Michael Gerson has been active in Republican politics for many years. He is appalled now that national and state leaders have created a loyalty test based on the Big Lie, the lie that Trump won the election, and Biden stole it. Liz Cheney was ousted from her senior role in the House Republican Caucus because she spoke the truth: Biden won, Trump lost, and its time to move on. Mitt Romney was booed by Utah Republicans for refusing to endorse the Big Lie. Very few Republicans, other than Cheney and Romney, have acknowledged that the election is over, following multiple recounts. Trump lost. Trump’s loss is now known as the Big Lie. However, in true Trumpian fashion, he calls Biden’s victory “the Big Lie,” once again trying to rewrite history.
Gerson wrote in the Washington Post:
For the activist base of the Republican Party, affirming that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential contest has become a qualification for membership in good standing. For the party’s elected leaders, accepting the clear result of a fair election is to be a rogue Republican like the indomitable Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) — a target for Trump’s anger, public censure and primary threats.
Nothing about this is normal. The GOP is increasingly defined not by its shared beliefs, but by its shared delusions. To be a loyal Republican, one must be either a sucker or a liar. And because this defining falsehood is so obviously and laughably false, we can safely assume that most Republican leaders who embrace it fall into the second category. Knowingly repeating a lie — an act of immorality — is now the evidence of Republican fidelity.
This kind of determined mendacity requires rolling out the big guns. Said the prophet Isaiah: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.”
Moral clarity against lying is sometimes made harder by our loose application of the term. When public figures disagree with you in their analyses of tax policy, or welfare spending or Social Security reform, they’re generally not lying. They’re disagreeing. When it’s revealed that someone was previously wrong about an issue — even on a grave matter of national security — it doesn’t mean he or she was lying all along. It means that person was wrong.
“To preserve the meaning of words,” said Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), “is the first responsibility of liberalism.” Precisely because principled disagreement is essential in a democracy, we can’t attribute every difference to deception. This form of false witness is a tool of polarization and a method of dehumanization.
It’s important to keep perspective about the stakes of any given lie. There is reason the English language has so many words to describe the shades of culpability in a deception. You can equivocate, or dissemble, or palter, or mislead, or prevaricate, or fib, or perjure. There are mortal lies and venial lies, cruel lies and merciful lies. Context matters.
Speaking of perjury, almost any GOP response to charges of deception will eventually include the words “Bill Clinton.” In a time of rampant whataboutism, Republicans often point out that Clinton was a spectacular liar defended by his party. What they fail to acknowledge is that many elected Democrats criticized his lying under oath, even as they opposed his impeachment. Clinton was not insisting his supporters share in his immorality to show their loyalty (though that might have had some appeal when it came to other human failures).
The context for Trump’s lies has been particularly damning. When Trump falsely asserted that Barack Obama was born in Africa and thus illegitimate as president, it was permission for racism. When he claimed he saw Muslims in New Jersey celebrating on Sept. 11, 2001, it was a vicious lie to feed a prejudice.
But the lie of a stolen election is the foundational falsehood of a political worldview. Believing it requires Trump’s followers to affirm the existence of a nationwide plot against him and his supporters — a plot led by ruthless Democrats and traitorous Republicans, and ignored or endorsed by useless courts and a complicit media. The claim’s plausibility is not the point. Does it really make sense that Attorney General William P. Barr, who found no evidence of election fraud that could have changed the result, was in on the plot? Were the conservative judges Trump appointed who dismissed his rubbish lawsuits really out to get him?
Such considerations don’t seem to matter. In the 1930s and ’40s, was it plausible that the democratic leaders of Weimar Germany had stabbed their own country in the back and betrayed its people? Or that an international conspiracy of powerful Jews was controlling world events?
Trump’s lie is not the moral equivalent of fascist propaganda. But it serves the same political function. A founding lie is intended to remove followers from the messy world of facts and evidence. It is designed to replace critical judgment with personal loyalty. It is supposed to encourage distrust of every source of social authority opposed to the leader’s shifting will.
The people who accepted this political mythology and stormed the Capitol were not lying about their views. They seemed quite sincere. And who knows what Trump really thinks? When a congenital liar surrounds himself with sycophantic liars, he can easily lose radio contact with reality.
No, it is the elected Republicans who are lying with open eyes, out of fear or cynicism, who have the most to atone for. With the health of U.S. democracy at stake, their excuses are disgraceful.
From “The Party of Lincoln” to “The Party of Overthrowing the Constitution”. RepubliQans are rudderless – adrift in a sea of lies, deception and Kremlin talking points.
Sad.
Deja vu all over again …
Liz Cheney is a solid right winger with whom I disagree about almost everything but I have to give her credit for standing up to Trump and the lying liars of the crazed GOP. I liked the part where she said she would do everything possible to keep Trump out of the Oval Office.
Cheney and a number of other sane Republicans are threatening to start a third party. I sincerely hope the Republicans implode as it would take the wind out of their gerrymandered sails.
By the way, Vice News produced a documentary on the Republican Party in Texas. It is fascinating. Anyone with time should watch it.https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/thursday-may-13-2021/609d6607b5eeaf56b92d753b
The real question is whether this dedication to mendacity will have any affect on the electorate. A huge number of Americans voted for Trump despite ample evidence of his corruption and incompetence. This group is now being bombarded by the message that the Biden administration is Communist, responsible for high gas prices, and leading the country into a sad morass of immorality. Meanwhile legislative attempts to curtail voting in places where there is democratic support proceed without anyone feeling that there is a problem with limitations on voting. Given the solid gerreymandering of congressional districts, it is highly probable that Biden’s mid-term elections will not go the way he wants.
Thus the Big Lie and its followers will win based on the Big Lie unless the opposition can weaponize the Big Lie against its perpetrators. How can this be done? Voters for Trump accepted the idea that he was personally responsible for a good economy prior to the pandemic, and that he was innocent of illegal activity with regard to Ukraine, his taxes, his personal dealings with sexual immorality, ….I grow tired. I see no way to stamp out this fire, which threatens the foundation of our republic.
Yep. You should hear some of my students argue exactly these things. They get it from their parents and the right wing “news.”
Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse and commented:
Trump’s Big Lie and the support of many in the Republican Party is a serious threat to U. S. Democracy.
The prophet Isaiah said, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.”
If Traitor Trump and his willing MAGA minions get away with calling “evil good and good evil”, who will be willing to step up and fight to defend the U.S. Constitution against Trump’s Big Lie? Will you stay home and pray/hope that Trump’s MAGA Storm Troopers don’t come knocking on your door.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” — Martin Niemöller
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists
Republicans reap what they have sown. Let’s face it, they have been the party of inequality for decades. Breaking from the extremist cult does not make any of them right.
Bingo
Oh may they reap what they have sown, those by Agent Orange owned.
They foster inequality, and care not for the polity.
Their role as receivers is to submit, and frankly, they don’t give a fig.
This poem is entitled “When in Rome in the Late Stages of the Empire”
I disagree with the author’s contention that The Big Lie isn’t as bad as fascist propaganda. The Big Lie IS fascist propaganda.
Somewhere between amusing and horrifying to watch liberals fall for committed warmonger Liz Cheney (daughter of war criminal Darth Cheney) who not only vote with Trump over 90% of the time, but voted for him in both 2016 and 2020 just because she’s now saying “Orange Man Bad”.
Meanwhile, you have yet to utter a peep about Israel bombing residential buildings and media buildings (including the offices of the Associated Press), or Israeli mobs rampaging through Palestinian businesses a la Kristalnacht and invading Palestinian homes and terrorizing residents.
History will not be kind to those who joined in the easy chorus of the millions speaking out about Trump as if that’s a daring act, while staying silent as a U.S. ally commits genocide in broad daylight.
Liberals didn’t “fall” for anything. Did you “fall” for Trump when you pointed out that Trump was opposed to NAFTA? Does that mean that you approved of Trump ripping migrant children from their mothers and you approved of Trump’s ugly racist statements against Black Lives Matters and Trump’s support of the “good people” in the white supremacist movement? Why does every post you make have to be so ugly and nasty toward progressives and yet you go out of your way to defend Trump?
With regards to Israel-Palestine tragedy, there has been more criticism of Israel by Democrats than at any time in history.
History will not be kind to those who joined in the easy chorus of the millions speaking out against those terrible Jews in Israel as if that is a daring act, while staying silent while a US ally – President Trump’s best pal Putin — was killing tens of thousands of Ukraines.
“Some 13,000 people have been killed, a quarter of them civilians, and as many as 30,000 wounded in the war in eastern Ukraine since it broke out in April 2014, the United Nations says.
The estimated toll includes more than 3,300 civilian deaths, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a document dated February 25 and provided to RFE/RL the same day.
It comes as the simmering conflict between Russia-backed separatists and government forces approaches its sixth year, with little progress toward the implementation of a Western-brokered cease-fire and political-settlement deal known as the Minsk Accords.
“OHCHR estimates the total number of conflict-related casualties in Ukraine…at 40,000-43,000” from April 14, 2014 to January 31, 2019, the statement said, including “12,800-13,000 killed.”
I have seen 100x more criticism of Israel this week by Democrats than I ever saw from you during the Trump years when Putin was Trump’s favorite ally.
Is it okay when Russian Christians do awful things, but not okay when Israeli Jews do it? Where is your criticism of the genocides of the Kurds when you were defending Trump’s pal in Syria?
Israel deserves much criticism this week. But having it come from people who don’t criticize genocide committed by non-Jews or Putin is pretty awful and suggests that this is about hating Israel more than any concern with helping the Palestinians.
Lying- hypocrisy-GOP, all the same
Alternet posted, 101 GOP members of Congress who claim to be pro-life and pro-family voted against the pregnant workers fairness act (even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supported the bill). Eighteen of the “no” voters identified themselves as from one religion, it’s the one whose leaders are most influential in politicking against women’s rights.
Not surprisingly, not one of the aforementioned 18 is from the northeast. They tend to be from the central states where their religion’s state Conferences have the most clout in the capitols.
“Believing” foundational lies is indeed the slippery slope. This describes, e.g., soviet govt members and public under Stalin in the ‘30’s– but you have to add the element of fear motivating the sheep. Heroic founders of the revolution were denounced as Nazi collaborators [absurd on its face], while Stalin made quiet deals with Hitler– but Muscovites daily walked by fortress Lubyanka, where their onetime heroes were tortured into confession before execution; farms were destroyed and whole villages force-marched to Siberian mines in the name of collectivization and industrialization. Same pattern of fear-violence evident in every totalitarian takeover. And the rest of the world were neither suckers nor liars, just turned a blind eye to keep that power on their side.
Yes, it all starts with lies and truth-blurring. But stoking fear is the thing to keep one’s eye on. Putting $$ in middle/ working class pockets and arresting the rich-poor-gap spiral would go a long way toward tamping it down.
“Fear”, the conservative churches could “tamp” down the lie that Christianity is under attack. But, they won’t because it doesn’t serve the interests of the wealthy, like Charles Koch. Conservative priests could stop their political arm, the state Catholic Conferences from promoting the GOP, whose politicians increase income equality. Individuals in conservative faiths could publicly denounce the legal efforts of groups like the Napa Institute, the Federalist Society and the First Liberty Institute which establish the U.S. as a theocracy of the right wing.
More of the religious who are already organized to “do good” could join with groups like Pastors for Texas Children. They could organize to bring down the networks of wealthy social Darwinists.
The same women who saw no child sexual abuse in their churches will continue to see nothing because it enables them to do nothing.
increase income inequality