One of the most depressing things I have learned over the past six years is that the radical Republican right is probably the most dishonest political movement to ever afflict our country. There has never been anything like it, which is at least partly why they have been so successful. Normal people are not capable of such mendacity and do not anticipate it in others. Basically, if the political right accuses their opponents of something, they are almost certainly neck deep in it themselves, and their opponents are largely innocent.
Theirs is the politics of the Big Lie, lies so big it is hard to believe there is not at least some truth to them. This has long been a staple for totalitarian movements and is incredibly subversive to the culture of democracy.
Do I exaggerate? Not at all. Jeff Greenwald gives an insightful analysis of just this tactic in analyzing Peggy Noonan’s call for ‘civility’ in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, and her lament that so little of it is found on the ‘left.’