Jamelle Bouie kicks off a column with a couple of specific, vile and destructive recent lies of the Republican nominees for president and vice president. (Gift link.) They're immediate effect is bad enough, but this is his ultimate take:
Whether it is Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, or native-born Americans in North Carolina, Donald Trump and JD Vance are doing whatever they can to destabilize the capacity of ordinary people to trust any information that comes their way. They are asking their supporters and followers to ignore their senses, to ignore their experience, in favor of a constructed reality. They are telling the country that nothing — not the impartial judgments of trained observers nor the words of the storm victims themselves — counts as much as the story they want to tell.
As strategy goes, this could work. Trump and Vance might win the election with a message that is far more fantasy than it is reality. But whether they do or don’t triumph in the end, the damage will be done. Trump has successfully trained millions of Americans to think of the truth as an obstacle to winning power. He may not be able to capitalize on that victory. Eventually, someone will.
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