Sonnet 353: Post Truth (OED's Word of the Year 2016)

Word of the Year “Post-truth” (Sonnet #353)
By David Palmer
8-February, 2017
Maple Valley, Washington

Pablum assuages the popular ear
Old times of honest discussion passé
Sacrifice facts to deceive us en masse
Tout “alternative facts” to bolster fear
Train people to mistrust “the other” peers
Resort to lies to create policy
Under suspicion place innocency
Tear at the fabric of values and jeer
Hatred and bigotry, now stock and trade
Facts of Science ignor’d, feelings touted
Each right of the citizens scoff’d and parlay’d
All warning prophets routinely doubted
Rise up Sleeper, defend values betray’d
Stand for Truth that Ignorance be routed.

© 2017 David W. Palmer
All intellectual property rights retained by the author

The Oxford English Dictionary named “post-truth” the Word of the Year for 2016, a sure sign of our times.  An adjective, it is “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”