Reality-based community

Reality-based community is a derisive term for people who base judgments on facts. It was first attributed to a senior official working for U.S. president George W. Bush by the reporter Ron Suskind in 2004. Many American liberals adopted the label for themselves, using it to portray themselves as adhering to facts in contradiction to conservatives presumably disregarding professional and scientific expertise.
Origin.
The phrase was attributed by journalist Ron Suskind to an unnamed official in the George W. Bush administration who used it to denigrate a critic of the administration's policies as someone who based their judgments on facts. In a 2004 article appearing in the "New York Times Magazine", Suskind wrote:
International relations scholar Fred Halliday writes that the phrase "reality-based community" (in contrast to "faith-based community") was used "for those who did not share [the Bush administration's] international goals and aspirations". The source of the quotation was guessed to be Bush's senior advisor Karl Rove, although Rove has denied saying it.
Reactions.
Political scientist and former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski characterized the encounter with the senior White House aide, as reported by Suskind, as exemplary of the "arrogance that swept the Bush White House". Journalist Steven Poole compared the phrase to Hannah Arendt's definition of totalitarian thinking, which she described as having "extreme contempt for facts".
Many American liberals adopted the term as a badge of honor. The words "[Proud to be a Member of the] Reality-Based Community" appeared on blogs and T-shirts. The term was used to mock the Bush administration's funding of faith-based social programmes, as well as a perceived hostility to professional and scientific expertise among American conservatives.
The phrase was given a second life by growth of so-called post-truth politics.