© 2012, UrbisMedia
The Goebbels Factor
There are a lot of people who still believe the big lies about Barack Obama. You know: the “birther” lie, the “he’s a Muslim” lie, the “he’s a socialist” lie, the ”he wants to take our guns away” lie, among others. We all know—well, maybe not the believers of these lies, but certainly their authors—that the more you stand up and yell “that’s a lie” then more you help keep the lie in circulation and, the more you run the risk of the “Player Queen” problem in Hamlet of protesting “too much.” Nobody knew this better than Josef Goebbels knew it [13.4] and Karl Rove knows it. Running around, playing Whack-A-Mole, trying to counter lies about yourself also keeps you from professing your own positive message. The girl whose reputation has been sullied by lies on a Facebook page knows the feeling. Lies work.
Romney knows about lies, too. For one, to be religious (credulous) at all you have to believe in fairy tales; to be a Mormon you have to believe in really crazy fairy tales, magic underwear, and that Jesus visited America.* So believers already have the credulity app in their iBles. Witness the financial success and a membership growth of this bat shit crazy cult, and you know that lies work. Romney knows this, the same way that he knows why this is told about Bain capital being a jobs builder, about his taxes, about Romneycare, about anything he has to lie about on any occasion, in front of any audience, in order to justify his ends. He’ll be telling them right up to his defeat or his presidency, and there is not much likelihood he will stop telling lies afterwards. Romney knows his Goebbels.
America still holds on to all sorts of lies. Sizable percentages of people still believe that George W. Bush legitimately won the 2000 election; that Iraqis flew the 9/11 planes; that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction; they believed the Swift boat lies about John Kerry; they believe in the war on drugs; they believe that immigrants are taking our jobs away; they believe–against all evidence to the contrary– that making the rich richer will enrich them; some of them both still believe that Medicare is not a government program, indeed that government itself is some “other,” some sinister “entity” destroying the “American way of life”; they believe that every Muslim is a terrorist, and every Christian is really a Christian; that (easily rigged) test results mean their kids are “educated”; that the earth is 6000 years old, and that the ninety-nine percent of earth scientists are colluding in a hoax about global warming”—the list goes on . . . and on. So why should they not believe that the apparent “winner” of a presidential debate––even if it is one by lies on one side, and lying down on the other––might make the better president.
Sad Truths
The problem for Barack Obama, particularly following the first presidential debate, is not so much that Mitt Romney can tell the most colossal lies to a national audience with conviction and a straight cigar store Indian face and pretty much get away with it as far as the mainstream media is concerned.** No, the people who want to believe these lies are people who really want to believe these lies, and would believe anything negative you could say about Barack Obama. The sad truth is, can those of us who support Barack Obama––who must believe that he is the guy who can countervail those lies––lies not only about him, but about the kind of society that we will get if the lies Romney is telling will come to stand for the truth, can we continue to trust in his will to fight? When Barack Obama stood there and took it, all but touched his toes and took it, it was an effect that could be felt all the way from the pit of Chris Matthews stomach to my stomach. It wasn’t so much the lies, as the wonder of whether we had been telling ourselves a lie that Barack Obama has the stuff to champion our causes against the forces of incipient plutocracy. It is the effect that a guy who has put the last of his rent money down on a fighter he believes in and suddenly realizes the guy is going to take a dive.
Barack Obama committed the all but unpardonable sin of politics; he allowed a mendacious opponent to prevail in a debate; he allowed the challenger to appear “presidential”; he allowed himself to look like––dare I say it––a loser. This is America, and America does not like to back a loser. Barack Obama spent an enormous amount of political capital in a listless, defeatist, debate performance. The guy who can claim he took out Osama bin Laden, who took the risks on American healthcare and saving the automobile industry, and more accomplishments, blew whole wad, and his winning lead in the polls. Barack Obama, more than the billionaires backing Romney with their bucks, and the Fox news toadies with their crypto-racist, creepy-fascist conservatism, and the millions of American yahoos who wouldn’t know their own best interest if it was a sharp rock and they were sitting on it, Barack Obama gave an arrogant, prevaricating plutocrat, political street cred.
Several weeks ago, when Romney selected Paul Ryan and his socially disastrous budget as his running mate, and two weeks ago when Romney was exposed for what he really thinks when the “47 percent” tape went viral, supporters of the president were saying that Romney had killed his campaign. And he should have been politically dead. But no, Romney just kept on lying, waiting for his chance, and there it was: standing across from him on the debate stage. How are we supposed to stand up for the truth, if the president won’t fight for it with everything that he’s got, and show the lies to be what they are.
How do you do that? Well, when the next debate bell rings you check to see if you’re wearing your cup (you’ll need it), chomp on that mouthpiece, and go out there and beat the bejeezus, Brigham Young and lies out of that arrogant bastard. The only thing worse than to “protest too much,” methinks, is to not protest at all.
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© 2012, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 10.9.2012)
*”After I arise from the dead, I’m going to Disneyland, with the Holy Ghost.”
**Not to mention threatening that senile twit Jim Lerher with defunding PBS if he is elected, with the same arrogance that he proffered a $10,000 bet with the governor–idiot of Texas.