9/11 and the birth of the Big Lie

[babylonsister]

https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/911-and-the-birth-of-the-big-lie

9/11 and the birth of the Big Lie
The attacks that day loosened the ties that bind us as a nation.
Lucian K. Truscott IV
Sep 11

snip//


"I'll tell you another war we lost, maybe even a bigger and more important war than the war on terror. We lost the war on truth. And we were warned. Oh yes, we were warned. Take Donald Trump's first Big Lie right after 9/11 as just one example. He claimed — I hope you're sitting down for this — that he could see from his office window in Trump Tower crowds of Muslims across the Hudson River, several miles away, on the roofs of buildings in Jersey City, cheering as the World Trade Center fell.

"Remember that one? It was such a patently outrageous lie that it zoomed right past without anyone noticing as the rest of the Big Lies hit one after another.

"But Trump got away with it, and he learned from it. Oh, yes. He learned how the Big Lie worked. He learned from watching Bush get away with lying about WMDs, and he learned from the Big Lies that we were winning in Iraq and Afghanistan. So he started trying out other Big Lies of his own, like the one about how Barack Obama wasn't a citizen of the United States, that he had a fake birth certificate, that he was a "secret Muslim." Remember when Trump was all over the TV for days and days claiming that he had sent detectives to Hawaii? All we had to do was wait and he was going to reveal the "truth" about Obama.

"He got away with his "birther" Big Lie, and he learned something that he has used ever since, something that helped him drive us into the ditch of the pandemic he lied about for a year, something that has helped him transform an entire political party, the Republican Party, from one of two normal political parties in this country into an authoritarian cult.

"He learned that if he told Big Lies that were big enough, and if he repeated them enough times, that he could get away with it, just like Bush got away with lying about WMDs to get us into Iraq. And his party, the Republican Party, learned right along with him. Look at what they are doing right this minute about the insurrection he incited against the Congress of the United States in his naked attempt to overturn the election he lost. Donald Trump and the Republican Party are on a campaign to deny that it happened. They are trying to make a case that it wasn't Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol, it was somebody else, and those who were arrested are political prisoners facing false charges … and on and on and on.

"The legacy 9/11 has left us is that there is no common set of facts we can agree on about anything: Not about the COVID pandemic and masks and vaccines; not about the climate change that has killed hundreds and left town after town burned to the ground or under water and destroyed by tornadoes and hurricanes. We cannot agree that votes counted amount to elections won or lost. We cannot even agree on the common good of vaccines that will save us, that science is worth studying, that learned experts are worth listening to.
"The lies that followed 9/11 have torn us apart as a nation and put our democracy in peril. That's our legacy: Lies are now considered by an entire political party to be legitimate political currency. A man who has told so many lies we have lost count of them is now a legitimate political figure supported for the highest office of the land by one of our two political parties.

"Lies began tearing us apart after the attacks on 9/11, and we have not regained our footing as a nation. The question hanging over us now is whether we ever will."

[Klaralven]

1. The US was hardly a land of truth and unity prior to 9/11

Joe McCarthy?

George Wallace?

Others too numerous to mention...

[olegramps]

10. The Republican Party was fully primed and saturated with hatred to accept the lies.

Trump and his cohorts only took advantage of the systemic racism to continues unabated. Add to the mix the control of hate radio screaming that the liberals were unpatriotic scum that are destroying the morals of young people. Add a heaping of Hispanic scapegoats for the loss of jobs that had actually been loss to automation and you have set the scene for the enviable opportunistic demagogue to exploit the situation. However the most vicious culprits are not the demagogues the their stooges, but the real power that has enabled them.

It is the Federalist Society and their supporters from the extreme wealth who are intent on establishing a authoritarian presidency with a cabinet composed of the extremely wealthy and powerful business leaders. This the model of fascism that the Republican Party has been pursuing for the last forty plus years.

One of their first targets was the unions that they attacked with a barrage of charges and a campaign of Right to Work Laws. It was without doubt a total success. This success was followed by attacks on the Free Press with their Federalist judges challenging the presses protection of confidential resources. This was designed to instill fear in anyone who darned to expose corruption and backroom dealing with economic reprisals along with suits for supposed damages. Their latest target is the very bases of democracy, the electoral process. Following in the proven footsteps of dictatorships, they realize the need to control and manipulate the elections. Unfortunately, their campaign has met with resounding success primarily attributable to the paralysis of the majority of the citizens with deadly apathy to the monstrous lies they are able to disseminate without any substantial objections. The people have been lulled into a state in which they just become numb to the most bizarre outright lies. The major question is will the citizens awaken to the threat or sleep themselves into virtual economic and political servitude.

[Auggie]

2. I think Reagan started it

Big government is bad, tax cuts for the wealthy are good, etc.

[Progressive dog]

3. Lies are not a recent invention

"The lost cause" of the south is one big lie designed to divide us. We at least mostly agree that 9/11 was a terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda. Climate change is caused by too many people using too many resources and wanting to use more. It is a thing that each of us bears some responsibility for and that fixing will require sacrifices by most of us to mitigate.

[NoMoreRepugs]

4. Just a non relevant aside. I'm in N Florida. Yesterday while driving I

read on the back bumper of the tRump sticker adorned pickemup truck in front of me a sticker with a confederate flag on it that read .. “Fighting Terrorists since 1861.”

Overcoming that level of stooopid is impossible IMO. The Deplorable mob will believe ANYTHING because they want to.

[Tommymac]

5. K & R for TRUTH.

Great article. Must be on the Greatest Page. Let's get it there.

[Jetheels]

6. Tfg's story about the Muslims cheering was more than a big lie.

It was also a tactic to weaponize the news, reframe the terrorist attack into something that could fit a narrative he could benefit from, making it about himself. And to boast about his tower was now the biggest.

[KPN]

7. TFG has lied his entire life. It didn't start and he didn't

learn it from his 9/11 lie about seeing the thousands of Muslims cheering. He has always used lying as a means to visibility and with it power.

[OMGWTF]

8. Support Lucien Truscott's Work

He is a keen observer, an excellent writer, and the great (x 5) grandson of President Thomas Jefferson.

[McKim]

9. Outstanding Post for Today and Always!

This is the most important posting of 9/11 2021! Bush and PNAC got away with The Big Lie and now they are comfortable "teaching" at prestigious universities and on TV. No consequences for them and plenty of consequences for us!

The birth of The Bid Lie and the consequences are the downfall of this country. They got away with it even after the lessons of Vietnam were staring us in the face!

Now we have more of The Big Lie and the destruction of agreed upon truths. Thanks, Babylon Sister, for your valuable piece. We should all be spreading it!

[moondust]

11. 74 million voters

were okay with the 30,000 documented lies he told over 4-5 years. No big deal. All politicians bend the truth, right? Let's have some more of them tax cuts and white supremacy right out in the open!

I don't know where they'll find another loud white supremacist with that kind of name recognition to replace him. I suppose that's why they are still sticking with the big orange loser.

What a wonderful world...

K/R

[ymetca]

12. What bothers me about 9/11

is that rich people who died there got more money than poor people who died there. They should have all gotten the same, right?

Our tax dollars, "means-tested" to give the most to them that needed it the least.

Right in plain sight, and nobody notices.

[Champp]

13. The Republican lies reek of corrupted souls

The Republican lies are easy to see through, but Republicans slurp them up all the same -- and willingly embrace falsehood.

Republicans have become their lies.