Republicans are 'an existential threat' to democracy because they are fooled by their own lies: columnist

Matthew Chapman
July 06, 2021


President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence walk with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senator Roy Blunt, R-Mo., Tuesday, March 10, 2020, upon their arrival to the U.S. Capitol for a Senate Republican policy lunch. (Official White House Photo by D. Myles Cullen)

On Tuesday, writing for the anti-Trump conservative site The Bulwark, columnist and Iranian-born asylum seeker Shay Khatiri broke down how Republicans are no longer just lying about democracy and elections — they are convincing themselves their own lies are true.

"A famous German once said, 'if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,'"*** wrote Khatiri. "The case of Trump, his defenders in Congress, and their allies in conservative media is different. They told big enough lies, and repeated them so often, that they came to believe their own falsehoods."

Johnson has been one of the biggest apologists for the Capitol rioters, even suggesting their behavior wasn't violent.

One of the most blatant examples, noted Khatiri, is Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who has admitted he believes the left is such a threat to America that he will push Trump's "big lie" about the election or even align himself with Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop them.

"Eliot Cohen reminds his students that the danger is not from politicians who lie. All politicians tell lies from time to time, some venal and some mortal. Your alarms should go off, however, when the politicians convince themselves that their lies are true to relieve their consciences from the guilt of lying. Because when that happens, they will be able to use the lie to justify anything, be it foolish, or self-serving, or wicked," wrote Khatiri. "Today Republicans have convinced themselves that their big lie about the existential threat of the Democratic party is true, and so they have justified a great many actions which are, at best, ignoble. They believe their own lie so deeply that they have become an existential threat to the republic themselves."

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*** DR. JOSEPH GOBBELS