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Defending truth from the war on facts

A man confronts Trump supporters with a contingent of far-right sympathizers as they rally in the street outside the Justice Center in Portland, Ore., on August 22, 2020. (Photo by Alex Milan Tracy/Sipa USA)No Use UK. No Use Germany.

Cvr: The Constitution of KnowledgeTruth is contested ground. Facts are under attack. From disinformation to conspiracy theories, from social media pile-ons to campus intolerance, Americans are facing an epistemic crisis in their ability to distinguish fact from fiction and truth from falsehood. This episode features the author of a pathbreaking book on this crisis and how we get out of it. Jonathan Rauch, senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings, is the author of The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, just published by the Brookings Institution Press. Rauch is interviewed by Brookings Press Director Bill Finan.

Also on this episode, Senior Fellow David Wessel asks six questions about how the U.S. economy and workers will look in a couple of years, after the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. You can also listen to this audio segment on SoundCloud.

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The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the Brookings Podcast Network.