The Big Lie about the 2020 Election was hardly the first or even the Biggest of the Big Lies in American history — fomented in vast majority by the right wing. Call it a personality trait, an ideology, or perhaps a financial preference — but Republicans seem to lean towards the disingenuous end of the truth scale. The following table is a compendium of GOP Big Lies known so far; stay tuned for updates to this page as new falsehoods spill from the torrent of bullshit propaganda spouted by right-wing authoritarians.
| Myth | Definition |
|---|---|
| "Antifa did it" | This is a pre-planned "reusable" false narrative for right-wing extremist actions. It's a ready-made "false false flag" conspiracy for repeated deployment as white supremacists and homegrown extremists ratchet up the level of political violence. |
| "government overreach" | When Democrats pass a law that Republicans don't like |
| "Makers and takers" | |
| "National security party" | |
| "Quality" of votes | |
| 2nd Amendment | "We can't do anything about guns because 2A" (and also because NRA) + "Democrats are coming to take our guns!" |
| Abu Ghraib | |
| American Dream | They inverted it away from a sense of social justice and equal opportunity (self-governance) to simply embody the venal pursuit of money. |
| America First | Invoked by right-wing propaganda campaigns over the past century, starting with Charles Lindbergh in 1939 through to Reagan (1980s), and again with lazy plagiarizing Donnie |
| American Exceptionalism | |
| Anti-gay | |
| Anti-immigrant | |
| Anti-Tax | What do you get for the billionaire who has everything? Tax policy. |
| Be Best | |
| Black and white thinking | Label anything slightly left of center as socialism or Communism |
| Blacks are commies | |
| Cancel culture | |
| Christian nationalism | |
| Cities are bad | |
| Climate change is a hoax | |
| Coastal elites | |
| Communists | |
| Confederate statues | |
| Conscience voters | |
| Corporate liberals | Anti-Semitic throwback with a modern twist |
| Covid is a hoax; covid is overblown | |
| Covid is no big deal | |
| Crime | |
| crisis actor | |
| Critical Race Theory | |
| Cry more, lib | |
| Democrats are Satanic | |
| Drain the Swamp | Rather than rid Washington of its layers of corrupt supplicants as he had promised on the campaign trail, he invited all of his cronies in to benefit from the greatest expansion of corrupt graft under any President we know of thus far. |
| Economic superiority | |
| Election integrity | Voter suppression |
| elites should rule others | |
| Elite resentment | |
| Enemy of the people | |
| Flawed savior | |
| Free speech | |
| Freedom of religion | |
| George Soros | Hungarian billionaire whose liberal politics irritate Vladimir Putin. |
| Government is the enemy | The Reagan-flavored twist on drowning government in the bathtub |
| Government spending | Black and white thinking: "all govt spending is bad" (except military) |
| Great Man theory | |
| Guantanamo Bay | |
| Heroic redeemer | This singular leader who saves the nation has a mystical connection with his people and takes the nation out of all time |
| Hollywood | Part of an "excuse framework" to ignore or dismiss something, by smearing it with vague "Hollywoodness." A cue to tune out and discredit the source. Prominent in the Qanon ideology. |
| Identity politics | The right are the ones who often insist on identity politics... |
| Insults | |
| Jim Crow | |
| Job creators | Republicans claim their system of trickle down economics produces jobs and growth, but it inhibits both as compared to a less extreme approach. |
| Kyle Rittenhouse deification | |
| Law and order | "White people should fear Black people, and support other white people who fear Black people (or brown, or women, or gays, or trans, or immigrants, whatever is the hatred du jour)" |
| Leftist apocalypse | |
| Liberals | It's like Russia recycled the Greatest Hits of Cold War Lingo and piped it in through every orifice starting (at least) during the 2016 election cycle. |
| Lost Cause | An American mythology manufactured after the Civil War by the Confederates, to soothe their wounds from the loss and whitewash the role of slavery in fomenting their sedition. In the Reconstruction era and beyond, the retcon held that "states' rights" had animated the southern states to secede from the union when in fact, the bitter contest had been inarguably about whether or not the peculiar institution was to continue in the new nation. |
| MAGA | |
| Marxism | |
| minority rule | |
| Mueller Report | |
| Muzzled | Saying "I'm muzzled!" means "I can't talk openly about how much I hate certain types of people!" |
| National debt | Suddenly out of nowhere (aka, when a Democrat comes to town), the national debt is a pressing problem. |
| Nostalgia | the role of nostalgia in fascist politics is to harness people's strong emotions to the central tenets of the ideology:* authoritarianism* hierarchy* purity* struggle |
| Personal responsibility | |
| Poll taxes | |
| Pro-life | |
| QAnon | |
| Racism | "We're not racists and it's racist to call us racist, you racist." |
| Reaganomics | |
| Refuse to recognize the legitimacy of one's opponent | Question the use of legitimate authority for spurious or unsubstantiated allegations, to create the appearance of impropriety even if there is none. |
| Religious freedom | |
| Run the country like a business | |
| Sadism | |
| silent majority | Loudly extremist minority |
| small government | 1) Grab resources 2) Privatize government functions 3) Cheat 4) Crime |
| Social Justice Warriors | |
| Socialism | Anything Democrats do or want to do is socialist and/or communist |
| States' rights | A dog whistle for first whitewashing the reasons for the Civil War, and later to rationalize defense of segregation |
| The Big Lie | |
| The Civil War wasn't about slavery | |
| The New Deal was bad for America | |
| The Swamp | ...corruption?! |
| Trickle down economics | |
| Trump "says it like it is" | They mean that he agrees with them about saying the racist, sexist, or X-ist quiet parts out loud |
| Uberman | |
| Venezuela | a dog whistle for socialism |
| Voting is a privilege, not a right | |
| War on Christmas | |
| Warmongers | |
| Welfare queens | |
| WMDs |