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Heather Cox Richardson: "hyperbole, fiction, or satire"
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-9-2025When G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers asked ChatGPT to fact-check an article for him yesterday, the chatbot couldn’t get its head around modern America. It told him there were “multiple factual impossibilities” in his article, including his statements that “[t]he current Secretary of Defense is a former talk show host for Fox News,” “[t]he Deputy Director of the FBI used to guest-host Sean Hannity’s show,” and “Jeanine Pirro is the U.S. District Attorney for DC.”
“Since none of these statements are true,” it told Morris, “they undermine credibility unless signposted as hyperbole, fiction, or satire.”
But of course, Morris’s statements were not “factual impossibilities.” In the United States of America under President Donald J. Trump, they are true.
. . .
When he got his disheartening fact-check from ChatGPT, Morris was preparing an article, published today, exploring “how cable news fueled the culture war and broke U.S. politics.” The article notes that most people care about and interact with the government through economic or affordability issues—prices, jobs, health care, social programs, and taxes—and that most laws are also about these issues. But, he points out, political rhetoric overwhelmingly focuses on issues like race, crime, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, and guns: the so-called culture war.
. . .
“Since none of these statements are true,” it told Morris, “they undermine credibility unless signposted as hyperbole, fiction, or satire.”
But of course, Morris’s statements were not “factual impossibilities.” In the United States of America under President Donald J. Trump, they are true.
. . .
When he got his disheartening fact-check from ChatGPT, Morris was preparing an article, published today, exploring “how cable news fueled the culture war and broke U.S. politics.” The article notes that most people care about and interact with the government through economic or affordability issues—prices, jobs, health care, social programs, and taxes—and that most laws are also about these issues. But, he points out, political rhetoric overwhelmingly focuses on issues like race, crime, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, and guns: the so-called culture war.
. . .
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