How Do You Defend a Lie?

How do you defend a lie, just ask Mo Brooks.  Brooks claims he spent two months tirelessly working on a political message that would sow distrust over the nation’s presidential election — and then pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol and ruined all his hard work.  Brooks says he will “never apologize” for delivering a speech at President Donald Trump’s rally on the National Mall that turned into a fatal attack on the Capitol, even though Brooks now faces censure in the House for inciting violence that day.  The Alabama congressman had been at the forefront of the postelection push among Trump’s allies to delegitimize the election results.  “As one of America’s most effective conservative leaders, I defend my honor and reputation against scurrilous, George Orwellian, 1984, Socialist Democrats Politics of Personal Destruction,” Brooks wrote in a long-winded statement Tuesday, in which he both defended his work pushing baseless conspiracies about voter fraud and chastised those who believed in those conspiracies theories for attempting to seize the U.S. Capitol.  The rioters “destroyed two months of debate and work,” Brooks wrote of his efforts toward discrediting Biden’s victory and attempting to overturn election results.  Brook’s statement perfectly captures Republican lawmakers’ refusal to accept responsibility for the attempted insurrection last Wednesday. For months, top Republican lawmakers have declined to publicly accept Biden’s presidential win and have instead elevated debunked claims of election fraud.  Brooks’ comments also mirror the Republican tactics of depending upon lies and misinformation as a political strategy.  Whether lying about elections results or economic outcome of tax cuts since the campaign of Ronald Reagan the Republican playbook has been based upon absence of fact, lies, and misinformation.  While Trump took this playbook to the absolute end he was not alone in his dependence upon falsehoods.  Sadly, too many Americans are either too lazy or too stupid to see the words from the mouths of Republicans lack truth.  Their defense of a lie is another lie and if told often enough people will begin to believe it no matter how outlandish it is.