Democrats and the Big Lie
Published at 07:59 on 2 August 2016
It first caught my attention when Dan Savage claimed it. It didn’t make much sense: why would the Green Party, which is trying to attract more support, do something as stupid as nominate an anti-vaxxer nut as their leader? (Short answer: they wouldn’t and didn’t. Savage lied.) Now the Guardian is repeating the lie.
It seems that Democrats (and their enablers) are engaging in a Big Lie campaign against Jill Stein. This is a technique first widely popularized by the Nazi Party, who accused others of doing it while engaging in plenty of it themselves:
But it remained for the Jews, with their unqualified capacity for falsehood, and their fighting comrades, the Marxists, to impute responsibility for the downfall precisely to the man who alone had shown a superhuman will and energy in his effort to prevent the catastrophe which he had foreseen and to save the nation from that hour of complete overthrow and shame. By placing responsibility for the loss of the world war on the shoulders of Ludendorff they took away the weapon of moral right from the only adversary dangerous enough to be likely to succeed in bringing the betrayers of the Fatherland to Justice.
All this was inspired by the principle—which is quite true within itself—that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X
The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.
— Joseph Goebbels, Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik
Does Stein do some low-grade pandering to anti-vaxxers? Yes. This crowd is present in the Green Party. She’s a politician. All politicians pander. But (this is important) throwing the anti-vaxxer crowd a harmless bone or two while at the same time openly stating the benefits and effectiveness of vaccines is not the same as being an anti-vaxxer oneself.
Claim she panders. Claim the GP has problems because of that crowd. But don’t claim she’s an anti-vaxxer herself. That’s a lie.
When you resort to such rank dishonesty, Democrats, that says far more about you and your party than it does about Ms. Stein and hers.