MAGA Lies About Pelosi Attack Are Cynical Assertions of Power

Republicans’ and MAGA right-wingers’ lies about and mockery of the attack on Paul Pelosi in the face of contradictory facts are an assertion of power and the first step toward autocracy. So argues Greg Sargent in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post.
It’s a compelling argument:
In 2020, Donald Trump’s lies about voter fraud provided a fake pretext to overturn his presidential election loss. Now that has metastasized: Many Republicans in the MAGA vein are employing “big lies” on numerous fronts, but their purpose has taken a dark new turn: It’s as if all the lying is becoming an assertion of power in its own right, a kind of end in itself.
The embrace of political lying as a declaration of power — of the power to say what reality is — has long been studied by academics. Some see it as a harbinger of autocratic political tendencies.
Read the rest in this gift article here.

It’s another one of those days. Like Jan. 6, only this time it’s the day that one of Trump’s goon fans took a hammer to Paul Pelosi, husband of the Speaker of the House.
Dear Dr. Democrat,


US President Donald Trump and Florida US Sen. Rick Scott (R) listen to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (L) during a tour of the Edgar Hoover Dike on Lake Okeechobee in Florida, March 29, 2019. (Photo by Nicholas Kamm/AFP)