Courtesy of Bastrop Advertiser
May 6, 2021
By Bill McCann
In a communications course I took in college the professor began with an old party game. He whispered a story to a student who whispered it to the next classmate and so on. When it reached the last person, the story was completely different. The professor told us the exercise provided an important lesson that we never should rely solely on second- or third-hand information. We always should check the facts. And always consider the source.
That advice, offered 60 years ago, is still relevant today as far-right Republicans transform the Grand Old Party into a cabal built on fakery, fantasy, hate and lies. The biggest lie continues to be the democracy-endangering whopper that voter fraud cost Donald Trump the presidency last November. Even Trump’s own fawning attorney general and his then-director of election cybersecurity acknowledged that no widespread voter fraud occurred. But Trump keeps pressing that lie to gullible supporters six months after Joe Biden trounced Trump by 7 million popular votes and 74 electoral votes.
While Trump’s big lie is deeply disturbing, other recent outlandish cases of twisted facts also demonstrate how desperate Republicans have become and how low they are willing to go. There are further signs that many Republicans, including GOP political leaders, have no qualms about overstepping ethical and moral boundaries under the ongoing influence of an amoral former president.
Two recent examples would be laughable if right-wingers didn’t pass them off as fact to try to embarrass President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who are busy showing us how government is supposed to work after four years of Trump’s incompetence.
One example is the fake story that Biden’s recently announced climate-protection plan includes restrictions on meat consumption. No, Biden is not coming for our burgers as far-right wackos would have us believe. It’s a bunch of baloney that they spread, partly to attack Biden’s plans to aggressively address climate change before it’s too late. PolitiFact fact-checkers rated the story “pants on fire.”
The story’s genesis was an article in the conservative British tabloid, the Daily Mail. It linked Biden’s climate plan to a 2020 University of Michigan study, which found that if we eat less meat we could substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The study had nothing to do with Biden’s plan. But that didn’t stop Fox News and other conservative media outlets from grabbing and embellishing the story. Nor did it stop grandstanding politicians, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, from spreading the lie.
Another recent example of right-wing fakery occurred when the New York Post (controlled by billionaire Rupert Murdoch who also controls Fox News) published a story that migrant children were receiving “welcome kits” that included copies of a children’s book written by Vice President Harris. The story produced outrage on Fox News and from GOP politicians, including some who questioned whether Harris was profiting from the border crisis.
The story received a four-Pinocchio rating from the Washington Post fact checker, who determined it stemmed from a photo of the book sitting on a cot in a California shelter. It turns out someone donated that single book during a local book and toy drive for migrant children. The New York Post reporter who wrote the initial story resigned, saying she was ordered to write the incorrect account.
Why do far-right Republicans continue to regurgitate this garbage without first doing basic fact-checking? For one thing, they keep getting away with it. For another, they are distracting from the fact that they have no positive ideas or policies of their own to offer. Taking a tidbit of information and twisting it until it becomes a big lie is all they’ve got. My professor would have flunked them all.
