A moment of clarity occurred for me when Scarlett Lewis took the stand to testify in the libelous slander suit against Alex Jones over his Sandy Hook lies. She looked Jones in the eye and claimed that she was real, but not only that, her son was real, too, and the shooting was real. But, that moment of clarity really hit home when she said,“…I know you know that, and that’s the problem.”
Now that we’re in the last leg of the election, when the candidates — at least Harris and Walz, anyway — are sprinting towards the finish line, the lies and fabrications are piling up deeper than the trash left behind at Burning Man. You know, by the same folks who care so much about climate change that they leave a ton of trash for the little people to clear up, but I digress.
If Harris and Walz are sprinting, I guess Trump could best be described as blundering towards the finish… if his staff can get him pointed in the right direction. And Vance? Has anyone actually heard from Jamoke Dumbass? Anyone? Should we send some officers out for a wellness check?
My point is there is a deliberate attempt to flush enough sewage through the media space to leave the electorate gasping for breath, grasping for straws, and wondering what the actual truth is. They’re hoping that everyone is so confused, disgusted, and angry that they’ll (a) throw up rather than vote, (b) vote for Trump out of exacerbation, or (c) vote for some non-viable candidate to save their soul and satisfy their duty.
When Glenn Youngkin and Mike Johnson going on national TV and claim that we’re all taking Trump’s threats to use the military against Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, and other politicians who disagree with him out of context and twisting his words, the proper response is not, as the flappable Jake Tapper tried, to “act” flabbergasted — Jake you ain’t an actor, so don’t go there — by the painfully obvious attempt to redirect, but to pull a Scarlet Lewis and say, “You know you’re lying right now, and that’s the problem.”
And when your favorite drunk rage uncle posts the latest conspiracy theory on the social medias, you should simply respond with, “You know you’re lying right now, and that’s the problem.” It isn’t an argument. You needn’t engage any further than that.
Everyone, everywhere has to make this their mantra in the face of MAGA lies big and small.
What do you think? How should we respond to MAGA lies? Let us know in the comments.
The Psy of Life 
I was married to a man (a born-again Christian who always voted GOP, go figure) who lied ALL THE TIME. He cheated on me ALL THE TIME. He was a trucker who had a woman in every town he went to & quite a few in town. His cell was often turned off & he always told me that he was “sleeping”. Yeah, he was sleeping ~ sleeping around!
He couldn’t tell the truth if he was paid to do so, with overtime pay & double time on Sundays & holidays.
I recently found out that he’s going through his FOURTH divorce & his wife is taking him for EVERYTHING he’s got. His SS, his pension, his beloved classic Chevy truck, he MIGHT be able to keep his Harley. After years of living in a house he owned, he’s going to have to live in a small apartment.
I waited a long time to see this. Karma’s a real bitch & we’re laughing all the way & giving each other high-fives.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Strange how Schadenfreude has such appeal. Watching someone get their comeuppance is a satisfying spectator sport.
Your ex sounds a lot like Trump. Watching Rudy and Alex Jones have their assets stripped of them has been cathartic. The civil suits against Trump et al have been more effective than the criminal charges at holding them accountable. Let’s hope it continues.
Jack
LikeLike
Of course, they will respond with some version of “I’m rubber you’re glue.” denial, but the real message is to the audience who get to see the desperate denial and evasion.
Poor old Rudy G. just lost the defamation case by those election workers in an effectively bankrupting decision with a very short time to deliver the assets. And Alex Jones isn’t fairing any better, and Fox still faces the other voting machine defamation suit.
Maybe that is the real message that must be gotten across, “If you’re going to keep lying, you’re going to pay more than you can afford.” That may be the most effective way to engage the the Risk v. Reward calculation. And saying that, I have to ponder what it could be that Elon Musk can’t afford to lose short of everything.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Howdy Bob!
You know, we’ve talked about it before. When you’re a centi-billionaire like Musk, you can afford to spend millions a day. It would take you three years of spending a million a day to reach one billion. So, Musk can spend a million a day for 900 years before he’s spent the fortune he’s already amassed. That’s the reason that level of wealth gap is so destabilizing to our politics. And, why it is nearly impossible for any of us to imagine.
Rudy, Alex, and Fox News are small potatoes compared to the centi-billionaires.
Huzzah!
Jack
LikeLike
True. Still, busting the enablers is worth doing. As for Musk, the sooner he gets on his rocket to Mars, the better. Or, maybe the Chinese will compete head to head with Tesla, at least internationally, and win.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Howdy Bob!
Having lived in China and in countries that allow Chinese EV’s, I can tell ya they are nice cars. Tesla has had more than its fair share of problems, so I don’t see Musk beating the Chinese at, what we have to admit is, their game.
I agree, holding everyone accountable that can be is paramount. Even if Trump is elected, neither Rudy or Alex Jones or Fox News is getting any relief from him or the Feds. And, Bezos may have declined to endorse hoping to save his paper some grief, but he’s only fooling himself. His only move is to help guarantee that Trump never returns to office, and he’s blown that one pretty badly.
Huzzah!
Jack
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t see Musk beating the Chinese either. They have scale he can’t match, maybe not even him and the Detroit Big Three put together.
Trump has made it clear, he’s coming for the papers no matter what. They will either print the official line, or they will not print.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Howdy Bob!
So, it makes no sense for the Wall Street Journal or is it the Washington Post that Bezos owns? I don’t know. It makes no sense for the Bezos paper and the LA Times to decline to endorse because it is already too late. Trump is transactional, but without a complete kowtowing and kissing of the ass, there can be no forgiveness and there will always be some form of retaliation no matter what. How can people who are so smart be so dumb?
Then, Musk is producing a shoddy automobile. The truck is a bust. The self-driving cars are struggling. His Tesla auto line has had some recalls and other complaints about quality control. Outside of the tariff-protected markets of North America and Europe, where’s he going to compete with the Chinese companies? You see some Teslas in China and SE Asia, but those were bought early before the Chinese got competitive. I’d say a third to a half of the cars I saw in Guangzhou were EVs of some sort. The air was noticeably cleaner there. Unmistakably cleaner.
Musk has clearly caught the oligarch fever where he gets to operate in a government protected corporate market. It is the corruption that will bring down the west if we don’t snuff it out.
Huzzah!
Jack
LikeLike
Bezos has more at risk than WaPo. There is a rising threat to Amazon in the form of Temu and others like it who exploit a loophole in Tariff law that is intended to relieve tourists who bring back small value souvenirs of tariff and import duty charges. Those companies ship directly to consumers, keeping the declared value of any one shipment below the value limit, even if it means breaking an order up into more than one shipment. They are eating into Amazon’s bottom line even though they do advertise on the site.
Remember, for Trump, everything is personal. If he is miffed at Bezos, he would go after Amazon. Leaving that loophole in place, or even raising the value limit a bit, in combination with his tariffs would hurt. Of course, if he were really pissed off he could send his loyal DOJ with anti-monopoly actions and other investigations. One of the things he admires about Putin is how Putin deals with oligarchs who seem less than 100% loyal.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Defenestration? Bezos is toast already. Not endorsing either candidate isn’t going to toady up to Trump. Trump’s hatreds run deep and long. Bezos has just miscalculated. His only real option is to go all in on Harris being elected. There is no walking a line here.
Your point about Amazon competitors is well taken, though. I hadn’t realized that Temu had become such a big thing in the States. Of course, a little anti-monopoly action against some of our largest monopolistic corporations wouldn’t be a bad thing. Look what it did for telephone service.
Huzzah!
Jack
LikeLiked by 1 person
Someone commented on Daily Kos that Bezos has another project that Trump could mess with, Blue Origin. Yes, he really should have bet on Harris.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Howdy Bob!
Let’s see Boeing has a Star Liner that just crapped out and left two astronauts stranded on the space station. Musk has Space X that rescued them, but managed to injure one of the astronauts upon landing. And Bezos has Blue Origin that has no real government contract and sends tourists into high earth orbit so they can say they’ve been to space. What’s the future of Blue Origin?
Musk wants to go to Mars for some ungodly reason. We’re in a space race with China to lay claim to the moon’s mineral wealth. Russia is trying to co-opt StarLink for their own nefarious reasons and Musk is too eager to sell it to them to our own demise. And, Bezos has Blue Origin to fly tourists to the edge of the atmosphere and gravity.
I don’t see Bezos surviving a second Trump term. He’s got little or nothing to offer… other than his billions, which they’ll gladly take just to Mitt Romney him. Why didn’t people learn from Mitt Romney’s experience with Trump? I don’t know. That’s Bezos’ future with Trump no matter what he does.
He should’ve bet on Harris.
Huzzah!
Jack
LikeLiked by 1 person
As for Bezos and the Romney experience, I guess it illustrates the tendency of narcissists to always think they are smarter than the last guy who got scammed. And Trump trotted out the hollowed out shell of Rudy G. at his Madison Square Garden rally.
Musk wants to be King of Mars. Maybe he grew up reading old Edgar Rice Burroughs books and then discovered Ayn Rand.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think it would be great if Musk were king of Mars. That way madness lies.
Rudy failed Trump pretty spectacularly when none of the court challenges reinstated Trump. Trump will be punishing Rudy for the rest of their lives. Luckily, they’re both probably not long for this mortal coil.
Huzzah!
Jack
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly right on both counts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
MAGGOT lies are the new Truth for millions of Americans who have allowed Trump to brainwash them and they have willingly consumed so many of those lies that the lies have reshaped their entire brain chemistry and now they are totally incapable of conceiving what real truth is — and Trump has become their new reality, their new truth…their new idol. Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Howdy John!
God might forgive them, but you and I should not, not unless they go through the four steps of an apology: acknowledging what they have done, the reasons that it has hurt the nation and world, asking for forgiveness, and offering a way to make it up to the rest of us. It is the only road back to social redemption.
However, they are not lost to Trump’s lies. There was a very good study that paid people to watch CNN instead of Fox News. After six weeks (I think) they had views more in the mainstream and less like those espoused on Fox News. Those that went back to watching Fox went back to their old beliefs, but a small number did not, and they retained their new grounding in reality.
The problem is that everybody including MAGA knows each and every lie they and everyone in the ecosystem are telling. It is more important to them to elect Trump and to own the libs than anything else. They are willing to live in poisonous polluted environments and live shortened lives followed by painful deaths as long as they can be as racist and misogynist as they wanna be and own the libs. The trade off is worth it to them. How do you argue with that other than cleaning up our political rhetoric and insisting on some arbiter of truth being used?
Trump has led us to the same conundrum that every other tyrant has led their society to. They have figured out the secret to short circuiting reasoning and rationality — what little human beings actually have — and filling the void with their self-serving lies.
While everything looks bleak, I don’t think it is as bad as the media and the pollsters make it out to be. The other metrics of the race favor Harris heavily.
Blog on Sibling!
Jack
LikeLike
Trump already has a plan in place to announce that he is the winner even before the votes are all counted — He has syncophants in place who will refuse to certify votes —He is already preparing for a repeat of his lie that the election was stolen… the difference be that is is him and his robotic clones who will be stealing it this time ….and they will delay and argue and investigate non-existant voter fraud endlessly …and they will attempt to force the decision about who is going to be president to the conservative controlled house of rephrehensibles who will, undoubtedly give it to him without further question and if that doesn’t work then he has his hand-picked judges on the supreme court where the repuke-li-kan super-majority will definitely give it to him … move over Al Gore…and so defeating this monster this time around is not a given…and it will take heaven and earth moving to defeat him…. besides which he has his hordes of brainwashed supporters (I think there about 77 million of them) waiting in the sidelines anxiously pissing their pants in gleeful anticipation of being able to stand in a crowd and scream “Heil Trump!”
LikeLiked by 1 person