A year ago and more, I wanted to explain how Trump’s big lie would shape our politics. Here is what I wrote then. And here we are.
Trump’s July 2020 "Delay the Election" tweet and the big lie: Trump both revived fascist propaganda and exploited a new age of Internet post-truth. He followed a trail blazed by fascists, but added a twist that is his own. washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/0…
"It is unusual for a plan for a coup d’état to be broadcast so clearly... By telling us in advance that he intends to stay in power regardless of the vote count, Trump is... making us understand that we are participants in the unravelling of US democracy." commonwealmagazine.org/not-normal-ele…
Trump lost the election and nevertheless tried to stay in power. It mattered that he failed, but it mattered just as much how he failed. What Americans did then and do now will shape our democracy for decades to come. commonwealmagazine.org/not-normal-ele…
21st century authoritarians are against counting votes, but they legitimate themselves through elections. Their big lie is that we would somehow be a better democracy if “the people” just meant the right people, and not all people. washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/1…
Trump’s lies about voting and counting will have lasting consequences. The lingering effect of a myth of victimhood, of the idea of a stab in the back, can be profound. bostonglobe.com/2020/11/11/opi…
"Members of Congress who sustained [Trump's] lie, despite the available and unambiguous evidence, betrayed their constitutional mission. Making his fictions the basis of congressional action gave them flesh." nytimes.com/2021/01/09/mag…
"Trump’s coup attempt of 2020-21, like other failed coup attempts, is a warning for those who care about the rule of law and a lesson for those who do not." nytimes.com/2021/01/09/mag…
"Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts... then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions." nytimes.com/2021/01/09/mag…
"The big lie reverses perpetrator and victim, which makes plans to do evil a second time feel like justified revenge. The big lie enables a purge of the Republican Party and nourishes the safe space known as right-wing media." snyder.substack.com/p/a-dream-of-p…
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