It seems to me that lies are not incidental to the leftist campaign; they are foundational. The lies are constant and pervasive, and without them the left would have almost no selling points. The key to lying effectively is to be as united as possible in the lie, to repeat it and not back down in the face of corrections, and to enlist the cooperation of the MSM and social media heads in the endeavor.

The left has accomplished that for the most part, although now and then there’s a defection from someone who just can’t wallow in the lies anymore. That’s also why those who do defect must be ostracized and if possible destroyed financially and socially, maybe even imprisoned and certainly broken financially. And that’s why Elon Musk is considered such a dangerous traitor by buying Twitter and instituting (or re-instituting?) a measure of free speech there, as well as community notes.

But the left and the MSM still have great power, for the simple reason that a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its boots on. News junkies like us follow the details, but a great many people only get the headlines and then go about their lives, and social media and email are still great conduits for spreading the lies. What’s more, the newer lies are placed on top of a large edifice constructed of the older lies, and the new ones are integrated seamlessly and seem extremely plausible because they fit into the previous worldview of the person receiving the information.

That’s how perceptions based on lies persist and even grow stronger. It’s a rare person who – like a friend of mine did recently – tries to determine whether a new story is a lie or not. This friend likes neither Trump nor Harris, and had gotten some sort of communication from friends, either through email or Facebook, that Trump said he wanted Liz Cheney put up in front of a firing squad. My friend found this very disturbing, if true, and because she knew I research these things she asked me what I thought and I was able to explain about the “chickenhawk” charge.

But what of her friends who believed it and I’m pretty certain continue to believe it? It fit in perfectly with their idea of Trump, formed by thousands of other such incidents and lies: that he’s a violent threat to women and should never, never ever, be given power. What’s to be done to set them straight? You might say it’s not worth bothering and/or impossible, but they are the voters who might elect Kamala Harris as president, without even knowing how they’ve been duped.

I think the key is the MSM. If the media did its job properly, the politicians might tell their lies but the lies wouldn’t get halfway round the world.