Thread by @Teri_Kanefield

Many of them know they are lies, and they embrace them willingly because they know the lies destroy.

I wrote about this a few years ago for Slate Magazine:
slate.com/news-and-polit…

That they knowingly embrace the lies is mind-blowing.

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https://twitter.com/NotHoneyWest/status/1269073522007179267

Hannah Arendt, in the Origins of Totalitarianism, said this ⤵️

h/t @jenmercieca for pointing me to this quotation.

After doing the research that went into my Slate article. . .

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. . . it was clear to me that Trump's followers (those who know they are repeating lies) embrace the lies because they know the lies destroy, and they want to destroy.

slate.com/news-and-polit…

There are also members of the base who believe everything they're told. . .

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. . . but that's because their fears are being manipulated.

This ad is filled with outrageous lies (and yes, even under the heightened standards in U.S. v Sullivan, I think Biden would have a libel case)

https://twitter.com/Ad_Analytics/status/1268946254140145666

h/t to @CuriousAbout2 for showing me this ad.

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If you look at that ad, and consider Hofstadter's description of the Paranoid Style in American politics, you can see that the lies in the ad are directed toward the politically "paranoid."

Hofstadter describes what he calls an "impassioned minority on the fringes. . .

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. . . of the political spectrum who believe that unseen satanic forces are trying to destroy something larger in which they belong."

The "something larger" is usually described as the "American way of life."

The ad plays directly to that paranoid element.

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I should assign you all a reading list so you can be fully prepared for the government and policy portion of the Twitter Bar Exam.

What? You didn't know there would be a test?

Here you go. Reading list. terikanefield-blog.com/book-recommend…