Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 20 August 2024
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column Founded 1932
              The power of lies
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
WASHINGTON – It’s not news that Donald Trump lies. It is why he lies, and the historical echoes of those lies. Stephanie Grisham, a Republican and one of his former press secretaries, told the Democratic Convention, “He used to tell me, ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie. Say it enough, and people will believe you.’”
Sound familiar? Trump’s quote is right out of the Nazi playbook of Joseph Goebbels, the German Nazi propagandist. Google him and you’ll find a string of quotes saying just what Trump told his press secretary: 
“A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth… If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself,” and on and on.
Grisham told the DNC that she was attacked as press secretary for never holding a press briefing. The reason, she said, is that she didn’t want to go out there and lie for her boss.
Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party for the third time because of what is commonly called, “the Big Lie,” convincing enough Republicans that he was cheated out of his rightful victory in 2020, that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected, and he – Trump – is the only thing standing between the voters and a corrupt “deep state.”
It's not just the “Big Lie,” it’s all the hundreds of lies that Trump has purveyed since entering national political life in 2015. These lies and his ease in spreading them are undermining our democracy, our systems of government, and the basic decorum we once assumed as part of civic life.
It’s admirable that CNN fact-checker David Dale routinely ticks off the often “ridiculous” amount of lies Trump routinely unloads. The CNN audience appreciates the corrections, but the MAGA voters are not watching CNN. They are tuning in to other outlets, with Fox topping the list, but it is more than Fox.
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox network is moderate compared to the proliferation of outlets farther to the Right. And if you are thinking somebody ought to control this avalanche of lies, you are right, but who or what?
There is no regularity authority, no FEC or FCC, with the power to curb runaway lies. And even if there was, there is the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, which makes it virtually impossible to keep Trump from doing what he is doing poisoning the minds of the voters with made-up information, false so-called facts, and scare tactics about radical Democrats wanting to “take away their country.”
In the 70-plus days left until Election Day, Trump is poised to jump on whatever he can to make his case. When the Labor Department released numbers this week adjusting job growth down by 818,000 jobs for the year ending in March, Trump jumped onto Truth Social, calling it a “MASSIVE SCANDAL,” proof that the government “PADDED THE NUMBERS” to make the economy under Joe Biden look better than it is.
The stock market dipped though it quickly recovered when cooler heads pointed out that job number adjustments up or down are routine and based on data that can fluctuate for a variety of reasons. Eight hundred thousand was a somewhat higher number than is customary, but taken in context, it would lower Biden’s job creation numbers from 15.8 million to 15, which is not a big difference.
Republicans crying conspiracy are likely to find little comfort in what happens next. Economists say the lowered number may spur the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates in September to compensate for what could be a slowing economy, and that could boost the economy just as the Democratic ticket is going into the final stretch of the campaign.
It might be time then to consider another quote attributed to Goebbels. “There will come a day, when all the lies will collapse under their own weight, and truth will again triumph.”
 
          See Eleanor Clift’s latest book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
          Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
          © 2024 U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
          Distributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND