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Under the circumstances, its tempting to treat Trump as an anomaly and to view his mendacity as some sort of new development in conservative circles. But while Trumphas introduced a new level of dishonesty into the world of White House communications, the grim reality is that his duplicity builds on years decades, really of movement conservatism honing lies as a major and, in some cases, central public relations tactic.

For journalists like myself who have covered the reproductive-rights struggle for a long time, Trumps bottomless ability to lie feels very familiar.The anti-choice movement is the vanguard of the conservative movement generally. Tactics that anti-choicers develop and hone tend to spread out through conservatism, and nowhere is this more evident when it comes to the use of shameless lying as a tactic.

Whats remarkable about the anti-choice movement is that it lies about pretty much everything. Anti-choice activists have churned through a series of legal and rhetorical gambits over the years, and while the focus may change, one thing always stays the same: Their arguments are built on a foundation of lies. Every time, without fail.

The recent attacks on Planned Parenthood, for instance, have been justified by the claim that the venerated health organization sells baby parts.This is a lie. In therecent Supreme Court case, Whole Womens Health v. Hellerstedt, the state of Texas argued that a slate of abortion restrictions were necessary to protect womens health.That was a lie, which the court saw right through. In the Hobby Lobby v. Burwell case challenging the Affordable Care Acts contraception coverage requirement, the anti-choice side argued that certain forms of contraception work not by preventing but by terminating pregnancies.Thats a lie.

Anti-choicers are also fond of arguing that having an abortion often leads to deep regret and even mental health issues. This is a lie. Various states have sought to ban abortion at 20 weeks of gestation, claiming that fetuses can feel pain at that stage of development. This is a lie. Anti-choicers also argue that abortion causes breast cancer, infertility and other physical health problems. These are lies, which, unfortunately, have made their way into pamphlets that some states force doctors, in defiance of medical ethics, to give to patients.

Anti-choice activists are so shameless that they are now trying to pretend abortion reversal, a harmful and offensive fiction, is a thing.

This kind of relentless lying, unfortunately, can be highly effective. Its impossible to argue with someone who wont even concede basic facts, making any attempt at reasoned discourse fall apart.Reactionary arguments perform better when the plane of discourse is all feelings and stereotypes, and lying is the best way to make sure their supporters dont feel the tempting pull of reality-based thinking.

Thats why the popularity of outright lying as a tactic is spreading all over the right. It started spreading, unsurprisingly, in religious right circles. As with the anti-choice movement, the opposition to LGBTrights has been based on a series of lies, from the claim that same-sex marriage somehow threatens straight marriage to the current baseless hysteria about trans people using the bathroom. The creationist movement is not only based on lies, its about instilling lies in the classroom. We see the same story with abstinence-only sex education programs, which promoted false information about contraception in their material and justified themselves with the outrageous delusion that premarital abstinence from sexual intercourse was likely to be a viable option in 21st-century America.

But endlesslying really made its Great Leap Forward out of religious right circles into broader conservatism with the debate over climate change.

Denying that climate change is really happening and is caused by human activity is, objectively speaking, a mainstream conservative position. Fifty-nine percent of Republicans in the House of Representatives and 70 percent of Republicans in the Senate, as of March 2016, denied the scientific facts around climate change.

In other words, the majority of congressional Republicans are liars. Not liars in the way politicians are usually called liars. These arent people who shade the truth or exaggerate evidence or occasionally say untrue things they have to take back during a campaign. These are people who are committed to an outright lie about climate change, and who refuse to back down under pressure.

Thats why Trump isnt an anomaly. Instead, hesjust someone who correctly assessed that the Republican Party has no problem with lying as a strategy, and has taken that observation to its logical conclusion.

Thats why no one should be surprised to see Republican politicians falling in line with even some of Trumps most obnoxious lies. For instance, when the president started spouting off about how those who challenge him are just paid protesters, the GOP caucus started echoing this lie, marginalizing and undermining their own constituents with it.

Most of these politicians were perfectly happy to embrace lies about everything from abortion to climate change, even back when they thought Donald Trump was a dangerous rebel outsider who was out to destroy the Republican Party. So there was never any reason to think they would suddenly start feeling moved by the moral imperative towards honesty now that hes in the White House.

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Donald Trump tells a lot of lies but he's just building on a long Republican tradition - Salon