Whether it is the “stolen election” premise, or George Santos admitting that he made up much of his life story due to “insecurity” and “stupidity,” the falsehoods are the news.
I admit: It can be exhausting. For citizens of good faith who want to be informed, who just want to know what's real, all the lying can feel suffocating. But I have found that studying the liars has dramatically improved my understanding of the political universe.
In the immortal words of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, to “flood the zone with shit”—to overwhelm the press and the public with so much misinformation and disinformation that democracy can't function. Trump, despite his frontrunner status, is barely fact-checked anymore. He says so much, so wrongly, that fact-checkers are at a supreme disadvantage—just the way his team likes it.