CommentsMY TURN--Every single day, liberals wake up to hear and see some of the worst behavior, lies and misleading claims that have ever existed in our government.
The world looks on and wonders not only how this could happen, but why would people that have demonstrated so many good traits would allow such authoritarian “white trash” to be in control. Trump supporters, including the entire GOP, prove that they are hypocrites by ripping out the complete baseline of the country and lining their pockets for profit. However, Trump has made his narcissistic sociopathic career on con man words and deeds and the Fact Checker is showing that he is continuing to escalate at higher levels so that the American people will be overwhelmed and begin to accept this outrageous behavior as “normal.”
Had any Democrat in office done even 1/1000th of what Trump has stated, the conservatives would have been running down the street, ripping their hair out and screaming that they should be removed. They prove that their single goal of undermining the United States has finally been accomplished as they turn their backs on authoritarian actions and behavior and approve laws that are now considered to be fascist. In their world, everything is based on lies and Trump has turned lying into a profession. Trump was never very bright, in fact, he was considered to be rather low IQ. He learned early on that he could tell anyone just about anything and due to the reputation that his father had established, people would believe him. He made his living on lying. The Republicans don’t care about the lies because it is the pathway to get their agenda shoved down the throats of Americans and they use extremist sources such as Fox/Breitbart/Sinclairs for brainwashing propaganda.
We have seen this behavior in past fascist regimes and the people that supported them. It took only a couple of generations and a lack of information in school books to repeat the hyper-nationalistic attitudes of such horrors as Mussolini and Hitler. These tyrants got away with the brainwashing because people wanted to believe, in the same way that white nationalists, racists, bigots, and sexists want to believe now. The difference in our current time is that we have technology as well as organizations that are keeping track and making attempts at reporting the lies. The best of these groups is Fact Checker, whose diligence and commitment involves following Trump and his Gestapo around and listing each lie and misleading statement that he makes.
When Fact Checker first began to follow Trump’s statements, he had an average of 4.9 lies or misleading claims per day. That was in the first one hundred days since the election results were announced. As we enter 466 days, this number has jumped to an average of 6.5 lies or misleading claims per day. The reason is simple: Trump and his band of Nazis, along with the RNC, many of the Republicans in office and the NRA are being caught in a noose of deceit that is considered to be treasonous. The tighter that the noose gets, the more Trump will throw out as many misdirects as possible. He knows that his followers, as well as the regular news media will chase after each of these lies and take attention away from the true horrors that they have all created.
He Counts on You Being Overwhelmed; It’s How the Brain Works
In June, 2017, I wrote an article addressing this topic: Supporting Trump: The Psychology of the Lie. I included a number of psychological studies and references that explain why people buy-into the lies and how the brain processes an overload of consistent lying. While we initially take the time to analyze, review and decide whether a statement is a lie, being given an onslaught of constant lying causes the brain to stop the analytical process. In the article I include:
To find out why so many lies have become not only acceptable but completely believable by the Trump supporters, you have to delve into how our brains process lies. This is explained in a NYMag.com article:
“Upon first hearing a lie, your brain must accept it as truth. Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has theorized that to do the work of separating truth and lies, our brains first must accept the false statement as if it were true; otherwise, it’s impossible to engage with it. ‘For instance, if someone were to tell us — hypothetically, of course — that there had been serious voter fraud in Virginia during the presidential election, we must for a fraction of a second accept that fraud did, in fact, take place,’ [psychologist, Maria] Konnikova explains. ‘Only then do we take the second step, either completing the mental certification process (yes, fraud!) or rejecting it (what? no way).’”
‘If you hear a lie often enough, it starts to sound true. According to what’s called the ‘illusory truth effect,’ the more you hear a false statement, the truer it starts to sound. This is even true when you should know better. In a fascinating, if disheartening, 2015 study, researchers showed that if people repeated the phrase ‘The Atlantic Ocean is the largest ocean on Earth’ enough times, the Atlantic Ocean did indeed begin to seem like the largest ocean on Earth.’ ”
‘A constant stream of lies becomes so mentally taxing that your brain gives up. ‘It’s called cognitive load,’ Konnikova writes, meaning that “our limited cognitive resources are overburdened.’ Lie detection is difficult work, and your brain can only handle so much.’”
In other words, we have to try to process and digest the lies. This is especially difficult if they appease the inner agenda that is personally felt, as it isn’t distinguished as lies. The secondary action that happens is ‘lying overload’. When we are inundated with so many lies, the brain stops trying to process them and gives up. The assumption at that point is that everything is ‘truth.’”.
This explains why government-controlled media in authoritarian and fascist governments worked so well. In the case of Trump and the GOP, they have their army of misleading and false reporting with the likes of Fox/Breitbart/the Sinclairs and they make use of the fact that most of their conservative base will believe absolutely anything that they spew. In addition, just as Hitler demeaned the reporting of anything that he didn’t like with “Lugenpresse” (false news), Trump has used the same “fake news” chant and his stupid cult followers believe it.
Repeating the Same Lies over and over again: Brainwashing to Believe they are True
There is no point in making any attempt at writing an article with an exact count of lies. As soon as you create a report, the massive number of lies requires that it be updated. This is where The Fact Checker comes into play and they have created an interactive graph that anyone can access to demonstrate the volume of lies that Trump is vomiting forth.
In Trump’s sick and twisted world, he thinks that he is King and that he has the right to do and say anything that he wants and is completely above the law. Like the story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, the Republicans placate him so that they can push through the evil agenda that they have wished for. There is no low that is low enough for any of them and as Fox bleats the lies, the cult supporters drool and grin. They use the same “blame game” for all of their problems by pointing fingers at everyone by white people and when you look back in history, this is a familiar ploy. Every single fascist leader did the same thing and the people proved their idiocy by blindly supporting them.
In the Trump supporter circles, the word “liberal” is being spit out as if it were some form of insult. They lack the very basic understanding that many of the benefits that they have are thanks to the hard work of liberals. Reports are coming in as older conservatives that rely on social security and Medicare ridiculously show that they don’t have a clue that Trump and the GOP are trying to take those away.
We are seeing Gestapo tactics at our borders as children of immigrants that are considered “illegal” are being ripped away from them, sent to other locations and even now almost 1,500 of these children have been “lost”. This, from the party of the so-called “family values”, that scream so loudly when it comes to the topic of abortion! The followers are on social media yelling that it’s ok because these children are “illegal”.
These attitudes are emulating the exact behavior of the Nazi regime when the value of humans, including children, were reduced to the assumption that they were worthless.
Fox has had over forty years to brainwash multiple generations of conservatives and they have become no different than those of the past. Blind belief that everything is everyone else’s fault; selecting one group at a time to prosecute and imprison and then move on to the next.
Transitioning the Horror to Hope
We are already seeing a change in so many of our states as local elections are voting in Democrats and leaving the antiquated Republican dinosaurs in the dust. The number of Republicans that are refusing to sign up for re-election demonstrates that they know they are toast. Add to this the sheer incredible volume of Democrats that have signed up to run for positions; a number that is so great that it has never been seen before….and we are creating a scenario to tip the scales away from the horrors that the GOP and Trump have created and back to common sense, dignity, and truth.
We have learned a lot from this monstrosity of an administration. The main lesson is the number of loopholes in the system as well as the hypocrites on the Republican side that will do and say anything to support a potential government takeover. They have shown what they are and no amount of flag waving and Bible thumping is going to change that ugly view.
It will take a long time for the world to forgive America for this massive mistake. It will take even longer to learn at least some of the fallout that is involved in the Russian interference with our election process, the trillions of dollars/rubles that they paid to buy off the conservatives, and the process of showing that sources such as Fox/Breitbart and the Sinclair-backed stations are being controlled like puppets for their own personal and evil agendas.
Our Midterms are coming up quickly and this means that everyone…and I mean EVERYONE must get out and Vote Blue to save our country.
(S. Novi is a journalist that worked in the media and continues to seek out truth and integrity. A liberal and one that is suspicious of cults and empty promises. Posted originally at Medium.com) [[hotlink]]
-cw
