MAGA IS BUILT ON LIES THAT SOME AMERICANS CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT
Thankfully, this new Harris/Walz campaign with its energy and optimism and, yes, its truth telling, makes the old lies feel increasingly stale.
Nobody likes to be lied to. It is a betrayal of trust.
That is, I now know, a half-truth. It is a betrayal of trust, but many people crave the lie. How else can we understand FOX Cable ratings and Donald Trump’s popularity? People tune in, go to rallies, and hunt the internet for lies. Some lies are bizarre, others are dangerous. Yet some Americans can’t seem to live without them.
It turns out that some lies trigger the same biological mechanisms that explain kinds of addiction. We all have ideas about the world. When new information challenges one of those ideas, psychologists describe the moment as “cognitive dissonance.” It is a moment that teachers well know, because in that moment, new concepts can be learned. But it is also stressful, and people often react by shutting out the new information. On the other hand, information that confirms our existing beliefs and biases can trigger neurotransmitters like dopamine that induce feelings of pleasure. Everyone knows that “see, I knew it!” moment. It’s powerful. Seeking out information that reinforces existing ideas while ignoring or downplaying contrary facts is called confirmation bias. We are all susceptible to it.
Despicably, FOX cable and the GOP have, for years, used the psychology of confirmation bias as a political and audience development strategy. Over time, they have led people to the very edge of reality, a place where they proudly argue that “alternative facts” are real things.
It’s one thing for individuals to lie. It’s something else when media organizations like FOX and other right-wing media contribute to this lying. That’s a crime against journalism. (Okay, in reality, these guys aren’t journalists.) We should be very clear, that it is not a victimless crime.
Consider these lies and their consequences:
COVID is under control. This along with hundreds of other lies about the virus resulted in higher death rates in the US. According to Business Insider, 40 percent of COVID deaths could have been prevented by sound public policy during the Trump Administration. Remember the horrible stories about patients dying in hospitals while angrily telling their doctors that COVID is a lie? Now a new study is out from French researchers who found that nearly 17,000 people died after taking hydroxychloroquine during the first wave of the pandemic. There was never any evidence that this drug worked. It was never approved for use in the US. But then President Trump said, “What do you have to lose? Take it.” They did, and they died.
The health care plan is coming in two weeks. Recall all the reporting that quoted Mr. Trump as saying his health care plan was coming? There never was a plan. And yet the Congress came within one vote of ending the Affordable Care Act in reliance on that lie. Only Senator John McCain’s courage, and the solidarity of Democrats, saved health insurance for millions of Americans.
Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Repeating this lie is now required for employment by the Republican National Committee. Of course, among the consequences of this spectacular lie was the January 6th insurrection. One person was killed that day. Eight more died in the aftermath. Many Americans have been convicted and are jailed for their participation. The lie now threatens the integrity of our electoral system.
FOX and Donald Trump’s Republican Party, like all liars, have become trapped in their own fantasy. Just this week, they have variously said: Mr. Trump doesn’t know about Project 2025. (He does.) Joe Biden is fill in the blank: crooked, out of control, weak, incompetent. (By nearly every measure, Joe Biden has been and continues to be an effective president. You may disagree with him, but he gets things done.) America is very corrupt. (Well, maybe the part he hangs with.) Pfizer forged informed consent signatures. (There’s no evidence of that.) Trump created the greatest economy in US history. (As the Washington Post, in a great piece of fact checking, says, “by no metric.”) Prisons are being emptied around the world to flood out borders. (Simply not happening.) Democrats are communists. (Okay, seriously, have they read Karl Marx?)
If you try to look this stuff up you get headlines like, “Fact checking 102 of his false claims this fall.” Then there’s this from PolitiFact,
Trump stands alone for the share of rated claims that are some degree of false. About 76% of his statements earned ratings of Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire. The median rating for his 1,000 checks is False.
J.D. Vance, it turns out, was right when he compared Donald Trump to the opiate crisis in America. It is an addiction, and its consequences are real and devastating.
Fortunately, most Americans still live in the real world. And most are willing to look at new information that challenges, rather than confirms, their old biases.
After Trump lost in 2020 but before January 6th, I wrote about how we move on. It’s a heavier piece than I usually write, but the question is a difficult one. At the time I said, “we need to restore our justice system, fix the cracks in our election law, charge and convict the conspirators, and it would be helpful to regulate social media just a bit to limit the risk posed by mass hysteria.” That remains sound counsel.
Although we’ve accomplished much in four years, this addiction is still with us, it’s profiteers still injecting their poison into our system. But we have new hope. This new Harris/Walz campaign with its energy and optimism and, yes, its truth telling, makes the old lies feel increasingly stale. That’s important, because when lies cease to confirm old biases but instead appear as no more than partisan noise, Americans who believed them will, at last, turn on the liars.
We are already seeing some of this in polling.
An outbreak of happiness indeed.