The Bigger Lie

Politifact has declared the claim that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio were eating pets is the 2024 Lie of the Year.

One might point out that an even bigger lie was that (a) our open borders do not impose horrific costs to federal, state and local governments nor inflict disproportionate costs on targeted communities; and (b) that to point out this downside is racist, xenophobic or automatically deemed inaccurate.

Had Trump taken the approved Romney/McCain approach and provided some carefully determined (boring?) numbers and dollar figures about the effects of the deposit of 20,000 Haitians on an Ohio town of 60,000 residents, would that have been a story on the evening news? Even a single major headline? Or just ignored with a passing sneer about Trump’s implicit racist appeal?

The rush to debunk Trump’s “lies” is often like falling into an ambush. No one would know about the impact of the Haitian influx (residents driven from shopping centers, indifference to traffic laws, and the disappearance of waterfowl from a pond in a public park, which likely led to the “eating pets” meme) but for the memes and the rush to declare Trump's repeat of them a lie. Similarly, refuting the claim that foreign gangsters took over a Colorado town by reporting that it was “only a few buildings” wound up making ABC’s Martha Raddatz look like a fool. “Do you hear yourself, Martha?”

The Bigger Lie is not just about The Narrative but about the systematic silencing or caricature of opposing views. The Steele Dossier and its gross misuse by the highest echelons of federal intelligence and law enforcement figures to create a false narrative was, in fact, Fake News. The lies that COVID-19 could not have possibly come from a lab, that the vaccines prevent infection, that masks and closings significantly reduce spread, that BLM riots do not pose a transmission risk but church services do pose such risks…. The Bigger Lie just metastasizes. Simple recitations of correct statistics (no, police shootings are not a major cause of death for minorities) or reasoned argument (sea levels have been rising for more than a century, and there is no big acceleration from climate change, polar bears are not at extinction risk, etc.) seem increasingly ineffective against facets of the Bigger Lie which seems to have a growing immunity to facts and numbers.

The moral significance of an exaggeration or factually incorrect meme or slogan is whether it is an attempt to foster a bigger lie or instead points to a truth that is being suppressed. To build on Salena Zito’s famous 2016 observation that Trump’s enemies take him literally but not seriously whereas his supporters take him seriously but not literally, Trump’s verbal stylistics and exaggerations can have the effect of making people notice what they know to be true but are not allowed to say so.

“They are eating pets” was about the truth that an overnight deposit of an enormous number of unvetted, presumptively illegal, unassimilated, unskilled foreigners was having a detrimental impact on a town in Ohio. In contrast, the very common lie that “MAGAs are Nazis” does not point to a larger truth but is an attempt to silence and caricature the normals and thus enforce the Bigger Lie. Both statements are false, but their effects and purposes are quite different.

Americans are the most tolerant, pluralistic people on Earth, who rightly resent race-based policies and forced acceptance of drag queen story hour. But the Bigger Lie requires that such Americans be called “racist” or “phobic” or school board meeting "insurrectionists."

The top tier of the American news profession is dominated by partisan, unprofessional, narcissistic hacks, but the Bigger Lie requires that we pretend that they are all dispassionate professionals of the highest integrity. “Fake News” is, in fact, a fair-use meme that points to the truth about the MSM.

I admit that a year ago, I thought Trump’s stylings would doom his campaign, and I had hoped for a candidate with less baggage. I admit that during his first term, I wanted Trump to dispense with repeated, gratuitous Twitter battles about punching back at Lilliputian critics. What I did not fully grasp was the extent to which the rules and the context imposed by the Bigger Lie are designed to make it impossible to fight back. So, tactics like using the “2024 Lie of the Year” to expose the Bigger Lie are actually required. There is an element of genius in this tactic.

For the next four years there will again be a steady stream of hysterical screams about the latest “Trump Lie,” both because President Trump is often rather casual about factual details (unlike, say, Joe Biden, the Washington Post, MSNBC or Kamala Harris), but often because his critics will intuitively realize that his “lies” wind up threatening the Bigger Lie by pointing to something true. Certainly, not every Trump misstatement will be a tactical gem, but us normals should recognize and learn from the ones that are.

For the next four years, people with a limited and highly selective affection for truth will be shrieking about a man who has made misdirection, misstatement and memes into something almost like an art form. I will try to adapt to this odd cognitive landscape, guided by the wisdom of that inspirational journalist, Hunter S. Thompson: “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” And it will be weird and loud because Trump's enemies will never adapt.