Al Gore called his mega-PowerPoint presentation on climate change An Inconvenient Truth. Seems like in this ugly season leading up to the national election that truth is more unpopular than ever.

Case in point, a family member and Facebook friend posted a picture of a baby born at 36 weeks with a caption that said “Bernie and Hillary support abortions as late as 36 weeks…” This struck me as particularly horrifying if this were true as that is considered a near term birth (full term is 39-40 weeks).  So I went to Google and Snopes.com and this story is false. At first I wrote not true, but that is not strong enough. It is misrepresenting their positions at best and I would even call it a lie.

So I messaged my relative privately instead of calling her out on Facebook. I provided her the Snopes.com link and this was her response, “I know—you don’t know what is true, I just wanted to show what a 36 week baby looked like didn’t care if either or neither said that. Be so glad when election is over!”

Uffda.

If she were a friend I might hide all of her posts from now on, but I want to see the grandkid photos and know when they are seeing other family members, so I will let it go. How many of us are having to do this with family or friends during this ugly election season?

It is easy to blame the media or the internet, but if you go back to Alexander Hamilton’s day and truth and elections were allergic to each other even then. Only then it was a printed pamphlet. And if we are honest with ourselves, truth is never popular. When it finally wins out people rewrite history and say they always knew or they are glad it came out. In fact, most of us spent energy avoiding the truth or actively denying it.

This is why it is one of The Four Agreements. All of the agreements seem simple, almost facile. Until you try to live them.