The one problem that I see, though, is that to do this would also require we recognize a big portion of why so much of the right was motivated to this kind of lying in the first place. And that, of course, is because of the last X percent of our population that controls most of the wealth in America, where X is your percentage of choice.
You do realize, I hope, that a good portion of these folks will do whatever they feel they need to do to preserve their privileged position; as Daniel Day-Lewis's character in "There Will Be Blood" aptly suggested by temperament, deed, and phrase. As such, even the lying described so well here, is nothing compared to what else they might be willing to do to keep the power they have:
"...Everyone lies, and no one lies with more frequency and instinctive gusto than politicians. But in American politics today it is the right that uses lies as a tactic intended to corrode the entire concept of reality. They want Americans to believe that there are always child sex slaves in the pizza parlor, poison in the fluoride, toxins in the jet trails, black helicopters just over the horizon. That, as Roseanne Barr fervently believes, large numbers of liberal celebrities have been secretly arrested for running child prostitution rings. That large swaths of the country are being run according to sharia law, or that actors paid by mysterious gun-control advocates travel around the country pretending to be high school students traumatized by school shootings, and that anyway—as Marco Rubio and Ann Coulter have charged—the Parkland massacre was really former President Obama’s fault. (Thanks.)
The right lies pervasively and it lies well, thanks to the help of both Trump’s proverbial 400-pound guy sitting on a bed and all those Russ-bots, replicating the voice of the people ad infinitum in the internet murk. They lie via the radio ravers, and the podcast conspiracy-buffs, and the overgrown children at the Murdoch media. Their lies have become deadly, living fantasies—as lies will, given enough political muscle..."My point here is to try and establish what I think will have to accompany any attempt to do this kind of "Truth And Reconciliation" process, and that is to recognize that it will have to come as part of a broader attempt to change completely the situation that has given so few so much power. And, as you might well imagine, I have have a significant bias in that regard. A bias I might add, though, that makes a lot of sense. And that is certainly the point that we must get rid of this horrible, electro mutated mess, that Capitalism has become.
The bottom line here, it seems to me, is that any fool can see what will happen if we try to do this without getting rid of Capitalism. And if you think you've seen lying at its worst yet, think again. Any more than lying alone will be the only resistance they might think to put forth to thwart "power to the people." Because that is most likely the very last thing these people want to see happen.
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