Countering Truth Decay: How Santa Monica Is Building Bridges in a Fractured Time
In a moment where misinformation spreads faster than facts, and where communities are struggling to hold meaningful dialogue across divides, the need to assert truth as a public good is more essential than ever. Protecting truth and public trust requires connection, compassion, and creativity within an engaged community.
To that end, last Thursday, September 18th, the Santa Monica Bay Human Relations Council (HRC) hosted its third annual Countering Truth Decay, a free event held this year at the 18th Street Arts Center. “Truth decay,” coined by the RAND Corporation, resonates as a metaphor: the decline of truth is not an explosion, it’s erosion. Fanning small disagreements into blazes, a blurring of the line between opinion and fact, the rise of personal experience over objective data. Not always easy to notice, and therefore harder to fight. A framework that centers dialogue, equity, and community repair creates the antidote. The Countering Truth Decay event gives the community a safe container to simultaneously hold both fact and feeling.
Co-sponsored by Bahala and other supporters, community members took time out of busy lives to dialogue about the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life, and to brainstorm solutions necessary to empower ourselves and our communities. Carlo Cabanilla and Julia Storm offered strategies to spot AI fakes and model dialogue about screen time between parents and kids. This climate of misinformation aims to isolate and divide us, even within our own homes, when we’re all facing ever more isolation and loneliness. As much as our culture wants us to chase being “right,” or possessing instant info,” Carlo spoke for us all when he said, “I believe that we just want to feel connected again.”
From there, we broke out into small groups and, using prompts, delved into key issues that affect us all: how neighbors talk to each other, how trust is built (or lost), and how our local community can stay strong in the face of division.
The HRC is uniquely positioned to lead this work. Historically, the council has hosted community dialogues in times of tension — providing safe spaces for conversation, learning, and healing, which invites residents to explore the deeper roots of polarization — and their possible solutions. For Julie Rusk, co-chair of HRC, former chief of wellbeing for the City of Santa Monica, and a long-time civic leader, the issue of truth decay is personal and philosophical. “Misinformation, polarization, distrust — these aren’t just political problems. They’re community problems.”
It’s important not to make assumptions based on perception. For instance, a Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge awarded to the city of Santa Monica in 2013 gave props to the city for its parks and housing initiatives, but showed areas ripe for deeper and more nuanced civic improvements. Catalina Langen, first a community engagement coordinator inside City Hall working with Julie Rusk, and currently leading the HRC as executive director, told me: “Part of the magic is that we don’t focus the event on one hot-button issue, like immigration or public safety. Instead, we invite people to bring the issues that matter to them — and look at how misinformation is affecting all of us.”
But talking is only the beginning. The HRC is exploring how truth decay intersects with equity, mental health, youth development, and more. And importantly, they’re asking what it means to respond locally. How we show up for truth — not just in politics, but in our families, friend groups, and neighborhoods.
Behind the scenes of all this work is a story of mentorship, collaboration, and mutual aid — one that mirrors the very values the HRC promotes. “Mentorship isn’t about hierarchy. It’s about walking alongside someone — sharing assets, sharing responsibility, and trusting each other to grow the work in new directions,” Julie says.
Dr. Karen Gunn, co-chair of the HRC, whose doctorate in community and organizational psychology, a branch of the discipline deeply informed by its origin in 1965, reminds me that part of the work is working within organizations to become the best versions of themselves. Events like Truth Decay “give psychology and its attendant healing powers back to the community and help translate abstract ideas into grounded conversations,” Karen says. “The three annual truth decay events have grown in sophistication,” she continues. “Growing the partnerships with Bahala and others will help us to force multiply all of our organizations' impact in countering misinformation and building community.”
As we enter another fraught election season, amid escalating political violence and ongoing polarization, the work of the HRC feels more urgent than ever. But it’s also rooted in something timeless: the belief that we are better together, even when we disagree. A space where different perspectives can co-exist, and where the focus is less on debating opinions and more on understanding the forces that shape them.
Santa Monica may seem, from the outside, like a city with progressive consensus. But scratch the surface, and you’ll find the same tensions that exist everywhere — questions of belonging, identity, power, and truth. The HRC’s work is a reminder that addressing those questions doesn’t begin at the national level. It begins at home — in living rooms, schools, city halls, and public parks. It begins when people choose to listen. To be curious. To stay at the table, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Though both the online and real world can feel like quicksand, Carlo invoked the power in the gathering. “Take a breath, remember that we are all still here, still safe, sitting together in community,” he said. Through community engagement and events like Countering Truth Decay that are open and free to all, Santa Monica is rebuilding the kind of trust we thought was irrevocable.
Carlo’s slides from the Countering Truth Decay event, including an appendix with actionable tools, can be found at bahala.org/truthdecay. Bahala will continue to lead a follow-up discussion at Coffee & Connections this Friday, September 26th. As always, all are welcome.