I'm convinced that one day in the future, people will be studying how it was that the Left was so successful in manipulating language and redefining words.  How was it that they were able to lie to the American people, while at the same time appearing not to lie, leaving them with no shred of doubt that they were being told the truth?  Their ability to lie, and get away with doing so, is like a superhuman comic book power.  They use this power with the same level of ease with which most of us breathe.

"Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth" are words attributed to Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda for the Nazi Party.  These same words could just as easily have been spoken by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, or any of the Kims of North Korea.  The official state-approved newspaper in the USSR was called Pravda, and it was the sole "authoritative" source for "news" and "information" — or propaganda — available to the average Soviet citizen.

"Pravda" translates to English as "truth."

Telling the "truth" through lies is not a recent phenomenon, but it is something the Democrat Left has mastered to great effect by employing demagogic tactics that exploit people's emotions and built-in biases.  It is not difficult to observe this phenomenon.  When you appeal specifically and predominantly to people's emotions, their ability to critically analyze the issue is all too often nonexistent.  The heart wholly overrides the brain.

Now, does the right lie?  Of course!  Are conservatives perfect?  Of course not!  They are human.  Humans, by their nature, are flawed.  Ironically, though, the fact that they more often tend to engage in expressing unpleasant and honest truths, the truths that people do not want to hear, such as the consequences of a spiraling debt, welfare entitlement programs, and mass illegal immigration, makes them less likeable to many people, who recoil when confronted with unpleasant truths and simply prefer to dismiss conservatives, and Republicans in general, as a bunch of old fuddy-duddies.

So how does the Left lie to mischaracterize?  It's oftentimes subtle, but it comes as follows:

If you believe in legal, controlled immigration and want to prevent illegal crossings by supporting border walls, then you are anti-immigrant and a xenophobe.

If you oppose programs such as affirmative action because you believe that blacks are just as capable at succeeding or failing as whites, it doesn't matter.  You hate black people and are therefore a racist.

If you believe that welfare programs should be used more as a helping hand, for when one truly needs them, rather than as a perpetual handout, making one a permanent ward of the state, it doesn't matter.  You hate the poor.

Dare challenge the basic premise of the "gender pay-gap" by stating that the "77 cents on the dollar" average is not based on an objective apples-to-apples comparison — and voilà: you are now a women-hater!

If you believe that men who self-identify as women shouldn't be allowed to compete in women's sports because it would be unfair for women, it does not matter!  You are a transphobe.

You may not have a problem personally with "marriage" defined between two members of the same sex.  However, what if, God forbid, you still adhere to the biblical definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman?  Guess what: you're a homophobe.

"But I have gay friends!" you say?  "It doesn't matter; you hate gay people!"

Dare to challenge the idea of "man-made" climate change by bringing to bear empirical evidence suggesting that climate has always changed, and often to extremes, throughout our planet's history...irrespective of atmospheric CO2 levels.  If you were able to complete that sentence before being labeled a "climate denier," or far worse, then congratulations!

"Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth" is a lesson that the Democrat Left has mastered to perfection, and leftists have done so with the enthusiastic support of the vast majority of national "news" outlets, becoming a truly formidable force in winning hearts and minds.  Most of us understand full well the consequences of political ideologies when taken to their radical extremes.  However, I can't believe that we are living in a time where entire populations continue to allow themselves to be lied to.  If there's another case to be made with regard to historical ignorance, and repeating the same mistakes, then this might be a good place to start.

Can one be dishonest on the right just like on the Left?  Yes!  Then why do I focus most of my overall criticism on the Left?  Because the right doesn't hold the megaphones of culture, nor on mainstream political discourse.  It isn't the right that has transformed many of our universities into indoctrination centers for radical, leftist ideology — with the peddling of "social justice," "safe spaces," and "intersectionality" — where conservatives, either students or guest speakers, are often silenced by radical mobs of brainwashed students who will sooner set school property on fire because they cannot tolerate ideas that in any way challenge their rigid orthodoxy.  Neither does the right hold the reins in the entertainment industry, where the lines between storytelling and "woke" "identity politics" have now been hopelessly blurred.

The Left is omnipresent, while the right, in contrast, is Bigfoot or the Chupacabra.  In other words, one cannot simply go about life pretending the Left doesn't exist, as its creeping influence is undoubtedly everywhere!

In 1710, in an essay for The Examiner, Jonathan Swift wrote:

Besides, as the vilest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has his believers; and it often happens, that if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no farther occasion for it.  Falsehood flies, and Truth comes limping after it; so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late, the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect.

It is going to take more than just simply telling others, "You're being lied to, and I'm telling you the truth!"  A possible antidote against the relentless onslaught of fabricated and highly processed "truths" might be found in gently encouraging others to view the world without their ideological lenses — at least for a moment, and just long enough to see the clear picture, seeing through critical eyes without being blinded by emotion.

Begin with those closest to you.  Avoid getting frustrated — I know that's not at all easy to do — and encourage them to take the time to give serious thought to an issue.  Any issue.  And give them time to become better aware of their own proclivity toward bias, rather than being so quick to succumb to knee-jerk, hysterical responses, which are the very reaction that the Left, along with its acolytes in the "Pravda" media, aims to elicit.