strongman – Forecast: partly sunny with a chance of cataclysms

Breathing an Atmosphere of Lies

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last two years, you can probably guess why lying and other forms of spreading untruths fester with new virulence in the minds of the public (that is, that portion of the public who is paying attention to public life).

Communicating untruths, whether deliberate lies or “alternative facts” mistaken for truths through ignorance, is a very broad topic. There are polite lies, “white lies,” or lying to protect a loved one, all of which are in a different moral universe from evil lies. The latter are the kind that constitute Fake News as well as other kinds of dishonest villainy.

If a lie inflicts harm on somebody’s Bad Guys, then justifying it may depend on whose side you’re on.

Subverting the system with lies is OK if you win. That’s where we stand in the days of rank partisanship.

Continue reading “How Cheating Starts, and the Path to Oligarchy”

A recent poll by The Economist and YouGov found that 37% of Republicans have a “favorable view” of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. (It’s 10% of Democrats also!; I don’t know who these Democrats are and I don’t want to know.)

That’s a “favorable view” of someone who is responsible for the deaths of Syrian civilians in the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands. That’s in addition to thousands of casualties resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, plus the bloody invasion of Georgia in 2008, not to mention cyberwarfare against Baltic states, and, within Russia itself, continuing violent repression of critical investigative media and opposition voices in general. In other words, a “favorable view” of someone for whom there’s a compelling case to charge as a war criminal several times over.

Oh, and we might mention that he lies about absolutely everything that sheds a bad light on Russia (last I heard he was still denying that Russian troops had entered eastern Ukraine, except to protect Ukrainian rebels. Why does this sound like Saturday Night Live?).

Continue reading “37%!?! The Trumputin Effect, Tribalism, and Strongmen”