It matters. I care.
Giving up on the idea that truth matters is not just cynicism, it’s surrender.
“Who cares? It doesn’t matter anyway.” I’ve come to expect these words in my social media replies to my own work, and elsewhere in response to other journalists doing critical reporting on the abuses of the Trump regime.
Explain the clear corruption exemplified by Donald Trump’s growing list of cryptocurrency businesses? “Nobody cares.” Expose the pseudonymous individuals spending millions of dollars to buy influence with the president via his personal memecoin? “It doesn’t matter, he’s never going to face consequences.” Document apparently illegal campaign contributions by the largest American cryptocurrency exchange? “What does it matter, no one’s going to do anything about it.”
And these aren’t just a few social media responses, they’re expressions of a much broader resignation I’m seeing on- and offline: That caring is somehow naive. That documenting the truth is pointless. That hope is for fools.
Let me be clear: It fucking matters. Truth matters. Documentation matters. Fighting corruption matters. That accountability seems out of reach right now doesn’t change that. When we internalize the belief that nothing can change, we stop demanding change. When we accept corruption as normal, we stop fighting it. When we dismiss documentation of wrongdoing as pointless, we give wrongdoers exactly what they want: permission to continue unchecked and with no record of their actions.
I understand the despair in these kinds of responses. We’ve all watched impeachments fail, courts falter, institutions buckle, and politicians repeatedly trade away democracy for their next campaign check. But giving up on the very idea that truth and morality matter is not just cynicism, it’s surrender.
Without a commitment to documenting truth, all that’s left is propaganda. And we’ve already seen this play out in what were once some of the most respected publications: Major news outlets have bowed to Trump rather than defend their reporting. They depict Trump’s outright lies as mere misstatements and spin his illegal actions as “controversies”. They engage in reflexive bothsidesism, desperately seeking to present “balance” even when one side is demonstrably false. They describe attacks on human rights as mere policy differences. They uncritically repeat government statements that plainly don’t reflect reality. In so doing, they’re not just betraying their fundamental purpose and abandoning their essential role in democracy. They’re helping ensure a world where truth becomes whatever power says it is, and undermining our collective power to build a better world.
When journalists abandon truth-telling and readers stop demanding it, we accept things as they are. It leaves no path for things to get better, and every opportunity for them to grow worse. When we throw up our hands and say none of it matters, we’re doing the fascists’ work for them. They don’t need to hide their corruption if they can convince us it’s pointless to look. They don’t need to silence truth-tellers if we’ve already decided truth is meaningless.
So yes, I care. I care desperately. I care because not caring isn’t an option. I care because the moment we accept that truth and morality are meaningless is the moment we guarantee they’ll never matter again. I care because somebody fucking has to.
That’s why I keep documenting corruption and abuse, the erosion of norms, and each step away from democracy. Not because I expect immediate consequences, but because documenting the truth will matter later even if it doesn’t seem to matter now. Because caring isn’t naive. Because documentation isn’t pointless. Because hope isn’t for fools.
