The Big Lie Election of 2024

This election will be determined by the success or failure of a massive disinformation campaign. Trump hasn’t any real issues to run on, so he tells outrageous and obvious lies, ad nau·se·am. His entire persona and the raison d’etre for his candidacy are based wholly on a series of lies about himself and what America means to itself and the world: the lie that he was cheated of victory in 2020, and the lie that the country was better off under his Administration, chief among them.

If you believe the former (disgraced, defeated, twice impeached, insurrectionist sex criminal who is under indictment for more felonies than you can swing a stick at, and on the hook for over half a billion dollars in fines for his frauds and torts) guy, one would think that America is an utter ruin and cesspit right now. But anyone can easily see that every word from Trump’s mealy mouth is simply a farrago of easily debunked lies.

Watch some of the most persistent of Trump’s lies being easily debunked by simply looking at the independently verifiable numbers:

But Trump’s will not be the only lies being told, of course. The entire MAGA movement – which now functionally means the entire GOP – will be parroting and reinforcing these lies, and others. Foreign agents and fellow travelers with authoritarians and fascists around the world will also seek to snare the unwary with lies and AI-aided deceptions.

The lie that Biden is too old and feeble to be President when anyone with eyes can see that he’s more mentally sharp and politically masterful (and silly at times….) than any octogenarian could hope to be. The lies and innuendo that Biden and Hunter have broken any laws or committed any sort of impropriety, especially since Biden has been President – a case that even Jim Jordan and James Comer haven’t even attempted to make. The disinformation and lies told about Ukraine in an attempt to undermine Americans’ support for their (and ours, and NATO’s) fight against tyranny and naked aggression by Russia.

And there will be more – so many more. When the forces of irrationality, fear, hate, bigotry, criminality, and corruption want to strike at free peoples in free societies, their preferred weapons are always and ever outrageous lies told over and over with utter conviction and without shame. And the threat of violence, of course. There will be the persistent threat of violence and terrorism. There will be violence and terrorism, in fact: but we are not descended from fearful people. We must not buckle, and we must not relent in the face of aggression and terror.

So how do we fight these enemies of freedom and democracy when they come to destroy the concept of truth? Follow the advice of Tim Snyder in the excellent book On Tyranny. Stand up for those institutions that help our free society sort out what is fact and what is not: free and independent journalism, academic freedom, professional societies, and self-regulating professions like physicians, the scientific community, and the legal bar, the open systems of the scientific process, peer review, and publication, and your own common sense in conjunction with your social circles who also cherish these institutions and the values they embody. Don’t censor yourself and don’t let lies go unchallenged – let your knowledge of the truth be told, whatever the personal consequences. Materially and morally support those in public life standing up for truth and against the tidal wave of lies. Liars ultimately defeat and discredit themselves when exposed by the truth.

In the coming contest between the truth and a cesspit of lies, I would rather be us than them. We can look in the mirror without disgust. We are on the right side of history and the champions of human progress and flourishing. We are girded in the armor of truth, and we will prevail.