“It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” -Mark Twain
The year 2020 was the year the Big Lie was perpetrated, the lie that will not die. Donald J. Trump, Reality-show star and real estate con-man, a man who ran for the office of President of the United States for the publicity but was inadvertently elected due to Russian meddling in the 2016 election, was the Big Lie’s originator.
Trump, who suffered from a condition known as Narcissist’s Syndrome, believed that he was the most popular and important man in the world. As the most popular and important man in the world, he realized, as the 2020 election neared, that there was no possible way he could lose that election unless the Democrats cheated somehow. He announced this great truth numerous times as the election progressed, perhaps with some inkling that it might not go his way.
Thus, when he in fact lost his bid for re-election in 2020 by a significant margin, he knew skullduggery was afoot. To accept that he had legitimately lost the election would be to admit that he was not the most popular and important man in the world, and as a narcissist he could not even imagine that possibility. The only explanation that he could accept was that he’d actually won, but that the election had been stolen from him by some kind of massive conspiracy, the likes of which the country had never seen. He announced this idea as if it were true, over and over, every chance he got.
There were some who believed him. A significant proportion of America’s citizenry, those with the conservative’s penchant for bitter spite, hero-worship, conspiracy theories and victimhood, but who lacked the intelligence to discern the likely from the ridiculous, eagerly jumped on board the Trump-train to Crazytown. Thousands of them gathered to listen to Trump’s bitter rants, and they hung on his every word, cheering his absurd lies and vitriol.
Bolstered by his followers’ belief in him, Trump put together a crack legal team to take his conspiracy theories to court. These were not the most effective lawyers around, but they were the ones willing to take Trump’s delusions and elaborate on them, standing before cameras and microphones and spinning increasingly ornate stories of grand anti-Trump conspiracy. When standing before judges, however, they backed down and admitted they had made it all up. In over sixty court appearances across the country, they did this, losing court case after court case. And when faced with lawsuits for their lies, their defense was that no rational person would believe the things they’d said, and this was true.
Nevertheless, when Trump put out the call to his followers, telling them there was just one last chance to stop the stealing of the election, thousands of irrational white supremacists, far-right militiamen and rabid Trumpites came to do his bidding. On January sixth Trump, Giuliani and assorted other conservative politicians held a rally, got the huge crowd of fanatics all pumped up with fiery rhetoric, and pointed them at the capitol building where the routine ritual of confirming the election votes was taking place. Though he’d just promised to lead them in this crusade, Trump slipped away and went home, to watch the conflagration on TV.
The horde stormed the capitol, overpowering the police, smashing their way inside through the windows, and swarming the hallways, brutalizing anyone who tried to stop them. They came with guns, bear-spray and wrist-restraints for the hostages they planned to take, and they chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and called out for Nancy Pelosi, hoping to take their vengeance on the democratic senators and representatives. Fortunately the Capitol Police barricaded the chambers’ doors and hustled the politicians into the escape tunnels, and Pence was not hung, and no prisoners were taken. The capitol’s defenders wisely refrained from escalating the conflict by drawing their sidearms, and few shots were fired, and few deaths resulted from the insurrection attempt. The invaders, leaderless, eventually left, taking a few trophies with them. Their bold crusade sputtered out, collapsing under the weight of incompetence, stupidity and ineptitude.
Donald J. Trump’s attempted insurrection had failed, and the Republicans were soon pretending it had never happened. Hundreds of the insurrectionists were rounded up and prosecuted, but the instigators, Trump and his co-conspirators, never faced any consequences at all.
A number of Republican politicians in congress were too smart to believe Donald Trump’s delusions, but they went along with them anyway, pretending they were true for their own political gain. Trump’s excesses in office, and his embracing of far-right extremism, had brought an unprecedented number of voters from the distant fringes of the political spectrum, and the Republicans were hoping to keep those voters engaged for the mid-term election. For Republicans, keeping voters engaged means frightening them with stories of rampant out-of-control socialism and hordes of brown-skinned immigrants, because that’s what their base responds to.
But despite the fact that more people voted for Trump than had ever voted for any previous president, Even more voted for Joe Biden. Even though most of them didn’t believe it, Republicans recognized Trump’s Big Lie as an excuse to enact voter restrictions, to make sure Democrats, city-dwellers and people of color didn’t turn out in such large numbers again for the mid-terms and 2024. They’ve been busy little beavers, changing election rules and stifling voter access in every state with Republican-controlled legislature. Trump himself will probably be in prison by 2024, but there are plenty of morally-bankrupt Republicans who are jockeying for position already, preparing to use the Chosen One’s rabid base for their own presidential run.
Meanwhile, among rank-and-file Republicans, there are still a significant number of people who still believe that the election was stolen from their magnificent leader. Sadly, there is no way to convince them they’ve been lied to. They will continue to believe that Trump is the real president and Biden is a usurper, and no amount of evidence or testimony can change their minds. They will believe the Big Lie until the day they die, and will undoubtedly be bitter about it the whole time. If all his other half-assed machinations fall through, this is the legacy that Trump will leave behind.