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What does it do to democracy when the President of the United States uses political sound-bites to capture the country’s attention such as “coup” and “civil war?”

In our overwhelming news-culture, a short clip of speech that typifies a lengthier concept is increasingly employed by politicians to summarize their positions and/or label opponents and ideas whether true or not. In the past few years, this strategy has been increasingly exploited. With the current impeachment inquiry and the upcoming presidential election, the war of sound-bites will become deafening.

In the political uproar, the truth might not win out over the shortest and most clever sound-bite. The American attention span is very short. There are no truth-in-advertising laws for political ads and political ads employ short narratives to ...