Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
We once had a dog, a cute little schnoodle named Lucy. We got her as a puppy and raised her as a member of our family. Our daughter grew up alongside her. As Lucy grew older, we noticed normal signs of aging: lower mobility, hearing and sight issues, and a little bit of slowness. We did, however, miss other signs—symptoms—of a more serious issue: kidney disease. Lethargy, pale gums, and vomiting didn’t seem to be major issues at first, but it wasn’t until a friend visited and commented on how thin Lucy looked that we became concerned. We got her to the vet, but because of her age, there wasn’t much they could do.
Because we saw Lucy every day, we didn’t really notice the slow deterioration of her condition until the symptoms had become significant. The same can be said of the gradual downward spiral of rhetoric and the erosion of the truth in our national dialogue. The truth is no longer the gold standard by which we have always judged our politicians. It used to be that if a candidate was caught in a lie or an indiscretion (remember Gary Hart and John Edwards), their candidacy was over. We used to respect honesty that much. Edwards was indicted for fraud in 2011, not so long ago. Now we are at a point where certain candidates lie vociferously, make irresponsible allegations, and spread wild conspiracy theories. And no one seems to care.
The source of this deterioration, like a malignant tumor on a dog’s kidney, can be traced back to former president Donald Trump, who has based his entire political career on a tangled web of lies, misrepresentations, and wild accusations. He has lied about his wealth, his tax records, the 2020 election, and more. According to the Washington Post, Trump made 30,573 false claims during his four years in the presidency. That’s 7,643 lies a year, 636 lies a month, 159 lies a week, and about 23 lies a day—from the president of the United States.
Trump’s most notorious and far-reaching lie was that he actually won the 2020 presidential election. Even there has never been any evidence to support this claim—none of the 62 lawsuits filed by Trump contesting election results were decided in his favor—he continued to spout the “stop the steal” lie.
Trump supporters in some states, like Arizona and Wisconsin, supported Trump in this lie, implementing a “fake electors” plot that tried to overturn legitimate election results. All this eventually culminated in the January 6th Capitol riot, a blatant attempt to overturn the election results.
It was a very big lie that was the inevitable culmination of years of disinformation. The table was set years before Mr. Trump came to office. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan engineered the repeal of The Fairness Doctrine, which had guaranteed equal time on the airwaves for opposing political points of view. Repealing the doctrine opened the door for cable networks to broadcast the news that fit their politically biased agendas. And thus, Fox News was born.
Unbalanced news coverage created a universe insulated by ideology—a belief bubble, if you will. Into this Fox universe of conservative ideology, a casserole of racism, hate, anti-government rhetoric, and Christian nationalism strolled the greatest bullshitter of all time: Donald Trump. Tailoring his persona—including the always present patina of lies—to the Fox ideology—and vice-versa—he took Fox’s bent version of the truth and fogged it over with his own opportunistic fabrications.
The most recent—and one of the most egregious examples—is the circulation of a vicious and unfounded rumor that immigrant Haitians are eating cats and dogs in the small town of Springfield, Ohio. This wild tale started as a social media post. Mr. Trump repeated the lie during last month’s presidential debate and was immediately fact-checked by one of the mediators, but the truth didn’t stop Donald Trump. He and vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance have continued to repeat the lie, inflaming their followers into threatening violence, phoning in bomb threats, and marching into the little town. The lie has been renounced and disputed and disproved, but that has not stopped Trump’s MAGA Republicans from believing it.
Facts and evidence don’t seem to matter to the MAGAs. They believe what they want to believe. Facts that disrupt their worldview and create cognitive dissonance in their minds are dismissed. And their worldview is—to say the least—warped.
- Who needs vaccines? Science has been dismissed and disparaged.
- Democrats are kidnapping and eating children in the basement of a NYC pizzeria. Someone actually tried to bomb a restaurant they thought was part of this weird conspiracy theory.
- QAnon.
- Trump said COVID would disappear on its own. Millions died.
- Dr. Anthony Fauci was demeaned and ridiculed because he disagreed with Trump’s stance on COVID.
- Trump said drinking bleach would cure COVID. Nope.
- And of course, he said that he won the 2020 election. Thousands of followers believed him and attacked the Capitol Building, committing what could be termed treason
Now we have reached a point where Trump’s monumental lies and mischaracterizations roll off us like water off a duck. The American public—those of us who still have a hold on reality—has become inured to the bullshit.
This is the new normal. Everyone expects Trump to lie. Everyone expects him to bully. Everyone expects him to say racist, sexist, and disparaging things. No one is surprised that Trump, a convicted felon, has been involved with shady deals with Russia.
Fortunately, the tolerance for hate and bullshit seems to stop with Trump. North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, who has called himself a Black Nazi, called for a return to slavery, and wants to repeal women’s suffrage, has gone too far even for MAGA Republicans. While Trump seems to get away with everything, Anderson’s outrageousness has been called to account. A number of prominent Republicans (not Trump) have withdrawn their support for him.
The weird “belief bubble” and cultish worship of Donald Trump is one of the most remarkable sociological phenomena of modern times. Not only has he suckered tens of millions of Americans into his malignant worldview with his fear-mongering rhetoric, but he has continued to dominate what was once a respected political institution.
On the other hand, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has presented her policy positions with statistics, facts, and empirical evidence—the pillars of what we used to call truth.
Whether we accept Fox News and Trump’s new normal is contingent on holding him and his minions accountable. Mark Anderson has been denounced and rejected as a candidate, but true change must start at the top.
Hold Donald Trump accountable. Censure him for his lies. Reject him for his hate-fill rhetoric. Jail him for his crimes. He is, after all, nothing more—and nothing less—than an American citizen and we are (so they say) all equal before the law.
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