Lying Liars and Other Destroyers of Civilization
We’re drowning in a deluge of lies, right-wing propaganda, and utter nonsense
Back in 2003 comedian and ex-Senator Al Franken wrote a witty and infuriating book titled Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Even further back, in 1978, Sissela Bok wrote an influential book on that topic titled “Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life.” There are also many other print and Internet offerings that focus on lying and its ramifications.
Clearly, the topic of lying is both potent and timeless. It always provides plenty of great subject matter — an endless supply, in fact — since it’s a universal problem that apparently will always be with us… and will always create vast difficulties as well.
But this topic has never been more important than it is today. The reason I’m focusing (again) on the issue of lying is that the sheer volume and intensity and insolent chutzpah of public lying has gone through the roof over the past 7 years — and the emerging results are pretty damn ugly.
Not coincidentally, this time period saw the rise of Trumpism. In 2015 Donald Trump announced his presidential run, then very surprisingly won the 2016 election (but not the popular vote). Then, as president, he proceeded to take a giant wrecking ball to our democracy, many of our social norms, and our long-established presidential norms.
Over the course of his four-year term — and ever since — he absolutely shattered many Americans’ image of how a president (and current ex-president) should act, and did untold damage to our nation, our morality, our government, and the rule of law. And all along, through this entire awful period, his primary modus operandi has been — you guessed it — lying.
We’re talking about lying continually; lying about anything that upset him or got in his way; lying to ingratiate himself with his MAGA followers; lying about his many detractors; lying about his “accomplishments”; lying about his weak pandemic response; lying about his political “enemies”/RINOs/Democrats; lying at an unheard-of, totally mind-boggling rate — especially for an American president, our nation’s foremost “leader”. (According to harried fact-checkers, Trump lied or distorted the truth well over 30,000 times while president. This amounted to an average of at least 20 lies or half-truths every day for 4 long years!)
In fact, Trump lied so prodigiously and so effectively that there’s no question, at all, that he’s both a pathological liar and an utterly amoral human being.
So why does this matter? Why am I dredging up all this old, ugly news, and opening up nasty, festering wounds?
Well, one major reason is that it is NOT “old news” at all. (I dearly wish it was!) Donald Trump hasn’t gone anywhere or quieted down, not at all, and he keeps inserting himself and his lies, over and over again, into our politics and courts and social fabric. His lies and bizarre provocations just keep on coming, and keep creating horrendous effects.
The other reason I’m writing this now is even more important. This subject — public lying — matters because the truth matters, and anyone who says it doesn’t is living in la-la land. All we have to do is look around our society, observe what a God-awful, disintegrating mess it’s now become, and recall in detail what actually happened over the past 7 years — and then it’s crystal clear that what we’re witnessing and experiencing today is the devastating effects of massive public deception and continual lying.
Constant lying and deception isn’t “normal”, it’s “MAD Magazine”-worthy and SICK
We now live in a bitterly, insanely divided country where the political left and right are literally at each other’s throats, baying for blood; a country where our most basic institutions, such as voting and news media, are rapidly being undermined and demolished. It’s a country where getting any kind of consensus about what is real and what’s really happening in our nation is now almost impossible. How crazy is that?!
And all this lying and vitriol matters — a lot — because we Americans are drowning in a massive deluge of lies and made-up, hateful B.S. This constant deluge of irrational crap is emanating not just from Trump, but also from a huge swath of deluded and poorly-informed Americans who take their cues from him and other loudmouth demagogues (and Fox “News”, of course).
Plus, this enthusiastic public embrace of deception and over-the-top partisan propaganda matters (negatively) because all this lying and manipulative, overwhelming nonsense is driving us all bonkers and totally undermining our society and our morality.
Or rather, I should say that it’s driving the remaining “normies” crazy: those of us who are fed up with the lies and B.S., and still have a functioning moral compass, and haven’t mentally given in like the multitude of “lying liars” and far-right “sheeple” who’ll do and say anything to get their way.
But I have to say: Living through this unending barrage of amoral, idiotic crap is… excruciating.
Today we have an internet-addicted citizenry that buys into all the social media hype and outright lies, and “believes” it’s well-informed, but is actually poorly-informed, hyper-partisan, and frequently semi-delusional.
Here’s a measure of just how much our society has already been corrupted and undermined by this epidemic of lying: When I bring up this topic many people “go blank”, or roll their eyes and act like it’s simply a “given” — something to be ruefully accepted and then basically ignored. But that reaction itself shows how far gone we are, as a society. Widespread lying is NOT acceptable, and should never be acceptable.
Guess what? Constant deceit is not normal. It just… isn’t. It’s both sick and sickening. It’s truly “crazy-making”, and should never be normalized or branded our “new normal”.
I’d liken our situation to a devastating 5-alarm fire, where people should be desperately trying to save themselves and escape before the building’s total destruction and collapse — but instead, we’re gawking, texting, and lolling about aimlessly, peering at our damn devices, and acting as if nothing major or awful is happening.
But I must insist: Our social situation IS awful, and it IS major — and the sooner we realize it and work together to DO something about it, the better off we’ll be.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration — at all — to say that we’re embroiled in a tremendous, ongoing “battle” for the soul of America. It’s truly that serious. And the cost of losing this “battle” will be the dissolution and destruction of almost everything we depend on and cherish as “civilization”, and the unbearable loss of cooperative, open-minded, civilized behavior.
How far-right media outlets pioneered constant lying and overt manipulation
Long before Donald Trump crashed onto our political scene, lying and overt manipulation of the public had accelerated with the rise of far-right talk radio, which in turn led to the rise and vast power of Fox “News” and other right-wing media outlets. Over time, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Anne Coulter, Tucker Carlson — and the rest of their ilk — have done massive damage to our nation, because they gradually replaced accurate news and reasoned debate with demagoguery, insults, rage-stoking, race-baiting, innuendo, and actual “fake news”.
This manipulative, demagogic style of broadcasting has been going on for 30+ years, and it’s produced very dangerous, incendiary results. Now we’ve reached the utterly absurd and catastrophic point where at least 35% of Americans receive entirely different “news” than the rest of us, and believe in a completely different social “reality” than most of us.
Our sociopolitical situation has become so dire that it’s now totally untenable — and it all ultimately comes back to deliberate lying and devious partisan manipulation. All of it!
Today we have an internet-addicted citizenry that buys into all the social media hype and outright lies, and believes it’s well-informed, but is actually poorly-informed, hyper-partisan, and frequently semi-delusional — due mainly to blind belief in rampant online lies, disinformation, and deceptive nonsense. (QAnon, anyone?)
How Donald Trump super-charged the right-wing “lie machine”
In other recent articles I’ve written about the intense downward spirals now engulfing America. One of the most potent and dangerous of these spirals has been created and amplified by Donald Trump and his enablers’ continual lying. Together they’ve successfully dragged millions upon millions of Americans into his vengeful “alternate reality”, built on a grotesque foundation of lies, paranoia, prejudice, and greed.
Without question, continual public lying creates a vicious cascade effect, an intensifying downward spiral of deception, negativity, hate, and violence. Here’s how this Trump-inspired downward spiral has unfolded in practice over the past several years:
In the lead-up to the 2020 election, Trump persistently dissed mail-in voting and also pushed two hideously anti-democratic falsehoods that greatly undermined voter trust: first, that the only way he could lose was through widespread voter fraud, and second, that the only legitimate result would be him winning. With just these two nonsensical/delusional assertions he completely undercut the entire basis for voting and holding any elections at all!
And amazingly, many, many Americans bought into these flagrant lies — which were actually overt, totally obvious power plays. He inflamed intense distrust and fear in his supporters, totally undermined the validity of the coming election, and set the stage for massive popular resistance and potential rebellion if he supposedly (that is, “fraudulently”) lost. All of these moves were lifted directly from the wannabe tyrant’s handbook.
But none of his devious, anti-democratic machinations would have “stuck”, ultimately, without direct support and constant fawning repetition from two sources: a large portion of the Republican party, including many current office-holders, and the vast media reach of far-right radio and television.
Although Trump was the originator and primary expounder of his devious election fraud hoax, his ongoing lies and the entire vast hoax-in-motion were quickly adopted wholesale by his supporters and right-wing media sycophants… and from then on, the die was cast.
A formidable, enthusiastic right-wing “hoax machine” quickly developed, which helped him solidify his authoritarian dreams and kept his endless (baseless) challenges to the voting process going strong. Even today, long after he left office, this compliant — and complicit — multimedia/Republican “hoax machine” remains fully intact and powerful. Despicably, it’s still supporting and spreading the “Big Lie”, and continues to function as Trump’s mouthpiece and willing servant.
Bottom line: Trump, his lies, and his vast election-fraud hoax are winning out over the real truth among our right-leaning citizens and legislators — bigtime.
Our nation is in the fight of its life now, and the outcome of this fight will determine whether the U.S. continues as a functional representative democracy — or disintegrates into chaos and violent conflict.
Note to America: This is how it always works with lying and deceitful manipulation. The more we publicly lie or accept lying, the worse the eventual societal results.
And our downward spiral is still intensifying…right now. Election denial/lies just keep going and going like a crazed Energizer bunny — and most Republican politicians are so afraid of upsetting Trump’s MAGA base that they’re embracing all this deception and manipulation… which led to a flurry of lying, seditious, wacko politicians running for red-state offices and winning their primaries… which solidifies Trump’s Big Lie… which further undermines our democracy and confidence in our voting systems… which is paving the way for yet another super-contentious election this November… which will likely lead to more violence-promoting lies and actual post-election violence… which further endangers the stability and survival of our democratic Republic.
As the childhood rhyme puts it, “Round and round and round it goes, and where it will end, nobody knows.”
But we DO already know how it will end: not well.
That is, unless we strongly, STRONGLY intervene.
My wise partner has closely observed our society’s rapid decline, also, and several times she’s repeated her sad belief that “You just can’t win against liars”. Both of us believe and know that our nation is in the fight of its life now, and the outcome of this fight will determine whether the U.S. continues as a (semi)functional representative democracy — or quickly devolves into chaos and violent conflict.
The reason it’s SO incredibly hard to win against liars is simple: They can make shit up endlessly, create devious “alternate realities”, deflect, deny, ridicule, slander, and generally have many, many avenues of creative deception open to them. After all, if you have no moral qualms about lying and deceiving people, and no interest in telling the truth, it’s easy to obfuscate, cover-up, invent nonsense, abuse our legal system (Trump’s specialty!), or blatantly deny the truth.
Sticking to the truth, it turns out, is much harder and also much more limiting, since the truth is singular and is just… itself — while lies and fabrications can be almost infinitely varied and numerous. Of course, that’s why our justice system tries really, really hard to eliminate the option of lying in court; such lying is itself a very serious crime, perjury.
But outside our courtrooms — everywhere else, in other words — the lying liars basically have carte blanche (mainly due to our misguided belief in total and excessive “free speech”). They are “free” to manipulate, lie, and trample the truth — and usually face no serious limits or consequences. None.
That’s why our society is now in the fight of its life. It will take a massive, sustained effort on the part of our Department of Justice and the FBI to indict, try, and convict Trump and his many lie-addled enablers.
Far-right media will scream, pout, justify, accuse, and lie like crazy, and the MAGA hordes will scream bloody murder and perhaps get quite violent — but if our nation is to survive, the DOJ and FBI must persist and bring the worst of these devious, destructive liars to justice.
That looks like the only way, at this late juncture, that our society can effectively defend itself and survive.
