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.
What are Big Lies?
A Big Lie refers to a propaganda technique that involves repeating a falsehood or exaggeration so frequently and convincingly that people begin to accept it as truth. The term was popularized by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf, where he wrote that propaganda must be based on a “big lie” because people are counterintuitively more likely to believe a colossal falsehood than a small one because of its sheer audacity.
The technique of the Big Lie is often used by authoritarian leaders, political parties, and movements to manipulate public opinion and gain power. It relies on the psychological phenomenon known as the “illusory truth effect,” which suggests that people are more likely to believe something if they hear it repeatedly. Ironically, even a debunking of the Big Lie can contribute to the illusory truth effect by keeping the content of the falsehood top of mind in the eye of the believer.
Examples of Big Lies
Examples of the Big Lie include the claim that the 2020 US presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, the false assertion that vaccines cause autism, and the Nazi propaganda (blood libel and global cabal theory, among other hateful ideologies) that blamed Germany’s problems on the Jewish people, scapegoating them unfairly and setting up a justification for the horrific murder at scale known as the Holocaust.
The danger of the Big Lie is that it can lead to widespread disinformation, polarization and hyper partisanship, and even violence. It is essential to fact-check claims and resist the impulse to accept information at face value. Instead, critical thinking, fact-checking, and seeking out multiple sources of information can help individuals and society avoid falling prey to the Big Lie.
The following table is a compendium of GOP Big Lies known so far.
| 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 |
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