Donald Trump Continues to Work Overtime to Keep the "Big Lie" Alive - Horowitz
Rób Horowitz, MINDSETTER™
Donald Trump Continues to Work Overtime to Keep the "Big Lie" Alive - Horowitz
The former president is apparently still completely undeterred by his failure to produce a shred of credible evidence that the 2020 election was stolen. Multiple election audits, most of them paid for by his allies, all show the 2020 election results reflect accurate counts with negligible voter fraud. This is on top of the rejection in real time of the more than 60 lawsuits he brought claiming voter fraud--many in front of judges he appointed. To Donald Trump, the only honest election is one he wins.
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In making his case about the 2020 election at every one of his rallies and in media interviews, Mr. Trump never supplies facts or cogent reasoning. As Jonathan Rauch has astutely pointed out, the former president skillfully employs a “firehose of falsehoods,” an effective propaganda technique that originated in the Soviet Union. “Unlike more traditional forms of propaganda, the firehose of falsehood does not aim primarily at persuading the public of something that is false (although this is a welcome result),” wrote Mr. Rauch. “Rather, it floods the information environment with so many lies, half-truths and theories that the public becomes disoriented, confused and distrustful of everyone.”
Of course, Donald Trump’s flooding of the public square with lies, half-truths and deliberate disinformation is not limited to the “Big Lie.” It is a defining characteristic of how he communicates across the board. Its use in this instance, however, is particularly dangerous. It threatens the bedrock fundamentals of our democracy.
The “Big Lie “is designed to destroy faith in our elections and to weaponize this loss of faith. That is exactly what Mr. Trump did in the wake of the 2020 elections, launching a reckless effort to overturn the will of the people as he lawlessly attempted to cling to power. While he won’t have the power of the presidency to work his will, anyone who expects Mr. Trump to concede this election and go “gently into that good night,” if he loses in November is either willfully ignoring recent history or not paying attention.
The “Big Lie” is now core to Mr. Trump’s political brand. It was so important to him that he made it a litmus test for his endorsement in Republican primaries in 2022. Candidates like Pennsylvania US Senate candidate David McCormick, who refused to champion the “Big Lie,” lost Trump’s endorsement to weaker general election candidates who were willing to go all-in on trumpeting Trump’s false claim that he was the real winner in 2020.
Now, he is making it a litmus test or at least one of his main criteria in the selection of his running mate. Watching the top contenders for the Republican vice-presidential nomination duck straightforward questions about the 2020 elections or accepting the 2024 election results, if the former president loses, as well as conform their views to Mr. Trump’s alternative reality would be amusing, if it wasn’t so damaging to our democracy. Attempting to make up for the twin sins in Trump-world of saying that Mike Pence did the right thing on January 6 when he certified Joe Biden’s victory and voting to certify the results himself, Senator Tim Scott(R-SC), for instance, refused to say he would accept the 2024 election results, despite being asked by Meet the Press host Kristen Welker multiple times. He fell back on the obviously evasive formulation that he expected Donald Trump to be the 47th president.
Similarly, two other top contenders, Senator JD Vance (R-OH) and Representative Elise Stefanik, insist that unlike Mr. Pence, they wouldn’t have certified the 2020 presidential election. They both make this claim aimed at an audience of one, though they know that there was no constitutional basis to refuse to certify it. In his convoluted answers, Senator Vance goes as far as to give credence to the illegal slates of alternative electors that the Trump campaign advanced in several states.
The absurdity of Donald Trump doubling and tripling down on the “Big Lie” is underscored by the fact that it hurts him with the independent and soft Republican swing voters that he needs to win the election—the results of which may determine whether he gets to stay out of jail. Then again, since his upset election victory in 2016, Donald Trump has often been his own worst enemy, leading his party to a series of avoidable electoral defeats.
Whatever the former president’s motivations in continuing to make his patently false claims about the 2020 election, they are a prime example of his manifest unfitness for the office of the presidency. Mr. Trump’s constant presence on our television screens, inboxes and social media feeds has to some degree inured us to his daily mendacity. It is now too easily dismissed as that is just “Donald being Donald.” That doesn’t, however, make the fact that he is unbound by the truth and will willfully disregard it to justify undemocratic actions, such as interfering with the peaceful transition of power, any less dangerous. When one puts what comes across as a pathological need to always appear to be the winner over a fidelity to the truth or democratic principles, that is disqualifying.
In the case of Donald Trump. Maya Angelou’s famous words come to mind: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." If for some reason, however, you missed it the first time, Donald Trump’s continuing to falsely claim he won the 2020 election in the face of all the evidence to the contrary is a daily reminder of who he is.
Simply put, it’s someone who should never again occupy the Oval Office.