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Monday, December 15, 2014

Snap Out of It! They Don't Care When We Debunk Them

Eekbola is Politifact's Lie of the Year: Democrats do another round of our vindication dance, Republicans prepare another round of dancing on our graves. Republicans don't give a shit about being debunked. Debunking isn't dismantling. Movement Republicanism mobilizes fears and greed to peddle policies that benefit a minority to a majority harmed by them. Deception is built into the worldview. "Noble lie" rationalizations and cynical "buyer beware" injunctions suffuse the plutocratic and promotional Republican political culture through and through (and no small amount of the corporate-militarist wing of the DNC). It isn't enough for us to be "correct" or them "corrected." To be correct but politically disorganized is just another way of being incorrect. Anybody taking the least measure of satisfaction from some belated vindication that they were right about something they already knew they were right about but which was defeated by well-organized lies is not celebrating truth but celebrating their defeat by lies so long as they have not learned the lesson of the defeat that being correct isn't enough make progress.

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