Reinterpreting "Speak Truth to Power" in an Era of Authoritarianism and Post-Truth Politics

The Truth Alone Will Not Set Us Free

In a world where authoritarianism is advancing and the post-truth environment created by virtual reality and media deregulation, dominates public discourse, traditional concepts like "speaking truth to power" and "the truth will set you free" must be re-examined. These phrases, long associated with moral clarity and resistance, now exist in a context where truth itself is contested, manipulated, and often weaponized by those in power.

To make these concepts actionable in today’s political landscape, we need to move beyond a passive belief in the inherent power of truth and toward a strategic approach that recognizes how truth functions in an era of disinformation and authoritarianism.

Traditionally, the term “speak truth to power” was a call for moral courage—a demand that people with less power confront those in power with undeniable facts and ethical clarity. The belief that truth could serve as a weapon against unjust power was rooted in the idea that exposing injustice would force the powerful to change or be held accountable.

Today, authoritarians already know the truth—they just don’t care. Speaking truth to them won’t change their behavior, because they thrive on controlling narratives, not facts.

Facts alone don’t defeat authoritarianism. Authoritarian leaders manufacture their own "truths," and their followers often reject factual reality in favor of emotional loyalty. Moreover, disinformation has eroded public trust. People are inundated with conflicting claims, and the concept of objective truth is often undermined before truth can even be spoken.

This problem is further exacerbated by the extreme emotional polarization that we are living in. We in the U.S. are actually not as polarized as many think we are according to our positions on the most front-of-mind political issues. Yes, we may disagree about how best to address mass migration, as one challenge facing the world and our nation, but on the issues that are of most immediate concern to voters of both parties, issues such as affordability of housing and consumer goods, healthcare, the value of public schools, and even the necessity of gun safety regulations, voters of both parties are actually more closely aligned than most of us think. However, we are emotionally polarized across parties such that larger percentages of voters are more likely accept same gender marriages and interracial marriages within their families than marriages across partisan lines.

This emotional polarization turns the issues we actually agree on into floating signifiers of party affiliation, undermining the power of majorities, and making us vulnerable to top-down political manipulation. And this is true to the extent that across these emotional divides, many of us will twist the truth to serve our feelings and not change our feelings to serve the truth.

We need to speak truth to the people, not just to power. The powerful refuse to be accountable to the truth, and in fact this lack of accountability is part of their strategy for seizing and maintaining power., Our responsibility is to mobilize the public to force authoritarian elites to face the a fundamental fact of life; that the products they profit from can’t be produced without our labor, their banks cannot survive without our deposits, the military and domestic law enforcement cannot function without the ordinary workers who constitute the front lines of state power. Moreover, the bottom 80% of earners contribute around 62% of total consumer spending.

We must concentrate our efforts on building the grassroots infrastructures and capacities that allow us to demonstrate the massive power regular people have. This is a more profitable project than attempting to convince the ruling elite of the moral integrity and truth of our arguments.

This doesn’t mean we should abandon the truth. Truth is strategic, not just moral. But speaking truth isn’t enough. We need to disrupt disinformation systems, counter authoritarian narratives, and create spaces where truth can be heard and acted upon by us. But we must remember that while speaking truth is necessary, it is not sufficient. Truth must be strategically deployed, widely disseminated, and connected to collective action.

The assumption that truth has a self-evident, liberating power, that once people see the truth, they will act on it, must also be reinterpreted today. Truth must be repeated over and over again in order for it to cut through disinformation. But even then, truth alone doesn’t set people free—power does, and in order to build power we must get organized or authoritarians will use fear, propaganda, and repression to override the truth, making people afraid to act on what they know.

Many people already know the truth about authoritarianism, but they feel powerless to change it. For this reason they either disengage or rationalize compliance.

Truth is also often buried under spectacle. In an attention economy driven by outrage, spectacle, and conspiracy theories, the most compelling narrative, not the most factual one, dominates.

Truth is not liberating on its own. It must be connected to power. People don’t just need truth; they need a pathway to act on it without fear of isolation or repression. The public must be able to see truth in action, not just hear it in theory, and this can most reliably be accomplished through real-world organizing, mutual aid, and movements that make change tangible.

The collective is what sets people free, not just knowledge. No one is set free alone. Truth must be tied to communities of hope that create the conditions for liberation.

Truth is a battleground, not just a moral principle. Authoritarianism thrives not by hiding the truth, but by intimidating us into conceding it while flooding the information space with so much noise that truth loses its impact. In this environment, truth is not just something to be spoken, it is something that must be fought for, protected, and made actionable.

The truth alone will not set us free—but truth in the hands of a mobilized, organized movement might.