the definition of truth
Jun. 15th, 2022 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Daniel Dale · @ddale8 · 2:11 PM · Jun 15, 2022The @GOP lie to each other constantly. They know better; they know this is factually bullshit.
The Trump crew is still repeating the absolute stupidest, most easily debunked of the 2020 lies. (Wisconsin has about 4.5M adults and about 3.5M active registered voters; it's only "7.1 million" if you count inactives, like voters who died or moved away.)Liz Harrington · @realLizUSA · Jun 9
Evidence they want you to ignore:
Wisconsin has 4 million adults but 7.1 million voter registrations
But facts aren't their definition of truth.
"Truth" is what serves the agenda. "Truth" is what they want to believe and what furthers their goals.
That's their determiner of truth.
This, again, comes out of fundamentalist culture, its rejection of empirical knowledge in favour of received knowledge handed down ancestrally and from high authority - in their case, "God."
It became @GOP culture when fundamentalist culture took over the party.
So when you ask how the @GOP lie so baldly and so transparently without any shred of conscience, what you must understand is that they don't use a factual reality definition of truth.
Truth is what they want to be true and what serves the agenda, not what actually is.
The @GOP want all the factual nonsense to be true.
And it since also all serves the agenda of permanent power - another cultural belief they absorbed is that there is no such thing as loyal opposition - that's enough.
That makes it "true."
As far as they're concerned.
So as far as the @GOP are concerned, they're not lying, even as they know it's factually complete bullshit.
Because there's a greater truth - the agenda of power.
Or, as the fundamentalists used to hold, "God said," applied with full purity and no restraint to politics.
That's how they can flow so many lies without qualms or hesitation.
Because they've redefined the meaning of truth.
Anyone who disagrees with their "truth" disagrees, functionally, with God, and since there's no middle ground, that means you're literally working with Satan.
You must understand this - you MUST understand this - or you understand nothing about today's @GOP.
And more importantly, you have to get other people to understand. People who don't follow this stuff. People for whom all this is not existential.
People who fall for @GOP sabotage and will vote for whoever is out of power when they feel things aren't going so great.
That's what the @GOP have relied on for years - when in power, loot and consolidate, when out of power sabotage and blame Democrats for their sabotage, all as they ratchet themselves further and further into authoritarianism.
And it works. But it has to be stopped. Now.
I don't know how to get through to those for whom none of this is existential, people who will be basically okay in post-democratic America. Not as free as they once were, but in ways they didn't care for anyway.
At least, at first.
I don't know how to get them out of denial.
I've been trying for over two decades, because if you just looked at what was happening you could see all this coming 25 years ago, and I've failed.
I don't know how to get Americans out of denial. Other people, you gotta have a go, or we're all just done.
The @GOP that tried to overturn the last election and led an insurgency into the Capitol hunting for Democrats (and Mike Pence) to kill are polling ahead in midterm elections, all while nominating more authoritarians who believe allllllllll the lies.
Because with people who refuse to pay attention...
...the sabotage works.
Americans being in deep, deep denial is why.
And the @GOP know that, and bank on it, and I can't get past the denial.
You have to try. Every one of you. Please.
For all our sakes.