What we used to dismiss as BS is now MAGA policy.
It's hard to say when the hard-line, no-nonsense conservative party in America, the Republicans, began their drift toward magical thinking. At first glance, the concept seems alien to their traditional reliance on social standards and accepted beliefs. The GOP was the boring party, never straying much from the mainstream. It was dependable and comfortable—like an old sweatshirt. That was especially true of the Christian conservatives, for whom the Bible and the words of Jesus Christ were paramount—guideposts to lead them to everlasting salvation.
How this party relinquished its hold on reality is a tale of delusion, developing through decades of right-wing radio conspiracists and receiving its most significant boost with Trump's ascendency to the White House eight years ago.
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It was a whirlwind of events that January: the 2017 inauguration of Donald Trump, the sizable but disappointing crowd in attendance (the women's march drew more), Trump's press secretary Sean Spicer inflating the crowd size by tens of thousands despite a sea of photo and video evidence to the contrary, and then two days later, a counselor to the president, one Kellyanne Conway, "explaining" that Spicer was not lying but simply issuing alternative facts.
People had heard of alternative facts before that day; in fact, they had already assigned another word to them—a word often shortened to two letters—a B followed quickly by an S. (note: the S is unnecessary since we're talking about one word, not two—a topic for another time.) Not only did we have a word, but we had developed extraordinary BS detectors and deflectors, yet for some reason, we took them down, shut them off, or forgot to recharge them. Maybe we were worn down after two decades of alternative facts about climate change that had morphed from there's no such thing to it's cyclical to it may exist but fossil fuels have nothing to do with it. (The après moi le déluge strategy—now we have the deluges...and the fires.)
Remember, smoking had been touted as a digestive aid, and "one for the road" was a common utterance of bartenders and bar customers. Neither made sense, but if you liked to smoke and liked to drink, you ascribed to both. By the same token, if you owned a petroleum company, you liked burning fossil fuels and drilling for more. An unwitting ally like RFK Jr. who blames children's illnesses on vaccines instead of polluted air and groundwater shares the blame. Unfortunately, "alternative facts" had a ring of sophistication to it. We like alternatives, and we want facts. What could be better than combining them?
We are now undergoing days of hearings where questions have been answered by alternative facts only, where formal, recorded, and sometimes written statements have been denied or "corrected." Pete Hegseth implied that a miraculous birth had graced his family (or one of his families), and Pam Bondi, who is far from unqualified for the position of Attorney General but earned her nomination by threatening to jail everyone who ever looked sideways at Donald Trump, yesterday claimed she never threatened that. (She did.) Conflicts of interest are glaring, but the GOP committee members pretend there is none...like climate change and crowd sizes...and, oh yeah, critical race theory—another topic for another time.
And the worst is yet to come. Robert Kennedy will assuredly deny every whacked-out theory he has ever promoted and sound like the serious physician he isn't. His amalgam of anecdotal quackery and alternative facts will be too much for the rubber stampers on the committee. He has already taken misinformation to a new level, gathered a cadre of conspiracists around him, and turned it all into a lucrative industry of denial, cynicism, illness, and death. And while the rejection of science regarding climate change has been slow to hit home, Kennedy's fraudulent assertions and magical thinking about life-saving vaccines will need less than a generation to take hold—childhood diseases that had been eliminated will return, adults whose immunity has long-since vanished will contract them as easily as the newly vulnerable children, and illness and deaths will soar. Covid-19 will be remembered fondly as a time when scientists and medicine saved people—the "good ol' days," of respect for trained and educated physicians. MAGA doesn't like science. MAGA wants to know what tme of day the world began. MAGA distrusts learning and belittles intellectual thought. (Exception made for billionaires) MAGA likes Marjorie Taylor Green and Tommy Tuberville. MAGA thinks democracy is the enemy.
Even so, people like Kellyanne Conway may soon unchecked epidemics, reborn plagues, and most of all death are not alternative facts.
When pressed during a 2017 interview with Chuck Todd to explain why Sean Spicer would "utter a provable falsehood," Conway stated that Spicer was giving alternative facts. Todd responded, "Look, alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods."
Be ready for more.
Some recent polls indicate a general disapproval of Trump's appointees and choices. With that in mind, it's time to reboot, recharge, and re-arm those detectors and deflectors. No Republican legislators will protect us from Hegseth, Bondi, Kennedy, and their ilk. We're on our own.
Refuting lies and exposing liars will be a full-time job. I hope we're ready.
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