Using Our Shared Beliefs About Democracy to Defend It From the Tremendous Damage of Trump’s Big Lie

1. Most Prolific Chronic Liar in HISTORY OF HUMAN KIND
2. The Importance of Shared Beliefs in Creating Social Cohesion
3. Lessons for Resisting Trump’s Insidious Incessant Lying
   1. One person, one vote
   2. Elections Should Be Free and Fair
   3. Our Democracy is Inviolable
4. The Lessons We Need To Learn
   1. Creating a More Perfect Union
   2. All People are Created Equal
   3. The Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
5. Image Attribution

Why do MAGA supporters and others believe anything Trump says? How can they consider him a viable candidate for office, given that he’s arguably the most prolific liar to ever squat in the Oval Office? This acceptance of a chronic liar—who presided over a disastrous response to the #COVID19 pandemic—as being both an acceptable and viable candidate by one of our two major political parties raises critical questions about what we as a collective, a society, believe democracy is and how we are best governed. Trump’s incessant falsehoods not only undermine our collective trust in each other, but also threaten the very foundations of democratic governance. As we approach Election 2024, we must have an effect rebuttal to their corrosive effects and the legislation they’ve spawned if our democracy is going to survive.

A good example of Trump’s cavalier casual lying occurred the other day when Trump was visiting Valdosta, Georgia after Hurricane Helene when he said that Governor Kemp could contact President Biden. However, this was not just a blatant, bald-faced lie—it was immediately debunked in media reports, as Kemp had been in contact with Biden the day before. This incident highlights not only the normalization of Trump’s habitual dishonesty but also the lack of consequences he faces for it.

Most Prolific Chronic Liar in HISTORY OF HUMAN KIND

The Old Felonious Authoritarian Rapist Traitor (Old FART) is arguably the most prolific liar in the country, perhaps the world, and quite possibly in the history of human kind. #ScienceFuckingFact. According to  Bella DePaulo’s 2017 study, he averaged NINE PUBLIC LIES PER DAY, far exceeding the average of 6.6 lies per day of the most prolific liars in her studies of college students. Undoubtedly, Trump tells even more lies than that because (a) he lies in private and she was going by the public record, (b) not every public lie he told was fact-checked false, and (c) his public lying increased as he was not held accountable for it.

We’ve had nine years of the Old FART’s lying as leader of one of our two viable political party, and no one has found a way to effectively disqualify him for it. That’s because MAGA, reporters, and Republicans have chosen to BELIEVE or IGNORE his lies. Unfortunately, believing self-serving lies eventually bites us in our collective ass as it did in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina earlier this week when Hurricane Helene surprised everyone with the amount of rain it dropped and damage it did.

We must believe that our government is making a sincere effort to act in the country’s best interest. If we view the government as the enemy, we’re less likely to follow its recommendations—like during the worst pandemic in a century. When doubts arise about experts, as Jamoke Dumbass expressed in the VP debate, people are less inclined to heed crucial advice on issues like reducing carbon emissions, investing in renewable energy, or accessing necessary medical care, such as abortion. Similarly, if we don’t trust the Governor of Georgia or the Secretary of State of Arizona when they assert that the 2020 election was fair, we become more susceptible to extreme actions, like storming the Capitol in an attempt to violently overthrow the government.

The Importance of Shared Beliefs in Creating Social Cohesion

One of the few things that truly separates human beings from all of the other animals is that we can create imagined fictional abstract ideas. These run the gamut from Einstein’s theory of relativity to religious beliefs to money to Harry Potter. Each of the examples have several things in common: (a) They aren’t real. Sure I can touch and hold money, but it is just bits of paper or metal. Why should a one dollar bill be worth less than a one hundred dollar bill? There’s nothing inherent in the bills that make it so. If someone wrote fan fiction about Harry Potter not being able to use magic, you’d think they’d missed the mark.

We collectively agree on the meaning and rules governing these fictions. They all follow their own unique set of rules and those rules have to be applied more or less the same every time we encounter them. For instance, the global economy relies on our shared understanding of money. I live in Cambodia, I know that one American dollar is worth 4,100 riel. Currency exchange rates are universally recognized, even the fluctuation in those values is agreed to even though the changes may not be to our advantage.

That agreement in how money works is what allows the world’s economy to work. Break those rules and you break the economy. We will all be living in chaos real fast if we muck up our money system.

Similarly, belief in government legitimacy is crucial, though it’s less universally accepted. Citizens must trust that their government is legitimate, just ask sovereign citizens or better yet how they faired when interacting with the legal system. While we survived the sovereign citizen thing in the 2010’s or so, widespread disbelief in the legitimacy of the government can allow chaos and violence to break out and our social law and order to break down.

In America, we profess to believe in democracy. However, since Trump’s emergence—indeed, long before—our shared understanding of democracy and its functions has been eroding. The chaos of the Trump years, the disaster of the #COVID19 pandemic, and the 6 January Insurrection are but small hints of what will come if we cannot agree that Election 2024 was conducted fairly.

Lessons for Resisting Trump’s Insidious Incessant Lying

Trump’s election denialism and the perpetuation of the Big Lie have eroded our belief in democracy so much so that we believe that we need new laws to safeguard the vote. Republicans at the state and local level have used the groundless fears aroused by the repetition of the Big Lie to justify making new laws to ensure elections that were already safe and secure are safer and securer because who could be against that, right?

They have used our very beliefs about democracy to make our democracy less democratic. Republicans are saying that they are only trying to ensure that each of these democratic principles or beliefs are fairly enacted:

One person, one vote

Every eligible voter should only get one vote. It should be counted only one time. We all agree to that rule. We even have laws that make voting multiple times in the same or different jurisdictions illegal and ways of catching people who’ve tried to vote multiple times using one scheme or another. In fact, most voter fraud is done unintentionally or by Republicans to counter the non-existent Democratic fraud.

Thirty states have passed laws that restrict access to the ballot by requiring photo IDs or placing other barriers in the way of people voting.

Elections Should Be Free and Fair

The way we count votes is complex and decentralized. Each state is in charge of organizing how people vote and how votes are counted. It is confusing and difficult to understand, which leaves fertile ground for accusations of fraud and irregularities in the count. Most people are willing to accept that asking for government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot is reasonable since you need one to cash a check or withdraw money from your bank account — archaic as those two activities are — so why wouldn’t you need one to cast a ballot? However, most people — and by most people, I mean white middle class people — don’t understand the barriers that low-income individuals face in obtaining IDs.

Hand counting of ballots sounds like it should be the most accurate way of tallying the vote, but it’s not. It introduces human error and fatigue and is more inaccurate than machine counting. Fourteen states have passed laws that impose criminal or civil fines for errors in administering elections or allow state officials to take over local election administration.

Our Democracy is Inviolable

Democracy now! Democracy tomorrow! Democracy forever! Like George Wallace’s unwavering belief in segregation, most Americans hold a deep faith in democracy. We assume that we will always have it because we have always had it.

We seem to believe that our democracy cannot be taken away from us because the American people would never do anything to harm our democracy. We know we live in a democracy because we either did or could’ve voted in the last election, and by we, I mean middle class white people. What other proof do you need that we live in a thriving democracy than middle class white people being able to vote in ten minutes or less at their local polling station?

Believe you me, Republicans will never stop middle class white people from voting unless they think they’ll vote Democratic then they’ll find a way.

The Lessons We Need To Learn

As we continue to hold elections, the criticism that Republicans are destroying our democracy often sounds shrill and hysterical—especially when middle-class white America has ample evidence to believe that everything is just fine. To emphasize that our democracy is genuinely under threat, we must invoke deeply held democratic beliefs that are being violated by the Republican-led, lie-driven election regime.

Creating a More Perfect Union

One of the most significant lines in the Preamble to the Constitution is our aspiration to create a more perfect union. This phrase has been invoked with every expansion of the franchise, from women’s suffrage to civil rights legislation. It serves as a rallying cry that resonates with most Americans, symbolizing our ongoing quest to improve democracy.

All People are Created Equal

Americans are rightfully proud of our belief that all people are created equal, and that in our pursuit of a more perfect union we have strived to treat everyone equally—especially in the realm of voting. This phrase from the Declaration of Independence has inspired us to resist racism, expand the franchise, and hold government officials accountable—despite the Roberts Court creating presidential immunity. Somewhere in the deepest darkest pit of hell, Dick Nixon and Henry Kissinger are dancing a jig.

The Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

We fiercely defend the rights of all Americans, yet we often forget that our rights cannot infringe upon the rights of others. Voting is the primary means through which we safeguard our fundamental rights. We elect representatives to enact laws and policies that protect and promote those rights. By reminding us of our basic rights and how we enact and defend them, we can rally Americans to the cause of defending our democracy.

Having lived in a democracy for so long, its principles are ingrained in our subconscious. We possess fundamental beliefs about what democracy means, what it entails, and how it is enacted. However, Trump and MAGA Republicans have exploited these beliefs to erode the foundations of our democracy, tempting us to deny Americans access to the ballot and to their fundamental rights.

We can leverage our fundamental beliefs to repair that foundation and enhance our capacity to access the ballot and restore our fundamental rights. There’s a stark contrast between the two sides in this election. We can use our deeply held beliefs about democracy and what it means to be an American to help defeat Trump and the Republican Party in Election 2024.

Image Attribution

This image was found on The US Fish and Wildlife Northeast Region’s Flickr page using a DuckDuckGo Creative Commons License search.