Lying is an epidemic even worse than COVID.

Our president and his press secretaries seem to lie with every word they say and deny facts that anyone with a pair of eyes can see for himself.

Scientists and doctors, formerly among the most trusted members of our society, lie to foster popular environmental theories and get government grants, or to promote Big Pharma and deter people from effective treatments.

Our news media no longer report the news; they shape the news as instructed.

Here is just a sample of commonly promoted lies starting in 2020.

Covid has a 4% death rate.

Masks will keep us safe from COVID.

COVID vaccines are safe and effective.

Oil and natural gas are going to destroy the planet.

Electric cars are going to save the environment.

Electric cars are safe.

Our justice system is fair for all.

Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation.

Trump stole classified documents.

Boys should compete in girls’ sports.

Men can have babies.

Search engines give honest results.

Protecting Ukraine’s borders is in the interest of the United States.

Our borders are safe and secure.

Israel is guilty of war crimes.

Inflation is under control.

The 2020 Election was the safest and most secure in history.

Lyndsey Stonebridge’s fascinating article in Time from February of this year cited Hannah Arendt, a German-American historian and philosopher who died in 1975.  She lived through the persecution of the Jews starting in the 1930s and often discussed “the big lie.”

She had been interested in how the most outrageous lies get a political hold ever since Nazi lies about the Jews, Communists, and intellectuals drove her from Berlin in 1933 after her arrest by the Gestapo. She wrote her final analysis of the nature of the modern political lying after the publication of the Pentagon Papers revealed the extent to which American lawmakers and bureaucrats had carefully, patiently, painstakingly constructed a fiction about the Vietnam War — a fiction fit enough for other people’s children to die in[.] ...

Lies like this are grandly shameless, blatantly, and obviously fake. Political lying isn’t even lying anymore. We know that you know we are lying, say the politicians, but isn’t that part of the thrill? Tell us the world is made up of more than the mundane fact we are forced to live by, reply many, and yes, of course we will believe you. Anything is better than this[.] ...

[T]he world is complex, shifting, sometimes random, perplexing and bewildering. Politicians have always known that this means the best stories are likely to be those that make some sense of reality.

In other words, we believe the lies, because to disbelieve them, we would have to realize that our entire world is insurmountably corrupt.

What makes this scholarly article so much fun is that Stonebridge is decrying the continuing popularity of Donald Trump in 2024.  His article starts with “[a]s we head into 2024 with Donald Trump as the all but confirmed Republican nominee, any hope that Trump and his rampant lying — seemingly about anything and everything — might retreat into history has clearly become wishful thinking. Mendacity is back in town.”

He continues:

Trump’s outrageous lies are one thing. But what about self-deception? In the realm of politics, Arendt said, perhaps political self-deception is the greatest threat. The self-deceived politician, “loses all contact, not only with his audience but with the real world which will catch up with him.” In another sobering moment, Arendt reflects that perhaps the person who is most likely to be an “an ideal victim of complete manipulation is the President of the United States” themselves. Some Presidents might stake their power on outrageous deceits; but is the President who is deceived about his own beliefs necessarily in the strongest position to win the battle for democracy?

Stonebridge is blind to the possibility that his own world may be upside-down.  What if Trump is telling the truth, the people he supports/worships are lying to him “bigly,” and the president who is deceived is Biden?

Stonebridge has bought the lie that Trump is a self-serving maniac, capable of doing anything.  He prefers this to a reality where a cabal of Soros, China, Iran, tech moguls, and Marxists have conspired to take over everything in our world.  Their control of the media means they can weave their lies of “orange man bad” and portray themselves as the only ones who can save you.

Review my list of lies above.  Note the use of fear — COVID, global warming, the “Far Right” — and the word “safe.”  “We will keep you safe.”

Another liberal, Brian Stelter, also bought the lies about Trump, and wrote in November of last year,

First, the lies aren’t really about the lies. As Anne Applebaum, the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, has observed, “sometimes the point isn't to make people believe a lie — it's to make people fear the liar.” It’s to assert power over reality.

Second, the point is ... to overwhelm the press and the public with so much misinformation and disinformation that democracy can't function. Trump, despite his frontrunner status, is barely fact-checked anymore. He says so much, so wrongly, that fact-checkers are at a supreme disadvantage — just the way his team likes it.

Third, lying is contagious. Neuroscientists have studied how peoples’ brains react when they lie over and over again for personal gain. In short: The more they do it, the easier it gets. The results suggest a “slippery slope” where “small acts of dishonesty escalate into more significant lies,” Dr. Tali Sharot has said.

It’s positively amazing that the authors of these “scholarly” articles are victims of the very groupthink they decry.  Their own leaders lie blatantly because they have no fear.  “We control everything,” they say.  “We’ll throw you in jail for any reason we choose.”  “We control your news.”

What are the current lies?

Joe Biden is running for president in 2024.

Is there anyone on the planet who thinks Joe is competent to be president of the United States for another four years?  When he drops out at the convention “for health reasons,” he will be canonized for his self-sacrifice and “lifelong service to the nation.”

The new RNC will win the 2024 election by ballot-harvesting and poll-watching.

This is the clearest indication that the RINOs remain at the RNC and are part of the cabal.  They’re lying to all of those concerned about election fraud that they will save us.

Far Right Groups are disputing recent elections to disrupt 2024.

The cabal’s greatest fear is that their rampant and shameless election cheating won’t be enough.  Instead, they dishonestly demonize the nationwide movement of election fraud sleuths that has arisen to expose the fraud.

The shameless lies of the 2020s are designed to shift your focus to anything but the fact that our elections are rigged from the top down.  If you don’t believe me, listen to Barack Obama in his speech at Stanford in 2012.

Our only hope is to wholeheartedly support efforts to force fair and honest elections through civil rights litigation all the way to the Supreme Court before November.

If we don’t win this election, we will all be at the mercy of the merciless — forever.

Image via Raw Pixel.