so it's official: Ronald Reagan became President of the United States by committing the crime of high treason. To offer to pay a declared enemy not to release American officials they hold hostage is about as clear an example of treason as you can get 1/
speaking as someone who was following these events in the '80s, the "Iran-Contra scandal" was in all the news continually, but that was acceptable, because it was about the administration illegally bribing the other side to release US hostages. It was an acceptable narrative. 2/
but when former Iranian Pres Bani Sadr announced that actually, the Reagan campaign had offered weapons to Iran for NOT releasing the hostages until they'd won the elections, suddenly everyone treated this as it could not possibly be true & there was no serious investigation 3/
the Iran-Contra scandal was an embarrassment - you'd think if there's any legit reason for the US to employ James-Bond-style covert ops spies, it would be to rescue hostages like that, but apparently lacking competence they used them to cover up that they were paying ransom. 4/
they could frame it as "who watches the watchers" (as they did) - they were trying to do right but did they go to far? But bribing Iran not to release hostages was just treason. That would mean a conservative icon & popular President came to power by betraying his country 5/
you might imagine the reaction on hearing this news would be "omg this changes everything!" But for that very reason, the reaction was instead, "oh come on, you're being ridiculous, that can't be true, that'd change everything." So there was no significant formal investigation 6/
there should be a technical term for this. I propose "the terrifying truth effect." It's related, but not the same, as Goebbels' "big lie" tactic (if the government says something that seems flagrantly false people will assume they can't be lying, as they'd get caught) 7/
I saw this in action in the late '80s when the October Surprise revelations came out: when brought up to senators who were piously denouncing Iran-Contra, they just treated it as a joke. Since it couldn't by definition be true the evidence must be false 8/
