Trumps lies have a purpose. They are an assault on democracy.

[babylonsister]

Ned Resnikoff
Senior editor at @thinkprogress
1 hr ago
Trump’s lies have a purpose. They are an assault on democracy.
Donald Trump is winning the war on reality. Welcome to the age of nightmares.

snip//

Creating an alternate political universe requires discipline. It requires the willingness to tell many little lies that add up to one big lie. All these lies need to be internally consistent, mutually reinforcing, and at least superficially plausible. Think of it like writing fantasy fiction; the spell woven by books like The Lord of the Rings only works if the worlds they depict obey a coherent inner logic.

If Bush and Rove constructed a fantasy world with a clear internal logic, Trump has built something more like an endless bad dream.

For members of the Bush administration, even their power to mold reality had a place in the universe they created. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality,” an anonymous Bush official, widely believed to be Rove, told the New York Times’ Ron Suskind in 2004. “And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

President-elect Donald Trump does not create new realities. He tells lies that are seemingly random, frequently inconsistent, and often plainly ridiculous.

He says or tweets things on the record and then denies having ever said them. He contradicts documented fact and then disregards anyone who points out the inaccuracies. He even lies when he has no discernible reason to do so — and then turns around and tells another lie that flies in the face of the previous one.

If Bush and Rove constructed a fantasy world with a clear internal logic, Trump has built something more like an endless bad dream. In his political universe, facts are unstable and ephemeral; events follow one after the other with no clear causal linkage; and danger is everywhere, although its source seems to change at random. Whereas President Bush offered America the illusion of morality clarity, President-elect Trump offers an ever-shifting phantasmagoria of sense impressions and unreliable information, barely held together by a fog of anxiety and bewilderment. Think Kafka more than Lord of the Rings.

more...

https://thinkprogress.org/when-everything-is-a-lie-power-is-the-only-truth-1e641751d150#.dxar2ac78

[spanone]

1. K&R...

[vinny9698]

15. You are giving Trump and his minions to much credit

They lie and that's all there is to it. He brags about in in his books. Lying is just part of the deal, according to Trump. That's why bankers and lawyers want nothing to do with him.

[highplainsdem]

2. K&R. This is a must-read article, especially for what it says about Steve Bannon and Putin adviser

Vladislav Surkov.

[flying_wahini]

3. This really terrifies me.

No shit.

[HipChick]

4. K&R - This is a Must Read..

[Thekaspervote]

5. So, then he will look the other way when we give the same in kind

Hey.. du'ers

I will only say that my years growing up I had much to sort out when it came to truth and lies from those charged to raise me, protect me. It's a masterful game, but only at first. The shear weight of all the lying and deception begins to weigh, and heavily. It destroys the mind utterly and completely. The individual just as mr dump becomes more and more a product of his own misdeeds and lies. They, and I believe he is already there can no longer sort out what is truth and what is a lie. Loosing one's mind is not a pretty site. The physical toll becomes their final undoing as they sink into a very dark abyss.

What a lyer can't stand is lying. They smell it, they recognize it in their very core. So yes, more well placed conspiracy theories will be our best weapon. Yes, democracy is at stake, so let the lying games begins

[Initech]

6. We are in for a very scary 4 years.

[kebob]

7. Trump's Very EXISTENCE Is an Assault on Democracy

/

[SammyWinstonJack]

9. 1000000!

[Grey Lemercier]

8. brilliant, BEST article on Trump I have ever read

I am terrified for what comes next. We are utterly unmooring from all reality.

[malaise]

10. MUST READ

Rec

[Grey Lemercier]

11. rekicking, this needs about 1000 recs

[KPN]

12. This is an important post. The more people who see and understand this ...

the more likely we can survive the Trump disaster.

[3catwoman3]

13. Excellent and terrifying article, indeed.

Phantasmagoria, gaslighting, willing suspension of disbelief - fine as literary devices. Shitty way to live.

I am not a fan of horror movies or scary books. An alternate universe is fine if I am watching Star Trek. I sure as hell do not want to be living in one, but I feel as if I am. Everything that makes sense feels like it is gone.

[2naSalit]

14. K&R!!!!!

[Kathy M]

16. Thank You for posting article K & R

Thought the below paragraphs from article is important to keep in mind as time goes on .....

"Many of the stories promulgated by Trump, Bannon, and their allies — such as Trump’s claim that Sen. Ted Cruz’s father was somehow involved in the Kennedy assassination — were obviously false and easily debunked. But the sheer volume of these stories had their intended effect. When fake news becomes omnipresent, all news becomes suspect. Everything starts to look like a lie.

“One thing that should be distinguished here, is the media is always taking Trump literally,” said Thiel during an October appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “It never takes him seriously, but it always takes him literally. I think a lot of the voters who vote for Trump take him seriously but not literally.”

It is tempting to take solace in the belief that, if Trump cannot be taken literally, his extreme rhetoric might conceal a secret moderate streak. But that hope would be misplaced. Non-linear warfare is intrinsically authoritarian. The president-elect is speaking the language of dictators. "

Trump has to be taken seriously ..... The twitter rants are diversions , hope the media treats them as such instead of taking literal

[loyalsister]

17. This is no accident...

"Through irony, evasion, self-contradiction, and obviously ridiculous claims, he let his supporters in on the joke. If everything is a lie, then the man who makes his lies obvious is practicing a peculiar form of honesty."

For example, calling the votes that won the popular vote illegal leads people to further doubt elections at a time when there is suspicion over popular vote vs electoral college.