In about a day, President Donald Trump, that prickish Oompa-Loompa who pushes the kids into the chocolate, let loose with such a flurry of lies that it formed a kind of thick fog of bullshit. And by "lies," I mean, "Shit that is demonstrably wrong used to deceive people."
In his press conference with President Moon of South Korea, Trump was asked about the idea of "extreme vetting" for people purchasing guns. Trump seemed to think that Texas mass killer Devin Kelley was an army unto himself. Talking about the man who ended up shooting and wounding Kelley, Trump offered, "If he didn’t have a gun, instead of having 26 dead, you would have had hundreds more dead." Where exactly these hundreds of people would have come from at a church that seated 50 in the middle of nowhere is left unsaid, as is how, exactly, 26 slaughtered people, including a dozen kids, is some kind of victory for the Second Amendment.
Then Trump repeated a talking point that the right cannot let go of, no matter how many times it's debunked: "I mean, you look at the city with the strongest gun laws in our nation, is Chicago, and Chicago is a disaster. It's a total disaster." Putting aside the idea of the President of the United States calling a major American city a "disaster," on a basic comparison level, it's complete bullshit. And as I and many, many others have pointed out, Chicago is right near Indiana, which has some of the weakest gun laws in our nation, and it's pretty fuckin' easy to drive the 40 minutes or so from Gary or Valparaiso to Chicago.
But the blur of unreality continued on Trump's tweeted endorsements of chinless and spineless worm Ed Gillespie for Virginia governor. Trump attacked Democrat Ralph Northam and the current Democratic administration, saying, "Ed W Gillespie will totally turn around the high crime and poor economic performance of VA." (Hmmm. Think Trump is getting used to the term "high crimes"?)
A recent ranking of the safest states in the country when it comes to violent crime and property crime put Virginia at number 6. Sure, Richmond is pretty damn murdery, but if you're talking the whole state, Virginia doesn't have "high crime" by any stretch of an idiot's imagination.
As for the economy, the unemployment rate in Virginia is the 10th lowest in the nation. In June, its economy was ranked 13th in the country by Wallethub, which improves on its 2016 ranking of 15th. In other words, not only is the economy in good shape under a Democratic governor and a Democratic lieutenant governor, Ralph Northam. It's getting better.
And then there's the Trump boogeyman of the moment, the gang MS-13, which is fucking up Central American countries. When Ed Gillespie decided to go full racist, he more or less accused Northam of blowing each and every member of MS-13 as he let them out of prison. Really, all Northam did was supports sanctuary cities, which is pretty much the same thing as giving machetes to gang members. Gillespie and Trump are blowing up the threat of the gang to al-Qaeda-like proportions and pinning it on Northam. Oddly, they don't bring up that the gang was there, perhaps even in larger numbers, back when Republican Bob McDonnell was governor. (Note: Post-racist ad, Northam said he would ban sanctuary cities, so good job, racists.)
Every single one of these lies is calculated to have an effect, whether it's to get Gillespie elected or to please the gun-fellating base. Or, in the case of another lie, about the supposedly high taxes Americans pay, it's meant to pleasure GOP donors and keep the rubes angry at the guvmint.
What we are seeing in this whirlwind of prevarication, this blizzard of bullshit, is the degradation of our notions of truth, of fact, where everything is relative to whoever has the loudest megaphone and whoever gets the most clicks. "Well, this scientist says that climate change is going to fuck us all up," some asshole might tell his asshole wife. "But Swingin' Dick McGee here on Facebook tells me that it's all a hoax and we'll all be fine. Slap me in my face with your dick, McGee, because I believe you."
Lies are easy and simple. Truths are complex and difficult. We'll run to the comfort of the simple even as we barricade ourselves in our homes with our multiple guns, believing that the evil gang members are going to kill our daughters and rape our dogs, ignoring the floods that will wash us away.
