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False flags

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Predictably, many Trump supporters have already dismissed the wave of attempted bombings of Democratic political figures over the past two days as a false flag operation, carried out by nefarious “leftists,” in a bid to steal the coming election.  (Note that such speculation isn’t limited to the Breitbart/Alex Jones cesspool, but is already rampant at such respectable right wing sites — a phrase that is rapidly becoming an oxymoron — as the National Review.) And for a significant percentage of his base, the distinction between truth and lies, facts and fictions, is meaningless:

Robert O. Paxton, in his classic work The Anatomy of Fascism, defines a cult of leadership as one in which the followers believe the leader’s instincts are better than the logic used by elites. The followers are willing to give up their individuality and freedom in exchange for the leader’s “protection.” And what is Trump protecting his followers from? Scholars Karen Stenner and Jonathan Haidt offer an explanation. In their essay “Authoritarianism Is Not a Momentary Madness but an Eternal Dynamic Within Liberal Democracies,” Stenner and Haidt describe the psychology behind the fervor of the embrace of authoritarians. A certain percentage of the population has “bias against different others” including racial and other minority out-groups. The authoritarian leader stokes their fearscreating a normative threat. These people then turn to the leader as something of a savior. The leader embraces the mythic destiny of the nation. He doesn’t follow laws. He is the law.

When Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump’s lies by arguing that his false statements actually point to something true, she offered an explanation for why Trump supporters embrace transparent lies. “President Obama was born in Africa,” for example, is a provable lie, but it points toward what to Trump’s supporters see as a deeper truth: President Obama is black, and therefore, isn’t really a real American.

Sanders’ argument is psychologically sound. Scholars Oliver Hahl, Minjae Kim, and Ezra W. Zickerman Sivan, in “The Authentic Appeal of the Lying Demagogue,” explain that those who want to destroy the “political establishment” willingly embrace a liar because they understand that the lies themselves serve a destructive purpose. The people who want to destroy the political establishment today are those who are threatened by growing diversity. Trump’s lies work toward that end.

In a totalitarian regime, state-controlled media normalizes the leader’s constantly changing stories, which serves to further obliterate any notion of a shared truth. Trump’s favorite news outlets similarly normalize his changing stories, thereby undermining factuality. When people can no longer sort out what is factual and what was invented, they conclude that the truth is unknowable. It’s the ultimate in relativism and skepticism. Without facts and a shared reality, jury verdicts have no meaning, and the results of law enforcement investigations are easily manipulated or even dismissed.

Under these sorts of historical circumstances, the classic liberal belief in reasoned discourse, free expression, the rule of law, etc., tends to turn out to be unduly optimistic.

Bad times are here; worse ones are coming. The very survival of American democracy is on the line, and the next of what will be many fierce battles is just thirteen days away.

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