounter and share misinformation, while highly partisan users on both sides could amplify it — https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-19837-7 (Nature)

FactCheck.org archive documenting false, misleading, exaggerated, and unsupported claims by Donald Trump — https://www.factcheck.org/person/donald-trump/ (FactCheck.org)

FactCheck.org archive devoted to debunking false and misleading claims circulating on social media — https://www.factcheck.org/fake-news/ (FactCheck.org)

American Psychological Association recommendations for countering misinformation and correcting inaccurate claims — https://www.apa.org/topics/journalism-facts/misinformation-recommendations (American Psychological Association)