UPDATED 19 April 2017

Consider the dulcet tones of the lilting voice issuing from the delicate soul of our national mayor of sundown towns, our lyncher general, our drainer of the middle class of cash for our multi-billionaire class and call it patriotism, law-and-order, and getting tough on crime person, AG Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, he of the racist traitorous Confederate name. This is NOT him addressing the tumbleweeds, drifts of sand, and litter along the border with Mexico down in Nogales, Arizona, BUT THE SCRIPT OF WHAT HE “WOULD” SAY SHOULD HE HAVE THE COURAGE TO SAY WHAT HE MEANS.

1. You leave yourself just enough wiggle room to deny deny deny that you said what you just said.
2. When accused of uttering the unbelievable, inhumane, and abhorrent thing you just said, you turn around and accuse your accusers of lying.
3. You repeat repeat repeat your accusations of liar liar liar as often as possible because you know that nothing, and I do mean nothing, is as effective as repetition when trying to create truthiness around an issue. Scientific fact.
4. Create some pithy soundbite of a retort that can be printed, posted, and played endlessly because simplicity is easier to swallow than complexity. Remember, human beings evolved to be lazy and will follow the path of least intellectual resistance unless properly motivated.
5. Paint your opponents as godless, immoral, repugnant heathens to create an otherness about them and identity for yourselves.
6. Once you’ve got yourself a group that is opposed to another, why your group will actively avoid any contradictory information. Won’t even look at it if offered or stumbled upon.

Let’s see how these rules play out in this meme:

Social Identity

It starts with the banner LIBERAL LIES tying it to the godless amoral heathen seethin’ masses of coastal elites coming to eat all the babies in their mother’s wombs while dancing with their emails on Ambassador Steven’s grave in Benghazi or whatever stereotype they have of us.

FAKE NEWS MEDIA LIES is another branding of the common enemy. These banners have the added bonus of sharpening the line between the hated liberal news and elites and the good godly conservatives who only want good ol’ American values and save us all from the America-hating others who would sell them to the peoples of color, LGBTQ+ folks, undocumented (and unwashed) immigrants and Muslims. This distinction creates an out-group and an in-group, an us and a them. It serves to improve the self esteem of the in group by pillorying the out group.

Uses Beauregard’s wiggle room by denying he ever called an undocumented (and unwashed) immigrant, filth. And, of course, HE HADN’T SINCE IT WAS ONLY IN WRITTEN RELEASE, WHICH GIVES THEM A HELLVA LOTTA CAKE TO EAT WHILE KEEPING THE HUGE CAKE, DON’T IT? I DIDN’T SAY THAT, NUDGE, NUDGE, WINK, WINK. AFTER ALL, HE DIDN’T SAY IT; HE JUST WROTE IT! It just drips with outrage that anyone would twist his words in such libelous direction. Righteous indignation is always good for helping you feel like you’re right.

Simplicity & Illusory Explanation

The statement is simple and direct. It’s a bit-sized lie that is easy for any white conservative to understand and accept. It doesn’t trouble with mind with details. It sounds like an explanation, when in reality, it explains nothing. The advantage of an illusory explanation is that it shuts people up. They feel as though they have a satisfying explanation, and if they don’t think about it too much — we are lazy, you know — we just accept the non-explanation and move on. No reason to question Beauregard any further on this, it is just the evil liberal fake news media make outrageous claims.

Repetition

And the creme de resistance is to accuse the accuser of lying and jus’ keep on doin’ it! Now that the meme is out there and other talking punditry heads are repeating it, it will begin to reify itself with truthiness. Once it has taken hold and your folks are believing they are in one group an everybody else is in another, they will go through all kinda mental gyrations to avoid contradictory information! They jus’ won’t look at it — the explanation for why Breitbart and other one-sided news outlets are so popular. They will engage in cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias to keep their anxiety-ridden guilty consciousnesses supportin’ Ol’ Persecutor General and believin’ hatin’ is what Jesus woulda done, or at least Repube Jesus. Once you’ve reached this stage, you’ve got ’em right where you want ’em. It’s gonna take a conflagration that only the Ol’ Pussy Grabber can concoct to get them to see the world any different.

And, that, my friends is how it is done.