August 16th, 2022
The movie “Excalibur” teems with great lines, all spouted by Merlin. In one case, King Arthur asks Merlin to specify the most important quality of a true knight. Merlin, after some hemming and hawing, says “Truth. When a man lies, he murders a part of the world.”
The Republican Party has been murdering various parts of the world for three decades now. Before Newt Gingrich, the Republican Party abused the truth no more than the Democratic Party. Both parties put “spin” on the truth, but they stayed within reasonable bounds of honesty.
But Newt Gingrich changed that. His first assault on the truth was against the science of climate change. In the mid-nineties, when Gingrich was getting rolling, the science of climate change was not yet definitive, but the preponderance of evidence made it clear that the world had better start taking measures to reduce carbon emissions. Gingrich and the Republicans launched a campaign of lies contradicting the science. They have continued this campaign ever since; they still cast aspersions on the science of climate change. As a consequence, the Federal government has not, until a few days ago, done anything serious to slow the pace of climate change, and as a consequence we are already suffering hundreds of billions of dollars in damages every year, and we can expect American losses due to climate change to exceed a trillion dollars per year by the end of this decade.
This was only the beginning. The next Republican assault on the truth was nowhere near as consequential but every bit as heinous. The claim was that Vince Foster, a White House attorney was murdered on the order of the Clintons. The truth is that Mr. Foster committed suicide, but some officials of the Republican Party supported the stupid conspiracy theory. Fortunately, the Party as a whole did not embrace this rubbish — but it did not condemn it, either.
Next came the “Whitewater scandal”. Republicans accused the Clintons of illegal behavior in a series of real estate transactions. The truth is that the Clintons invested money in the arrangement, but lost money on the deal. Quite a few of the primary actors in that deal were later convicted of various crimes, but the Clintons never participated in any illegal activity nor were they aware of it. In essence, they were victims of the crime that the Republicans accused them of perpetrating.
This scandal led to the creation of an independent investigation into the activities of the Clintons. Led by Ken Starr, the investigation first looked into the suicide of Vince Foster, but found nothing. Then they turned to the Whitewater mess, and after much investigation concluded that the Clintons had done nothing wrong. So they turned to various accusations of sexual harassment against Mr. Clinton. He was being sued by Paula Jones for sexual harassment; that case was settled with a payment of $850,000 to Ms. Jones. But during a deposition for that case, Mr. Clinton was asked whether he had ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, which he denied. Later, Ms. Lewinsky produced a blue dress with Mr. Clinton’s semen on it. Mr. Starr pounded on this; he concluded that Mr. Clinton had lied in his deposition. This in turn led to the impeachment of Mr. Clinton; he was acquitted by the Senate. It’s pretty clear that Mr. Clinton did indeed engage in sexual activity with a number of women. But the Republican Party wrapped this truth in layers of lies and innuendo in their effort to discredit Mr. Clinton. The Starr investigation lasted six years and cost some $50 million dollars, and did not lead to a single indictment or conviction of anybody.
The whole Clinton affair was ultimately of little significance; it was a grand circus for the tabloids, but had little import. Far more serious were the lies of the Bush Administration leading up to the invasion of Iraq. It is now generally recognized that the Bush Administration fabricated its case against Iraq to justify an invasion that served no useful purpose. This war cost the taxpayers about $2 trillion. Several hundred thousand Iraqis died as a result of the invasion. Approximately 5,000 American soldiers died in the war, and many more suffered permanent injuries such as amputations, brain injuries, and cancers resulting from exposure to various carcinogens. Approximately 30,000 American military personnel who served in Iraq have committed suicide. Had a natural disaster inflicted $2 trillion in damages, led to the deaths of 35,000 Americans, and roughly the same number of physically handicapped young men, it would have triggered a national trauma. The lies of the Bush Administration led to such a catastrophe.
The Republican Party went wild with their lies after Mr. Obama won the Presidency. First there was the continuing lie that Mr. Obama had been born in Kenya and was not eligible to be President. This lie was ridiculous, but it was embraced by a number of Republican officials and tolerated by all the others. Even the publication of Mr. Obama’s birth certificate failed to quench the lies.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party was prosecuting a campaign of lies against Ms. Clinton, the likely successor to Mr. Obama, a campaign that continues to this day. Now, Ms. Clinton herself is not without her own lies, and I do not wish to minimize these, but most of her lies were matters of interpretation and concerned policy issues. The Republican assault on Ms. Clinton was intense, long-lasting, and personal. For example, they accused her of approving the sale of a uranium mining firm to Rosatom, the Russian atomic energy agency. Yes, Ms. Clinton ultimately approved the sale, but no, it had no national security implications. The Republicans accused Ms. Clinton of undermining security of the US embassy in Benghazi, which was attacked by terrorists, leading to the death of the American ambassador. As it happens, Ms. Clinton had requested additional funds from Congress to beef up security at that facility, but Republicans had denied the request. The Republicans in Congress launched six separate investigations into the attack, but (much to their dismay) found no fault in the actions of Ms. Clinton. Four State Department managers were faulted for mishandling security issues at that facility.
The entry of Donald Trump into the political arena led to the final collapse of integrity in the Republican Party. Mr. Trump told over 30,000 documented lies during his Presidency. Many times he repeated lies long after they had been publicly disproven. His supporters rejected the very notion of truth, insisting upon what they called “alternative facts”. It is true that some Republicans retained their integrity and resisted Mr. Trump’s lies. However, they paid for their integrity with their careers; every Republican who publicly angered Mr. Trump has lost office. As a consequence, the only officials remaining in the Republican Party are those who loyally repeat Mr. Trump’s lies.
Mr. Trump has attacked every American institution that has blocked his drive for unchecked power. He has called the American press “the enemy of the people”. He has attacked judges who do not rule in his favor, even the judges he appointed. He has repeatedly attacked the FBI for its strict adherence to the law, and responded to the strictly proper FBI search of Mar-A-Lago with outrage. He has whipped his followers into such a frenzy that the FBI is now experiencing an all-time high in death threats to its officers.
Far and away his most dangerous lie is his assault on the election institutions of this country. His claims that the election was stolen, though completely disproven scores of times, have been embraced by the majority of Republican voters and are now dogma for any Republican seeking office. By undermining public confidence in the integrity of our electoral system, Mr. Trump has greatly increased the probability that the 2024 election will trigger a civil war.
The next essay will explain the dynamics of a 21st century American civil war.