The Fragility of Truth When Power Excuses Violence
How Political Authority Rewrites Reality and What This Reveals About Modern Leadership
By Michael Lamonaca, 19 November 2025
In every era, there are moments when the language of political power becomes a lens through which the public can see the deeper architecture of authority. The world has always known leaders who speak carelessly, who dismiss human suffering with a phrase, or who reduce complex tragedies to an inconvenience to be brushed aside. Yet when such statements are made at the highest levels of state, they illuminate something larger than a single incident: they show how truth itself becomes fragile when power treats violence as negotiable. The recent remarks by Donald Trump regarding the murder of Jamal Khashoggi did not merely reveal an opinion about a journalist’s death; they exposed the tensions between geopolitical interests, personal alliances, and the moral expectations society still places upon those who govern.
Behind the choreography of diplomatic theatre — the motorcades, the military bands, the formal dinners — lies a machinery of incentives that shapes how violence is narrated by those who wield influence. When a head of state frames an assassination as something that “happens,” it reflects not only the worldview of an individual but also the pressures of a system in which strategic relationships often outweigh ethical clarity. Power seeks alignment, and alignment seeks justification. In this environment, the language of leadership becomes a tool for maintaining alliances, managing perceptions, and neutralising obstacles, even when those obstacles are truths that resist being softened. Statements that seem dismissive or detached are often the product of unseen calculations, where economic dependency, military cooperation, and political ambition converge into a single, carefully shaped public response.
Yet beneath the geopolitical mechanics lies a distinctly human layer — one marked by cognitive bias, fear of embarrassment, and the desire for narrative control. Political figures do not simply answer questions; they perform identity. When Trump defended the Saudi crown prince in such sweeping terms, describing Khashoggi as “controversial” and emphasising the importance of not “embarrassing our guest,” the words revealed a deeper psychological pattern: loyalty framed as strength, confrontation framed as disloyalty, and moral ambiguity reframed as strategic necessity. This mindset transforms a human tragedy into an inconvenience to be managed, not a truth to be acknowledged. The murdered journalist becomes secondary to the optics of alliance and the preservation of face.
History is rich with parallels that show how leaders attempt to reshape or neutralise uncomfortable truths in the service of larger objectives. When Italy downplayed the brutality of its colonial campaigns in the early 20th century, the justification was woven into the rhetoric of national destiny. When the United States minimised the implications of the Iran-Contra affair, the language of national security served as a shield that softened public judgment. And when governments during the Cold War denied knowledge of extrajudicial killings by aligned regimes, it was done under the banner of maintaining geopolitical balance. The pattern repeats: where strategic advantage is threatened by moral clarity, the truth becomes negotiable, softened, or reframed for public consumption.
In the present case, divergent narratives reflect not only clashing political interests but fundamentally different interpretations of what responsibility means. To Trump, the crown prince is a partner whose value outweighs the political cost of confrontation. To the Saudi leadership, acknowledging the murder is framed as a “painful mistake” while distancing the highest authority from direct culpability. To Khashoggi’s widow, truth is not a geopolitical variable but a human demand: an acknowledgement that her husband’s death cannot be explained away through convenience. The same event, therefore, becomes a prism — each actor seeing a different reality, shaped by their incentives and their position within the hierarchy of global power.
Complicating this further is the difficulty of verifying truth in a world saturated with competing narratives, institutional interests, and strategic messaging. Intelligence assessments, diplomatic statements, and media reports intersect in ways that can obscure as much as they reveal. Even when institutions like the CIA issue clear assessments, political leaders may choose to reinterpret or ignore them, not because the facts are unclear but because the implications are inconvenient. In the digital age, where statements travel faster than context and where partisanship can turn any event into a symbolic battlefield, political language becomes both a shield and a weapon. Emotional amplification replaces careful scrutiny, and public perception becomes more vulnerable to the framing chosen by those in positions of influence.
The implications extend beyond a single controversy. When leaders normalise dismissive explanations for politically motivated violence, the public’s relationship with truth becomes strained. Policy decisions risk being guided by alliances rather than principles. Citizens begin to question whether facts still have weight when placed beside geopolitical convenience. Over time, this shapes collective memory, influencing how societies understand accountability, justice, and the role of leadership. A remark made in the Oval Office may seem transient, but such statements accrue, slowly reshaping expectations of what leaders can say without consequence.
Ultimately, the question raised by this moment goes deeper than the behaviour of one political figure. It asks whether truth can remain stable in a world where power routinely seeks to soften its edges. It challenges us to examine how narratives are constructed, how violence is rationalised, and how easily moral boundaries can shift when strategic interests are at stake. The fragility of truth is not caused by technology or partisanship alone; it emerges when those entrusted with authority treat reality as something flexible, negotiable, or secondary to the performance of strength.
In moments like this, one insight becomes clear: when truth is reshaped to protect power, it is not the facts that weaken — it is the public’s confidence in the meaning of leadership itself.