Post-truth Politics and Collective Gaslighting

Abstract Post-truth politics has been diagnosed as harmful to both knowledge and democracy. I argue that it can also fundamentally undermine epistemic autonomy in a way is similar the manipulative technique known gaslighting. Using examples from contemporary politics, identify three categories of post-truth rhetoric: introduction counternarratives, discrediting critics, denial more or less plain facts. These strategies tend isolate people epistemically, leaving them disoriented unable distinguish between reliable unreliable sources. Like gaslighting, aims by eroding someone's self-trust, order consolidate power. Shifting focus effects on victim allows for new insights into specific harms politics. Applying concept gaslighting this domain may help recognize pernicious dynamic was invisible before, giving an important tool resist it.