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Maybe it took a Donald Trump to demonstrate to us how saturated with lies and cowardice American life has become. He didn’t start it, he just raised it — correction, lowered it — to a depraved art form.
Mother Culture sings to us (from the big screen in the living room and the little one in our hand, they’re all on the same umbilical cord) around the clock about what is happening in the world and what our lives should be like, and almost all of it is lies. From the bikini model who says she lost 180 pounds effortlessly by eating granola, or something; to the announcer who shouts that you could have perfect, all-inclusive health care insurance with no co-pays or deductibles and not even have to pay for it; to the goofball insurance purveyors each of whom insists that they are the cheapest (“No we are! No we are! No….); to the cell phone company that insists it has converted its entire national network to 5G technology; to the pleasant elderly dolts who insist they are smarter than they look because they medicate with something made from jellyfish; and on and on and they are all lies. And those are just the commercials.Liar liar
Between commercials, the reporters and pundits share their lies. America has had a tremendous revolution in its oil industry that has made us the number one oil producer in the world, an exporter of oil for the first time in history, and has brought us within reach of energy independence. All lies, finally being made evident by the industry’s near-total collapse. Electric cars will clean up our world, driverless cars will free us from driving, robots will free us from all other forms of drudgery, and unmanned drones will bring us all our packages (all of these things, like Trump’s perfect health care plan, are scheduled to start arriving in a couple weeks). America is not ready for socialism — you know, things like a mandatory living wage and single payer health insurance (that’s the conventional, well-nigh universal wisdom, but 70% of Americans disagree).
“It’s always been like that, get over it.” Really? Is that what I’m hearing you say? You must be not only cynical, but young. (One doesn’t usually find young cynics in nature, it’s a consequence of their being lied to all the time.) I say young because I’m not, and I thus remember distinctly when things were emphatically not like this. When I got into broadcast journalism, if we expressed an opinion — any opinion at all — we had to offer an equal amount of airtime to anyone with a different opinion who asked for it. The same consideration was given to anyone who was attacked in any broadcast. The FCC’s fairness doctrine required all broadcasters to cover controversial subjects, so they couldn’t avoid the equal time provisions by simply not saying anything, and to report every year on what they were doing to serve the public interest. A Rush Limbaugh, or an automated radio station spewing classic rock music 24/7, were not possible. You could lose your broadcast license for mentioning a lottery on the air, or for swearing.
It was a time when bankers could not gamble with their customers’ money; when there were consequences for dishonest advertising; when airlines were not allowed to scrimp on safety to inflate profits; and it was not allowed to rain on the weekends. (Snap test: which one of those did I make up? Which one seems most unlikely now? Not easy, is it?) It was called government regulation, and with the arrival of the Reaganauts in 1980 those became two of the dirtiest words in the English language, and the concept has been under relentless attack by Republicans ever since. Allegations about the evils and incompetence of government were among the earliest verses of the liars’ chorus that is perhaps at its loudest right now, in the final days of Trump (who is credited with 25,000 false or misleading statements documented by election day; average production 50 per day).
I’ve heard it said that fish have no concept of what water is, because they have never experienced any other mode of life. In the same way, I fear that as memory fades our entire society is losing its ability to identify, let alone care about, a lie. And as the Donald is teaching us — it may be his one solid achievement — lies have consequences.
Absolutely. This tracks with the arc of civilizations and so it clearly shows how close to the collapse of this one that we are. For me it’s certainly very painful and heartbreaking to observe, the same as for you, and I try not to get my knickers into much of a twist because this is how these things go. Studying history does have its benefits. Good luck to everyone. It’s not pleasant and it’s going to get much, much worse.
Like being in a bad movie that just keeps getting louder and badder…..
I’m pretty sure that forty years ago, you wouldn’t have a pandemic that is killing tens of thousands of Americans and be able to write something like this (trigger warning: offensively stupid, crazy, and and just plain wrong shrieking screed) and be taken seriously by anybody who wasn’t certifiably insane.