Troubadour
Banned
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2010
- Messages
- 464
- Reaction score
- 181
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Liberal
Why do Republican leaders and opinion-makers lie compulsively about everything? I am not even exaggerating what I ask this question - it seems that not a day goes by when some prominent Republican official is not saying something that is not only patently, demonstrably false, but so outrageously extreme and exaggerated as to seem almost violent. They lie even when there's no reason to, and when it just makes them look crazy and foolish - as if they can't stop themselves.
When it's pointed out to them, they either double-down and make even more outlandish lies, or insist on a false moral equivalency with Democratic politicians who split technical hairs or speak evasively. A Republican could insist that they single-handedly rescued a thousand orphans from the WTC on 9/11, or that Barack Obama is an agent of a Neptunian al Qaeda branch, and if called on it they would then say it's hypocritical for Democrats to criticize them because a Democratic politician lies about having an affair. There isn't even a word in the English language for this level of mendacity and hypocrisy - we're left with the term "Big Lie," which hardly does it justice.
It would be one thing if it were even rational - if the lies were limited to occasions where it served some Machiavellian power interest - but much of the time they don't even bother to keep it within the realm of plausibility, or to disguise the violently compulsive way in which they generate their psychotic propaganda. Psychologically, it appears that a lot of these Republican figures take some kind of sick, sadistic pleasure in getting away with spouting deranged, hate-based lunacy and then watching as their dutiful media organs pipe it out as a subject of legitimate debate. They appear to relish the sense of power of redefining reality with impunity, and forcing their opponents to expend energy defending empirical truth against Orwellian-scale lies.
Reading George Orwell, it's difficult not to appreciate the irony of the fact that at least the psychological forms of Ingsoc have been realized in a party whose propaganda is focused on the incoherent, practically semi-conscious demonization of "socialism":
It's practically impossible to avoid noticing how much pleasure Republicans take in doing violence to the truth. The bigger the lie, the more they seem to enjoy telling it, as if daring the audience to hold them accountable - and then enjoying it all the more if no negative consequences follow. These are people not merely in love with power, but driven by a compulsion to exercise it in the pettiest ways imaginable. Whatever had existed of Republican political debate - and there hasn't been much substance to it since Richard Nixon - it is now reduced to pure verbal violence for its own sake: One act of malice and domination after another. There are few Rubicons these people have not already crossed, and none they are not in the process of crossing.
When it's pointed out to them, they either double-down and make even more outlandish lies, or insist on a false moral equivalency with Democratic politicians who split technical hairs or speak evasively. A Republican could insist that they single-handedly rescued a thousand orphans from the WTC on 9/11, or that Barack Obama is an agent of a Neptunian al Qaeda branch, and if called on it they would then say it's hypocritical for Democrats to criticize them because a Democratic politician lies about having an affair. There isn't even a word in the English language for this level of mendacity and hypocrisy - we're left with the term "Big Lie," which hardly does it justice.
It would be one thing if it were even rational - if the lies were limited to occasions where it served some Machiavellian power interest - but much of the time they don't even bother to keep it within the realm of plausibility, or to disguise the violently compulsive way in which they generate their psychotic propaganda. Psychologically, it appears that a lot of these Republican figures take some kind of sick, sadistic pleasure in getting away with spouting deranged, hate-based lunacy and then watching as their dutiful media organs pipe it out as a subject of legitimate debate. They appear to relish the sense of power of redefining reality with impunity, and forcing their opponents to expend energy defending empirical truth against Orwellian-scale lies.
Reading George Orwell, it's difficult not to appreciate the irony of the fact that at least the psychological forms of Ingsoc have been realized in a party whose propaganda is focused on the incoherent, practically semi-conscious demonization of "socialism":
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing.
--1984
It's practically impossible to avoid noticing how much pleasure Republicans take in doing violence to the truth. The bigger the lie, the more they seem to enjoy telling it, as if daring the audience to hold them accountable - and then enjoying it all the more if no negative consequences follow. These are people not merely in love with power, but driven by a compulsion to exercise it in the pettiest ways imaginable. Whatever had existed of Republican political debate - and there hasn't been much substance to it since Richard Nixon - it is now reduced to pure verbal violence for its own sake: One act of malice and domination after another. There are few Rubicons these people have not already crossed, and none they are not in the process of crossing.