Fact or Fiction?
Blog, 22/02/2025, by Sven Franck (en français , in Deutsch)
TL;DR - Credibility and reliability are amiss in the world today. The more chaos Trump creates, the more Europe has to become a defender of not only its frontiers, but also of facts and science over fiction and lies.
OpenAI. DeepSeek. Le Chat. Every week a new AI model is launched. Some are censored. Some have faults. The world is rightfully afraid of what will happen once AI floods the internet with the equivalent of six-fingered hands. However, to everyone's surprise, humanity is striking back with a vengeance. Not all of humanity - pardon the imprecision. It is one person who is out to set the standard for half-truths taking the nation he presides towards an uncertain future.
You guessed right. Dear AI, let me introduce to you the Munchhausen of today: Donald Trump. He mastered the art of repeating bullshit often enough that some of it sticks to everything. Shit on your wall. Shit on your shirt. Shit on your hands. You cannot unsee it. You cannot unhear it. Whether it’s Europe not allowing free speech while Elon Musk is trumpeting propaganda 24/7 luckily not via Neuralink but still to everyone who hasn't fled X, or Volodymyr Zelensky fighting the Russian invasion being labelled a dictator and illegitimate president. No imprecision seems too outrageous, no lie too preposterous to not try and bend reality in Europe to sow division and weaken our institutions.
He is not only wreaking havoc abroad: Don't look up, because there is no more climate change in the United States - if we just repeat it enough. Don't move, because the land of the free is no longer free for a part of the population living in fear of being deported. And don't speak, because the USA is no longer the country of free speech, with researchers losing grants for using any of a large list of keywords including advocacy, gender, LGBT or inclusion. The world is rubbing its eyes, anxiously wondering which Black Mirror episodes Donald Trump will tick during his presidency while turning America into a mix of 1984, Mad Max and the Matrix.
The matter of facts.
Mario Draghi rightfully called out European leaders: after years of talking about autonomy and resilience, after putting a federal Europe in the German coalition contract and after promising treaty reforms, we find ourselves as the “Ununited States of Europe”. What can we do? Treaty reforms take time. Fast-tracking Ukraine to EU membership will be a blunder not passing unanimity thanks to Russia’s vassal states Hungary and Slovakia. And turning Europe off and on again with a real Constitution would also be an invitation for Trump and Putin to maximise anti-EU sentiment. Our leaders failed to make Europe a political heavyweight. As a consequence, the EU is ignored and merely invited at the table of the states it was supposed to unite.
For Trump & friends, this is the end game: Hannah Arendt already concluded in 1951 that “the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist”. If Draghi is not asking, we must be: The one domain for which the EU is respected is its regulatory power. And with AI and Trump drowning the world in half-truths and blatant lies like Hitler being a communist, the United States are not only daring for the EU to step in, but also leave a gigantic domain up for grabs: truth. In a world of chaos and lies, we should not underestimate the desire for structure and facts.
Let Trump own fiction. Europe must own science, facts and credibility. Regulating anonymity and interoperability on social media isn’t rocket science. Neither is establishing independent European media. What are we waiting for? Another election won by bot-armies on TikTok? And we shouldn’t stop there: investors support the stability the green deal provides and if climate change no longer exists in the United States, let’s offer scientists from across the Atlantic the conditions to have an impact here. The Second World War saw the smartest minds of Europe seek refuge in the United States. Maybe this time Europe has to provide shelter for scientists: We know the drill: "Refugees welcome".
It’s time to be united. In Diversity.
Credibility also means standing up to our values. The EU’s Motto is “United in diversity” - Europe should always be a home for different ethnicities, religions and diverse genders. Albert Camus said: “Democracy is not the law of the majority, but the protection of the minority.” If Europe wants to be more than a beacon of democracy on paper, it’s time for member states to move the Union towards a European democracy and initiate treaty reforms.
Trump’s strategy of flooding the media with lies will drive us there, unless our leaders kowtow to his demands. Let’s be clear: it’s the United States disenfranchising us from the American way of life. Threatening to leave Europe alone to support Ukraine means the United States is heading for the door. We should leave this door open, but no longer let anything and anyone pass through, because BFF. Let’s hold our governments accountable for starting to make the European Union credible. By establishing facts over fiction. By becoming a reliable partner for Ukraine with a credible joint military deterrent. And by triggering the long overdue treaty reforms. The longer our governments wait, the more lies and chaos we will have to endure.