The Litmus Test Has to Be LYING
Before we can get to policy, we have to get to reality. We have to call out the RightWingRepublican nonstop lying. Democracy doesn't work with constant lying. Fascism requires it.
Elon Fucking Musk.
Has there ever been anything like this?
Leaving aside his current illegal, unconstitutional God-King role in the United States government for a moment.
Leaving aside that he appears to have bought himself a Speed-Grab-and-Rampage through the Executive Branch Supermarket for less than $300 million dollars.
(I guess he got it cheap, off a desperate, deranged, corrupt, criminal, and surely Kompromat-ed Republican president—abetted by the Republican Congress, Republican Supreme Court, and Republican Party writ large—with a hat tip to the media!)
… Rather, …
I want to focus briefly on a major theme of the Trump Decade:
ALL THE GODDAMN LYING.
Apartheid-Boy Elon is a nonstop liar.
Musk bought a major political / social platform before the election, and HE TELLS LIES ON IT ALL DAY.
(Including racist and anti-immigrant imagery and lies that no scholars of propaganda or Nazism or lynching are confused about.)
For years I’ve been saying that the most important number from Trump’s first term—and the Trump Decade in general—is 30,573.
Thirty thousand, five hundred seventy-three.
This is the number of false and misleading statements made by Trump during his first term.
An average of about 21 FALSE or misleading statements EVERY DAY in office, according to a tally by The Washington Post.
RightWingRepublicans should not expect any Americans to ever take seriously, respect, or accept, a president or party that lies constantly.
Democracy don’t work that way, dudebros.
Likewise, Musk lies constantly.
It’s disqualifying.
Lying is incompatible with leadership.
My thing is this:
We don’t even have to discuss policy—if you, or your leader, or your candidate, or your party, or your cable channel, LIE CONSTANTLY, fuck off; it’s poison; you are killing democracy and pushing fascism.
Fascism is first an assault on reality.
I been contemplating this issue since the November. Or more accurately, the question of truth-telling or parrhesia. One thing I have found that Republicans have loved to argue when they are called out on lying is their belief or sincerity. I respond to that by the insistence that there are certain things certain people are expected to know by virtue of their training or position. For example, the Secretary of the Department of Education is required to know who can and cannot legally shut it down. So when Linda McMahon says that she or Trump can unilaterally shut down ED she is lying. Her beliefs to the contrary, however sincere or firmly held, are not relevant.
I define lying as "a deliberate act or statement based on a factual claim that the person knew to be untrue or should have known was untrue." Willful credulity is not a defense against a claim of dishonesty.
The other issue is nonpartisan. In the age of social media we need to all be very cautious about the information we repeat and boost. Spreading lies is a bipartisan activity and I am sorry to say that some of the people and organizations the news media, who should be putting the kibosh on the administrations lies, seem to be gleefully spreading them with nary a fact check. We need to speak the truth boldly in this time, but I think we have a greater responsibility to boldly keep silent, especially when our wish for something to be true is much greater than the evidence at hand.