The GOP's Limitless Lying Endangers America
The "just say things" strategy emerges once again about the attack on Paul Pelosi
Time was, listening to the endless stream of fantasies spun within the conservative news bubble just triggered jaw-dropping disbelief for reality-based Americans.
Think of Rush Limbaugh in 2011 attacking President Obama for sending 100 American troops to stop the Lord's Resistance Army, a Christian terrorist organization of murderous rapists and child sex traffickers. Limbaugh revealed nothing about this designated terrorist group other than that they were Christian, then ranted that Obama had sent troops to “wipe out Christians.” That lie helped push the other lie that Obama was a secret Muslim waging war on the Christian world. Or when Limbaugh said that fears about Hurricane Irma hitting Florida in 2017 was a “liberal hoax” to push the “climate change agenda;” days later, Limbaugh fled the state to save himself from that supposed liberal hoax.
This goes way beyond Limbaugh. Republicans argued that gay marriage would destroy “traditional” marriage and undermine the state’s interest in couples having children; in a 2013 civil case, the judge destroyed that argument when the conservative plaintiff’s lawyer said it by asking a single question: How? “Your honor, my answer is, I don’t know,” the lawyer replied. “I don’t know.” You can lie on Fox, but not in court.
Of course, there are classics like tax cuts pay for themselves, Democrats increase deficits while Republicans cut them, mass seizures of drugs at the border prove that drugs aren’t being stopped at the border (Only under Democratic presidents though.)
Or the voting fraud canard. That one has reared its head for many years in every national election that Republicans have lost. Donald Trump said it in 2012 when Senator Mitt Romney lost to Obama, and so did plenty of other Republicans. Why? David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, explained it this way: “Republicans have been fleeced and exploited and lied to by as conservative entertainment complex,” which Frum had previously said “immerses their audience in a total environment of pseudo-facts and disinformation.”
That lie was always just annoying until 2020, when Trump - a man who has never in his life publicly admitted to having lost anything, always declaring a negative outcome was the result of fraud - turned the “massive voter fraud” lie into a weapon. The lies led to the January 6 insurrection, and the ever-growing assault by the GOP against democracy itself. But there is always one question they can never answer: Why has no one ever been charged in this supposed gigantic fraud conspiracy? Sure, there have been criminal cases here and there, involving a handful of both Democrats and Republicans. But in each of the states that Trump insisted had been overrun by fraud, most district attorneys are all Republicans. Why are none of them bringing criminal cases? Why aren’t they even sitting grand juries to investigate? Simple: As everyone outside the bubble knows, the Big Lie is a lie, spun to undermine the election. Or as Frum put it in 2018, “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism, they will abandon democracy.”
I could use up thousands of words on the “just say things” strategy - the GOP has used it for climate change, secret FBI cabals, Obamacare, Syria, Benghazi, Vince Foster (remember him?), and on and on and on - but let’s focus on just the latest obscenity: The MAGA cultist’s attempted murder of Paul Pelosi, husband of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
The story about this attack is that this deluded perpetrator, David DePape, had been spewing GOP conspiracies online for years, including many from its base of QAnon cultists. He was a fan of the top Big Lie proponent, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell. He said any journalist who denied the Trump’s voter fraud lie “should be dragged straight out into the street and shot.” His postings and links attacked the January 6 Commission as “the Democrat FARCE Commission.” He posted an illustration of Hillary Clinton as a zombie dining on human flesh (Crazy as it seems, this is part of the QAnon orthodoxy.) He ranted against gun control, saying “You no longer have rights. Your basic human rights hinder Big Brothers ability to enslave and control you in a complete and totalizing way.” He posted transphobic memes, defenses of Trump, and was a believer that COVID vaccines and face masks were a conspiracy among an unidentified elite to murder people.
In the rational world, all of this underscores the reality that this man was part of MAGA and QAnon. It raises significant issues about the GOP’s recklessness through its endless, extreme lies about Pelosi, with the party and its cable supporters claiming she is a communist and a traitor out to destroy the America she hates. It is another reflection of how the GOP lies are radicalizing the base, spurring violence by extremists whose constant diet of delusions has already led to the assault on the Capitol, a shooting at the FBI’s Cincinnati office, a Pennsylvania man arrested after posting promises on Gab that he would murder FBI agents, and so on.
But the extremists and GOPrs trapped in the conservative “entertainment as news” bubble know none of this. No, the Democrats are to blame not only for the attack on Pelosi, but also accused of hypocrisy when DePape was locked up.
Take a look at this article on the Fox News website. There is one quick throwaway line - not even a whole sentence - that DePape had been “described on Twitter” as a right-wing extremist. Nothing about what DePape wrote, nothing about his connections to QAnon. But in the rest of that very sentence, Fox says DePape has also been described on Twitter as a nudist who sold handmade jewelry. Who lived in Berkeley! Fox did everything it could to communicate, “This is one of those hippy, nudist Democrats!” And that lie quickly appeared on Twitter from conservative tweeters.
The rest of the Fox article is a marvel. Again, before mentioning anything about what DePape himself wrote, Fox noted that he “had ties” to a “Berkeley nudist activist” named Gypsy Taub. (Reality: DePape once had a bedroom in a house where Taub, her husband, and their kids lived. He hadn’t lived with them for a long time.) But with the quick weasel words “had ties,” Fox launches into a six-sentence journey into Taub’s life, her background, her conviction for stalking a 14-year-old boy, and a lawsuit she filed.
What does that have to do with DePape? Absolutely nothing, but it allowed Fox to blow lots of smoke and disguise what really happened. Just before the end of the story, there was a cursory mention that DePape wrote online about “‘censorship,’ ‘Big Brother',’ and pedophiles.” Nice and bland, no details, nothing to underscore that this man was a full-on MAGA maniac.
Did the propaganda work? You bet. Most of the comments to the article say either that the attack was a lie, or a Democrat did it. “Another far left diversion perfectly timed,’’ one commenter wrote. “How convenient. Paint a nudist hippy who sells jewelry in a LIBERAL city as a far-right extremist?” Fox mission accomplished.
On Fox’s “news” shows, the deceptions were even worse. The assassination attempt was the fault of the Democrats because, you see, they are soft on crime. And if they were tough on crime, it wouldn’t have happened. Fox contributor Leo Terrell said the attack should be “a wakeup call” to Democrats about crime, but “they won’t listen.”
And if you missed that this should be considered in the election, well, you knew that from the very moment the story broke. “This can happen anywhere,” host Bill Hemmer told the audience minutes after the world heard of the attack. “Crime is random, and that’s why it’s such a significant part of this election story.” Of course, this crime was not random. But Fox had its talking points, and it would stick with the “Democrats responsible because soft on crime” nonsense all day.
Think about this for a minute. DePape had no criminal record. He was, in the words of the GOP, a “law-abiding American” up to the second he broke into Pelosi’s home - just like all mass shooters are law-abiding just before they pull the trigger. DePape was the very type of person the GOP would urge to get armed.
So, how did this have anything to do with violent crime rates having gone up 6% in California? If it had gone up 4%, or 2%, or 0%, would DePape not have committed the crime against a political enemy? Should California open a pre-crime unit like in the movie Minority Report so that law-abiding DePape could be arrested before the attempted murder? The argument makes no sense. What exactly was Fox trying to put forward? Nothing. As always, they were just saying things - illogical, irrational things - that would flow over their viewers like calm, warm water, allowing them to unthinkingly decide the Democrats were responsible for the attack by a MAGA cultist.
The efforts to blame Democrats didn’t stop with just that. There was the wink about the Fox lie that Democrats are defunding police to pay for social workers. Lisa "Kennedy" Montgomery said on the Fox program “The Five",” “it's a really scary time, and especially in California, where so much money goes to social services." She also found a way to blame Biden. “The President promised to bring down the tenor of political discourse in this country," she lied. "That hasn't happened." Oh, and it’s a mental health problem that might have been addressed if Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and other Democrats focused on it. “They really have failed the mentally ill,” Montgomery said, “Especially those who are violently mentally ill in that state and they have not created appropriate systems to identify and treat people like this and it's really sad that after the fact we're hearing about all of these symptoms, when you know, with all that money and all of those resources, someone like this should have been identified and treated before something this tragic happens." She didn’t mention, of course, that Republicans have repeatedly voted down bills to improve access to mental health treatment - twice this year alone.
Probably the most audacious lie, spun with lots of grievance, came from Jesse Watters, anchor on his eponymous show. Not only was the hammer attack no big deal, (not disclosing that Pelosi underwent brain surgery as a result), but hey! Since Democrats let everyone out of jail, why was DePape being held? Unequal treatment!
“A lot of people get hit with hammers,” Watters oozed. “And a lot of times, they're out on bail the next day and it's a simple assault charge."
“I don't know why this guy is being treated differently,’’ he continued. “He's facing, what? Attempted homicide. He's in prison right now…I don't know why this guy is getting all of a sudden special treatment or different treatment because the victim was so high profile.”
Any proof? Any evidence that someone who breaks into a home and assaults an elderly man with a weapon, cracking his skull, is always released? Of course not. That was multiple crimes - breaking and entering, felony assault, attempted murder, elder abuse. How often are people who commit so many felonies released from jail? Try as I might, I can’t find any data on it because it’s such a ridiculous question. Watters doesn’t even have to name a single example - he couldn’t - because he knows his audience. He must just say things, and his viewers will accept it no matter how illogical or unsupported.
The Republicans have become like five-year-olds, always denying responsibility for anything that happens on their watch or because of their actions, always blaming the Democrats. The 9/11 attack that took place under Bush after a member of his Administration had said Clinton had been too focused on Osama bin Laden? Bill Clinton’s fault. The Great Recession that began under Bush? Clinton’s fault. And Jimmy Carter’s. And Barack Obama’s (they said all of that.) The January 6 insurrection? Antifa and Black Lives Matter - who are all Democrats, of course - are responsible, disguised as Trump supporters. On and on it goes, a never-ending spew of nonsense by a party that wants to claim not only that it never makes any errors, but also that if it ever loses an election, it’s because of fraud.
A country can’t survive like this, or certainly a democracy can’t. It is fine for the two parties to have different political philosophies, but instability will worsen so long as the Republicans are encouraged by the media bubble and their political leaders to live in a fantasy world. But maybe that’s the point. Democracy is no longer Republicans’ friend. So now, it seems, lying is the best way to undermine it.
