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Remember how shocking it was to many in 1995 that Newt Gingrich, the Speaker of the freaking House, gave air to the evidence-free conspiracy theory that the Clinton's had Vince Foster murdered?
And then remember how shocked even this Fox News commentator was that Donald Trump would recycle this conspiracy during the 2016 election? https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/what-donald-trumps-fishy-comments-about-vince-foster-tell-us
Remember non-existent WMD's? Remember the Swift Boaters for Truth? Remember Birtherism? Remember the menacingly yuge migrant caravan at the border that mysteriously disappeared the day after the 2018 election?
Remember Seth Rich, who was decidedly NOT murdered by the DNC, but you'd never know that if you only watched Hannity and other Fox News shows who were obsessed with that story? https://www.npr.org/2020/11/24/938545344/fox-news-settles-with-seth-richs-parents-for-false-story-claiming-clinton-leaks
I'm not so naive as to think we could ever create a political culture entirely void of lying and dirty tricks. But it seems quite bad that one party, the GOP, has discovered that they can make up any old shit and a huge chunk of their voters will believe it.
It's decades of lying about Vince Foster, WMDs, Swift Boats, Obama's birth certificate, migrant caravans, etc. that has produced a GOP base that overwhelmingly believes Biden did not really win in 2020 and January 6 was either a) fine, or b) an antifa false flag.
The consequences for these lies have only gotten more significant. On January 6 we came 60 seconds and a few wrong turns by insurgents away from a potentially murderous coup. What reason do we have to believe another iteration of this process won't happen in 2022 or 2024?
If the GOP banishes everyone like Liz Cheney who's willing to tell the truth about the 2020 election, then we should assume their strategy for every future election is to do what they did in 2020--which is to try to steal it, 1st by legal shenanigans, then violently if necessary.
Kinzinger understood and understands the consequence of such massive lying campaigns. It’s a shame that he and Cheney are two of the few Republicans with sufficient integrity to speak honestly about this. https://twitter.com/adamkinzinger/status/1391746518206533634
