Artwork by Michael Dimilo
By Geoff Carter
Sometimes the quality of competition in a contest is so evenly matched that picking a single winner would seem to be nearly impossible. For example, the 1975 Academy Award nominees for Best Picture included some fantastic movies, including Jaws, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Nashville, and—the winner—One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Each and every one of these nominees was a great example of cinematic achievement and artistic accomplishment, yet the Academy members were forced to pick only one as the best.
The folks at the fact-checking website PolitiFact faced an equally daunting task last week, setting out to pick the 2021 “Lie of the Year”. Considering everything that happened in 2021 with all manner of mistruths, half-truths, and out and out lies that were said during this most contentious of years, picking one single falsehood seems impossible.
There were plenty of the garden variety lies we hear every day—trickle-down economics (a golden oldie that has endured for decades), faked moon landings, and flat Earth conspiracies, but these pale in comparison to the epic whoppers of 2021, including lies about Covid cures, vaccines, antifa, and climate change.
Probably the mother of all lies, the deceit which spawned a thousand others, was Donald Trump’s assertion that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen. Maintaining—even before the actual election—that voter fraud was rampant and that he would be robbed of the office, Trump was already setting the stage for his big lie. Late on election night, he went on live television to insist he had already won, but that because votes were being stolen, all ballot counting should stop immediately. It didn’t of course, and the election went on; the results ultimately showing that Joe Biden had been elected president by the people.
But Trump remained undaunted—and unashamed. Still spewing his unproven and nonsensical assertions (and persuading some members of his party to do the same), he raised such a furor during a January 6th rally that his followers stormed the Capitol Building with the intention of overturning the election results. During the riot, his followers attacked police officers and defaced government property. This “rally” caused the deaths of five people. All this was Trump’s bold attempt to take power—and he’s still going at it. Even today, state governments are still conducting audits and recounts even though not a whit of evidence has turned up to support the claim of a stolen election.
But, according to the article “Manipulating truth about Jan. 6 attack defies the evidence” appearing on the PolitiFact Website, this wasn’t even the biggest whopper. The experts believe the biggest lie in this year of lies is the continuing denials and misrepresentation of what happened on January 6th in Washington, D.C. Even though the entire assault was taped and viewed on live T.V. as it occurred, and has been continually viewed and analyzed in the months since, some determined Republicans are still attempting to persuade the people that it was something it was not
In other words, Americans are being told that what they witnessed firsthand is not real, that they cannot—and should not—trust their own senses. These contradictions of reality are, in the words of PolitiFact, “an attempt to brazenly recast reality itself.”
The article lists the efforts to change the evidence, rationales to excuse the rioters’ action, strategies to propagate conspiracy theories as to the origin and nature of the insurrection, and—finally, for lawmakers to simply dismiss the assault as not really being all that bad.
Some pundits and politicians stated that the insurrection wasn’t really a riot, that we didn’t really see what we saw. Lou Dobbs said that it looked to him as though there was no rioting going on. He mentioned footage of rioters walking between rope lines in Statuary Hall. Representative Clyde stated, “If you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from Jan. 6, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.” This despite the fact of widespread vandalism, broken windows, ravaged artworks and historical artifacts, and the takeover and destruction of Speaker Pelosi’s office.
Others denied that the insurrection was an insurrection, while at the same time maintaining that rioters arrested there should not be criminally charged. Instead, it was argued that they be considered as political prisoners—which is an interesting way of serving your cake and eating it, too.
Then there was also a plethora of conspiracy theories. Some right-wing apologists suggested that that the favored villain of the right wing, the leftist group Antifa (its existence as an organized group itself a fiction) was responsible for the violence at the Capitol. Yet another absurdist theory, led by blogger and former Trump speechwriter Darren Beattie, maintained the attack was a false-flag operation run by the FBI to “purge” Trump voters. Even though this theory was almost immediately discredited by reputable media sources, Republican Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz championed it, lending it credibility to Trump’s base.
Most Republican lawmakers, however, did not condone these theories. They didn’t have to. By merely remaining silent, they lent credence to the incredibly erroneous and destructive lies being put out by the most rabid Republicans. Standing aside and remaining silent was interpreted as assent.
I don’t know if I agree with the folks at PolitiFact that January 6th denials are the biggest—and best—lies of 2021. Personally, I lean toward choosing Trump’s “big lie”, his insistence that the election was stolen from him, but I defer to the professionals.
This was indeed the year of the whopper, but there will be bigger years ahead. If the American people continue to rely on the self-serving disseminations and falsehoods of some unscrupulous politicians rather that trust the evidence of their own senses, then we will see even bigger, more elaborate, and completely outlandish stories.
We need to trust PolitiFact and other credible news sources. We need to use our inherent common sense rather than believe the demented rantings of conspiracy theorists.
A lie is a lie is a lie. Whether it’s told by a ten-year-old trying to weasel out of responsibility for breaking a window with a baseball, or Senator Ron Johnson telling us that the that what we saw on live TV was not what actually happened, that there was no insurrection, we need to recognize them as self-serving liars.
The ten-year-old would be punished for his lies. So should all the prevaricators who have lied, and are still lying, to the American people.