Heather Cox Richardson on why people get caught up in Trump's lies.

[applegrove]

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/

"SNIP...........

All day today, reporters fact checked Trump’s statements, proving them lies. But lies have never damaged him; they reinforce his dominance by forcing subordinates to agree that the person in charge gets to determine what reality is. Victims must surrender either their integrity or their ownership of their own perceptions; in either case, once they have agreed to a deliberate lie, it becomes harder to challenge later ones since that means acknowledging the other times they caved.

That’s why the lie about the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration is so important: it is the foundational lie on which all the others stand. Harris, who spent her legal career dealing with criminals and abusers who depend on this technique, knew exactly how to undermine it. She made fun of it, making his “obsession with crowd sizes” a national joke. The jokes set him off not only because he cannot bear to be laughed at, but also because challenging that lie challenges all the others. 

............SNIP"

Applegrove:

Harris was engaging in 3 dimensional chess. Thank go for the people we have on our side.

[uponit7771]

1. Similar way to engage extremist

[Blues Heron]

2. Sean Spicer came out of the gate clutching that crowd size lie and people were like WTF?

Then we found out his nickname in college had been Sphincter.

[applegrove]

3. I was trying to remember where the crowd size lie started. I remember

it at the inauguration in 2017. I guess is Sean Spicer did it it must have been in the 2016 race.

You could also argue the Onama birth certificate lies were practice to see how many would believe his horrid lies.

[logosoco]

4. amd around that time Kelly Ann Conway used the

term "alternative facts". I knew then we were in for a worse ride than i thought.

[Blues Heron]

5. I remember that - surreal