So Much Lying, So Little Time

  

In 1982, William Goldman published a memoir of his time in Hollywood, where he had written the screenplays for Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, and The Princess Bride, among others.

The book had a priceless title, with resonance well beyond the screen trade. It was called Which Lie Did I Tell?

And that’s the trouble with lying, isn’t it? How do you keep the lies straight? It’s one thing to keep track of which lie you told to which customer, boss, or spouse — that’s hard enough. But it’s a whole other thing to regularly lie to the media, or to voters, or to other countries. Eventually, you get caught out, even by the most gullible. And credibility is a hard thing to recover.

We have been subsumed by a culture of lying, embodied by a Republican Party whose commitment to it predates Trump by at least four decades. They’ve spent that time building a lie machine that has served them extremely well, but is now visibly breaking down. The lies got out of control, to the point where even real dumbshits don’t believe a word they’re saying.

The consequences of this are now showing up in what some are calling the “de-Trumpification” of the Republican Party. I’m not convinced it can truly be de-Trumpified as long as Trump himself is still around — there are still two more years left in this endless theater of the absurd. But there can be no doubt that a lot of the rats are jumping ship as the midterms close in on them. Time is not on their side.

Marjorie Taylor Greene was the first to recognize the obvious when she bailed from the Party last year. Now she is now happily outside the tent pissing in. She recently called out Republicans for conjuring yet another immigrant “caravan” that’s invading the US, bent on rape and murder, curiously just before the midterms. She has told her audience of QAnon nutjobs — who might ordinarily believe such a whopper — that “the GOP needs to scare you into voting because nothing else is working.” Where else would they hear something like that? And to think that MTG spent years inventing such stories herself. Remember the Jewish space lasers?

You’ll recall that last November, Greene was in cahoots with Congressman Thomas Massie (R) in pressing DOJ to release the Epstein files. The two spearheaded the discharge petition that Trump “allowed” Republicans to vote for, which they did unanimously, even knowing full well Trump would never let those files be released. Both Greene and Massie incurred Trump’s wrath, and Greene had the good sense to head for the exits. But Massie took the inevitable hit, and was duly primaried out of his seat in the benighted state of Kentucky.

But Massie isn’t going quietly. He has moved for the impeachment of Pete Hegseth, which is not something Republicans do to one another. This prompted House Speaker Mike Johnson to send Congress home early rather than risk bringing that motion to a vote. Johnson exists only to keep Trump pacified, and he could see the writing on the wall, soon to be followed by the ketchup. Yes, it was all a stunt on Massie’s part, but it forced a reaction from Johnson, and added to the general chaos in the Party.

It seems no matter where you look, Republican incumbents are scrambling for the lifeboats. The press talks about how they’re all “distancing” themselves from Trump, but it’s hard to imagine any but the most brainwashed MAGA dumbshit buying that act. Even the brainwashed buy gas.

Byron Donalds, a loyal Trump stooge running for governor of Florida, has de-Trumpified his website. Just a few weeks ago the home page featured Donalds posing with the Dear Leader, all smiles, all ecstatic about the Trump agenda. Now the photos are gone, there’s no mention of the Trump agenda, and you have to look really hard to find the word ‘Republican’ anywhere on the site.

Other candidates — for House, Senate, state offices — have been doing the same, even as Trump begs them to “put him on the ballot.” As if he weren’t the only thing on the ballot already.

Florida Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar — a Trumpy to her very core — dropped an ad pleading with Trump to ease up on his immigration policy, which she claims has “gone too far.” That she’s trying to sidestep her own complicity in that very policy isn’t half as interesting as her on-camera anger at Trump. She sees that her Latino constituency is outraged at his war on immigrants, and they’re holding her responsible. She knows she’s at risk of losing a House seat that should have been a safe R forever.

Trump, of course, lashed out at her, immediately calling for her removal from the ticket, which at this late date was a non-starter. GOP ineptitude does not yet extend to putting a new name on ballots that have already been printed.

Here in Michigan, where our Senate race is seen as crucial to both sides, the Republican Mike Rodgers is not enjoying himself. Between the Canada trade war that is wrecking his state’s economy, and the various stupid wars that are driving up the price of gas, diesel, and groceries, Rogers has been finding Trump’s policies a tad difficult to defend. This has forced him to call, timidly, for an immediate end to the Iran War. He doesn’t dare mention Trump by name — he’d lose the entire Upper Peninsula — but he has Trump-stink all over him, and voters can smell it. It didn’t help to have Tucker Carlson, of all people, declare him “unfit for office” and loudly endorse his opponent, Abdul El-Sayed. Ouch.

If there’s any good news for Rogers, it’s that the local airwaves are being swamped with vicious attack ads aimed at El-Sayed. We can’t turn on a local news station or an NFL game without being bombarded. Yes, El-Sayed has his own ads, often running side-by-side with the attack ads, but he’s being hugely outspent. When you read about all that money the GOP has pulled out of Georgia and North Carolina — in effect abandoning both of those once-dependable Senate seats — Michigan is one of the places they’re re-deploying it.

It’s hard to say how effective all that advertising will prove to be, but I see no evidence that it’s swaying anyone. Abdul is remarkably quick on his feet, and he’s managed to negotiate a minefield of ethnic feuds and smears without losing either his swagger or his place in the polls. He has the look and feel of a rising star. Rogers has the look and feel of a Republican in this year’s midterms.

Are all the lies finally catching up to the GOP? If so, it’s long overdue. From Trump on down, it’s hard to imagine any group that has ridden so high, for so long, on such a thick cushion of bullshit.

Reality was bound to intrude someday, and it appears the lies aren’t landing the way they used to. Yes, there is that hard-core thirty percent of the electorate that will believe any lie, any time, as long as it’s one they want to hear.

But in the vast, poorly-informed middle there’s a lot of regret, a lot of people with the sinking feeling that they’ve been played for suckers. Which of course they have.