He added:
Trump’s statements are baseless and misleading. It is not just, as many (though not enough) news organizations reported, that Trump provided no evidence for this. There simply isn’t any evidence for it. It isn’t real."
The Atlantic
In 2016, this is a huge lie about the basic American process of selecting our government, and it is not only easily refuted, it was immediately refuted.
That however also is different from the recent past. News media did not call a President or president-elect a liar, and they did not note in headlines to the very story of what he said, that he had provided no evidence at all.
But after the campaign, this lie is not a surprise. America is about to be governed by an administration that lies as a matter of course. It deceives in every way possible. This kind of lie however is transparent, to the country and to the world.
Some part of the country--perhaps half--seems inclined to believe these lies. There is no limit to the foul lies spewed across the Internet that this administration in waiting is willing to embrace.
This pathological lying, beyond any sane politics, is a chief source of the shame that many of us are feeling at the outcome of this election, and how we look to the rest of the world, to history and to ourselves.
Of course, this could be a political diversion instead of the usual projection. Even though the feds have announced that no foreign hacking is evident, the FBI has proven untrustworthy in this matter. Could there be nervousness about the recounts? There is some argument in the media about how tactical or strategic Trump's lies are, or are they deeply pathological. Whatever mixture of the two is involved in these specific lies, the pattern of lying is paramount.
The ascendance of G.W. Bush to the presidency in 2000 was a national tragedy. Some of us realized it would be, but in his campaign Bush lied in ways that could not be refuted. He said he was against foreign intervention and "nation-building." He said he took climate change seriously and would address it. Then he invaded Iraq and not only prevented the US from joining the world community in figuring out how to address climate change, his administration stifled climate science as much as it could.
Those who thought there was no difference between Bush and Al Gore were naive and self-deluded. But this year, national and world media made it crystal clear, over and over, that Trump is a liar. Some analyzes said that nearly 3/4 of his statements during campaign speeches were lies. (In the two tweets above, there are at least 6 lies made or implied.) Over a period of months, it was made loud and clear that his suicidal policies are built on pernicious lies.
That's a source of the shame that is upon us. Persistent lies backed by power drive out facts, truth, reality. That's what dark ages are about: the rule of ignorance, the disappearance of a common ground of reality and truth, the shadows falling over our time.
Be kind, be useful, be fearless.
No comments:
Post a Comment