Mediaboss Marketing

Its the only strategy for a Republican Party that would rather lie than legislate.

That mendacity strategy has reached an insidious pitch. The New York Post, the conservative tabloid owned by Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch, recently published a cover story about children at migrant centers receiving copies of Superheroes Are Everywhere, a picture book authored by Harris when she was a senator. Other media outlets fact-checked the story to pieces turns out there was a single copy at a center in Long Beach, Calif., donated at a book drive and Post officials acknowledged the story as fake. The reporter, who claims she was ordered to write it, resigned.

That only came after the GOP Outrage Machine cranked it up to 11. Various Fox News hosts yapped about it on their shows, including white supremacy avatar Tucker Carlson. Republicans including Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana posted angry tweets accusing Harris of profiting from the border crisis with books bought with taxpayer money.

At the same time, Larry Kudlow, Trumps former economic advisor, was spewing lies that Bidens Green New Deal targets would mean that America has to stop eating meat, stop eating poultry and fish, seafood, eggs, dairy, and animal-based fats. Overheated and ridiculous, that fake news was kept afloat for days by right-wing media.

Yet even when the lies are debunked, the damage is already done.

And thats the goal. These mistruths have a social media afterlife unencumbered by facts. Its about lies fashioned to reinforce ideology and confirmation biases. Harris didnt put copies of her book into migrant centers for profit, but for those who already dislike her, it sounds like the kind of calculated thing they imagine she would do. Biden isnt taking away meat, seafood, or eggs, but it sounds like the sort of nanny-state nonsense that conservatives often accuse Democrats of concocting to curtail American freedoms and independence.

Taken at face value, it all seems silly, even harmless. Yet that obscures the darker underside of these constant falsehoods.

On Jan. 6, Michael Fanone, a D.C. Metropolitan Police officer, was pummeled by insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol in an attempt to thwart the certification of the 2020 presidential election. He suffered a heart attack and a concussion, but what has happened since the seditious riot has been no less painful.

Its been very difficult seeing elected officials and other individuals kind of whitewash the events of that day or downplay what happened, Fanone told CNNs Don Lemon in an emotional interview. Without mentioning the former president who incited his supporters to go to the Capitol, Fanone called his rhetoric dangerous.

Some Republicans, like Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, claim that the insurrection, which killed five people and injured more than 130 police officers, was not an insurrection at all. That misdirection is working. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that about 50 percent of self-identified Republicans say the insurrection was a mostly nonviolent protest or was fueled by left-wing groups to make Trump look bad. And 60 percent are still clinging to the Big Lie that the election was stolen.

Of course, Republican disdain for the truth is nothing new. When Vincent Foster, a Clinton White House staffer and longtime friend of the president and first lady Hillary Clinton, died by suicide in 1993, conservatives accused the Clintons of murder. With Barack Obamas presidential candidacy came the racist birtherism movement falsely claiming that he was ineligible to run because he was born in Kenya. Then came the alarmist lies about so-called death panels, an attempt to derail passage of the Affordable Care Act, President Obamas signature achievement.

Its not an alternative reality. Its anti-reality, a fractured narrative of rumors and conspiracies designed to justify white fear and stoke its attendant rage.

GOP lies will only grow more grandiose and provocative in an attempt to upend the Biden presidency. And the closer we get to the crucial midterm elections next year, what Republicans may do or say to retake majority power in the House and Senate could make the Big Lie look like a dress rehearsal.

Rene Graham can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @reneeygraham.

Read the original here:
The Republican Partys big little lies - The Boston Globe