For some odd reason, people latch on to a public person’s coattails and are forever a fan. Even when presented with factual information that the public person lied, the fans have cognitive dissonance and find a way to ignore what they just heard. It seems their worth is falsely attributed to this choice to follow the person, so if anything makes them feel they made a mistake, it bothers them greatly.
What frustrates me is some of these public people do not feel it is necessary to tell the truth, when a good lie will work better. Being caught lying does not harm their reputation as much as it should. Some would say, lying and cheating is just a part of winning. While, that may be true to far too many, it should not be. Too many followers believe these folks’ BS, so the public person needs to get it right and not use their fan’s puppy dog loyalty.
Yesterday, one of those people Representative Paul Gosar routed an anime where his avatar murders the avatar of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, better known as AOC. This is not the first time Gosar has defamed the position he holds, but this is well beneath a sense of decency. We need our elected officials to be a part of our better angels and not among our worse demons. This may be deemed a criminal act, but it is clearly an immoral one. Sadly, his followers are cheering on this dereliction of duty.
Then there is the ever-persistent poor actions and behavior of Senator Ted Cruz. Cruz once labeled the most despised Senator in Congress by members of both parties. He has tended to prefer grandstanding than working with others and single-handedly, brought the United States to within twenty-four hours of defaulting on our debts, until ten female Senators from both parties told him to get out of the pool and solved the problem like adults.
Lately, Cruz has been on a roll, knowing he has a followers believe his BS. But, the thing that bother me most about Cruz or any elected officials is speaking of his state seceding from the Union. Really? Setting aside the seditious nature of that stance, he is really not that stupid to advocate for a secession from the Union. He is just lying because it makes it sound like he is a statesman. To be frank, statesman is not a word that is top of mind to describe the Senator.
People believe your BS, so please do your best to get it right. Whether you are a conspiracy monger like Alex Jones or Tucker Carlson or a politician like the most recent former president or his sycophants, two of which are noted above, we must demand the truth from these folks. Democracy requires an informed public, so when public people purposefully lie to misinform or even disinform, it hurts all of us.
What can we do? Do not believe a word someone known for lying says. They earned this treatment. So, if you start at the point, the odds are in your favor that you are correct. Check multiple sources of news, where they publish errata when they get it wrong. Do not get your news from social media or verify it if you do. I would encourage folks to check what I wrote above with other sources, eg.
When people knowingly are untruthful, it is frustrating. I recognize all politicians lie, but some lie more than they tell the truth.