The Bigly Lie

Getting Trump out of office will not solve America’s current problem. To address that, we have to address The Big Lie. Every fascist movement needs one. For the terrorists who attacked the Capitol, and millions of others, the big lie—created by Trump and propagated by Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and nearly 150 other GOP miscreant members of Congress—is that Trump really won the election. Trump is no longer the problem. The lie is. For years, we ignored the experts. We ignored the intellectuals. And, worst of all, we ignored the people who had seen the rise of authoritarianism with their own eyes and told us what we were looking at. As my dad said: “Americans left democracy’s door ajar and Trump walked in.” If you read nothing else today, please read Timothy Snyder’s NYT Mag piece: The American Abyss. “Like historical fascist leaders, Trump has presented himself as the single source of truth. His use of the term ‘fake news’ echoed the Nazi smear Lügenpresse (‘lying press’); like the Nazis, he referred to reporters as ‘enemies of the people.’ Like Adolf Hitler, he came to power at a moment when the conventional press had taken a beating; the financial crisis of 2008 did to American newspapers what the Great Depression did to German ones. The Nazis thought that they could use radio to replace the old pluralism of the newspaper; Trump tried to do the same with Twitter.”

+ “It all started with lies, and lies, and lies, and intolerance.” Arnold Schwarzenegger with a message worth hearing.

+ “How could the idea that the Capitol is supposed to embody be perishable this way? My stomach turned and my hands trembled in fear and disgust, as I realized my prophecy for the day had been fulfilled not by the imposition of martial law but by the possibility of a stranger in a camp auschwitz shirt taking a shit in my house.” The excellent Tom Junod in The Atlantic: Everything Is Different Now.