They (MAGA Republicans) All Lie and Make Stuff Up Now
...following Trump's lead, and they'll do it till we make them stop
This is not exactly a new flash, but it’s getting worse, with deadly consequences across the country…
“They” are aiming hurricanes at Red states
In the world according to Marjorie Taylor Greene — a “gift” to America from the voters of Georgia’s 14th Congressional District — some sinister “they” either failed to protect against or actually aimed two monster hurricanes barreling toward the southeast. "Yes they can control the weather. It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done," she posted on X. (She didn’t say, but presumably the perpetrators were a different “they” than the “they” firing space lasers to start forest fires in California.)
Now, she, Trump and other luminaries in MAGAworld are lying about FEMA’s response to the twin hurricane disasters that struck mostly Red states. These lies were even being refuted by the Republican governors of the affected states.
This was more nefarious than the ongoing Republican agenda to discredit “gummint” that started with St. Ronnie Reagan. These lies undermine relief efforts and did real harm; people eligible for relief did not apply. FEMA agents were threatened.
Of course these lies follow closely on JD Vance’s pushing the fable that…
The Haitians are eating people’s pets
…he sowed to demonize immigrants of all stripes, to create fear and hatred. Vance harmed the city of Springfield in the state (Ohio) he represents in the Senate. He was called out by the city’s Republican mayor and the state’s Republican governor. But not before Trump made the accusation in his disastrous debate with Kamala Harris. And has repeated multiple times since, along with the story that Aurora, CO has been “conquered” by Venezuelan gangs.
Will Ohioans make him and Trump pay on November?
Writing about these two lies, historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote in her daily blog:
MAGA Republicans are now lying about the federal response to Hurricane Helene in much the same way they lied about Haitian migrants bringing chaos and disease to Springfield, Ohio. Both disinformation efforts are flat-out lies, and both are designed to demonize immigrants. Immigration was the issue Trump was so eager to run on that he demanded Republican lawmakers reject the strong border bill a bipartisan group of lawmakers had hammered out. 1
Another whopper from the recent past is that…
Trump saved Obamacare
…keeping millions on health insurance and preserving insurance for pre-existing conditions. During the VP debate Vance told an outrageous, and frankly intelligence-insulting lie about Trump “saving Obamacare” when he and his party relentlessly tried to kill it over and over, and when they were unsuccessful at repealing it, doing all they could administratively to strangle it…
…so how about MAGA’s view of the economy?
The economy is being mismanaged
Well, to save space I’ll assume you have heard it. But, as GDP estimates were upgraded and the stock market soared to still new heights, while employment boomed and inflation dropped below pre-pandemic levels, Moody’s analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, who has advised Congress and members of both parties, had this to say (I almost said, “Zandi gushed”)…
…Meanwhile,
The Speaker of the House thinks it is “intuitive” that illegal immigrants are voting
…Johnson stood outside the Capitol with a phalanx of Trump supporters and allies in the president’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election to promote a new piece of legislation. Its focus? Illegal votes cast by noncitizens.
Reporters pointed out to Johnson that there was no evidence this happened to any significant degree, a point that Johnson couldn’t rebut. Still, he insisted, “we all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, but it’s not been something that is easily provable.” So he and his allies pressed on, repeatedly claiming that this “intuitive” problem existed and demanded a resolution. (From WAPO, read here.)
Of course this is all to tee up one of MAGA’s arguments should Trump lose.
…Which brings us to the biggest whopper of them all — the 2020 election was stolen. It has become the price of admission to the Republican party to accept this Big Lie. When confronted recently by a MAGA fan at a political event, I said to him: “C’mon now, I KNOW you guys have to SAY that, but you don’t really believe it, do you? You’re smarter than that…”
I don’t have to tell you how damaging all of these lies and disinformation are…but to emphasize it please take the time to read Charlie Warzel’s article from The Atlantic titled “I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is — What’s happening in America today is something darker than a misinformation crisis.”
Warzel writes in depth about this particular disinformation campaign, but also points out the context that it fits into:
What we’re witnessing online during and in the aftermath of these hurricanes is a group of people desperate to protect the dark, fictitious world they’ve built. Rather than deal with the realities of a warming planet hurling once-in-a-generation storms at them every few weeks, they’d rather malign and threaten meteorologists, who, in their minds, are “nothing but a trained subversive liar programmed to spew stupid shit to support the global warming bullshit,” as one X user put it. It is a strategy designed to silence voices of reason, because those voices threaten to expose the cracks in their current worldview.
You can read the article here.