“Jerry, just remember. It's not a lie... if you believe it.” George Costanza
by Reid Fitzsimons
Sometimes it’s good fun to listen to politicians lying. The idea that, “They all do it,” really does have some basis and certainly isn’t anything new. Does our current President lie? Of course! Anytime he proposes a new program and talks about the many wonderful benefits to be reaped, with never any downside, he’s lying. Did our immediate past President, Obama, lie? Probably even more so than Trump. We know they are lying, of course, and usually they know it too, at least we hope so because if not we’ve elected people who are delusional. Kind of a paradox.
Back in 2008 the voters of California were presented with and approved a proposition for a high-speed rail system between San Diego and San Francisco with an extension to Sacramento- transportation and environmental nirvana for the masses. Promises were made in terms of speed, safety, completion dates, costs, passenger numbers, yada, yada. Of course all he benchmarks have proven elusive- the original 33 billion for the major LA to San Francisco portion has been revised repeatedly and now sits somewhere between 65 billion and 100 billion and completion dates keep slipping, slipping into the future. Did Gov. Jerry Brown and the high-speed rail cheerleaders believe the lies? They are so emotionally and economically vested in this project there is likely no way out, so their only option is to keep consciously lying and perhaps start believing their own BS.
While one aspect of political lying involves promises of everlasting miracles, always without complications or cost overruns, another involves the apocalypse- if this or that law is or isn’t passed “People Will Die!” Even the most trivial regulations, laws, appropriations, elections, appointments, etc will result in war, famine, environmental disaster, deadly pandemics and so on. All sides and philosophies are guilty of this though I estimate, in recent times at least, the progressive left is more culpable, especially with the most dire of predictions.
Some lies are more consequential and disturbing than others- the intentional “Look You Straight In the Eye” type of lies. These include, for example, Obama’s “You can keep your doctor and insurance policy,” Nixon’s “I’m not a crook,” and the Bengazi related lies by Hillary Clinton and Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice- that the violence and killing was just a spontaneous reaction to a brief video on YouTube (Innocence of Muslims, quite moronic if you saw it). Or, as Obama advisor Ben Rhodes put it, the goal was “To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.”
Some lies are kind of understandable. These typically include lying about extra-marital affairs. One such example was John Edwards (does anyone remember him? Kerry/Edwards 2004). As he was a media protected figure (Democrat) it took the National Inquirer to do the reporting, which was the basis of his initial defense- the How can you believe the National Inquirer? Alas it was true and we were then treated to the profound statement, "I am a sinner, but not a criminal.” Ultimately the latter proved correct: he was indicted for adultery related campaign finance law violations but was saved due to mistrials. Bill Clinton’s affair(s) were amusing due to his adamant finger wagging denials and his wife, who certainly knew better, blaming it all on a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” The only real troubling part was when he lied to his cabinet members and they rallied around him. Once his mendacity was fully revealed he met with his cabinet and “…the president cried as he pleaded for forgiveness, asking Cabinet members if they could still trust him.”
Speaking of Hillary Clinton, she at times has an inexplicable manner of lying. Unlike lies that may have some purpose, such as the Bengazi example above, she has a history of fibbing that is truly bizarre because no one would care about what she says and her claims are easily disproven. In 1995 she stated she was named after Edmund Hillary, who gained fame for climbing Mt. Everest in 1953; Hillary Clinton was born in 1947. Her personal best, out of many choices, was the sniper fire in Bosnia fairy tale. Intimations of a deeply disturbed person.
Obviously for a lie to have meaning someone has to believe it. We accept lies for a variety of reasons: we are trusting, we really want or need to believe, we are stupid, we don’t actually care if it’s true, or the lie has been repeated so often it becomes accepted as fact. A couple examples of the latter is that Public Broadcasting is commercial free (they simply place the ads at the half hour mark then include the phrase “and viewers like you!”), and that Bill Clinton’s efforts brought peace to the war in post-Tito Yugoslavia (it was Croatia’s response to Serbian aggression close to Croatia’s border).
Before moving on to the actual theme of this article, America’s newest sweetheart Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, we have to briefly mention our own tendencies for self-deception in the public arena. One powerful drive of Americans is to view ourselves (and be viewed) as “good,” which is often unrelated to actually being good. Increasingly, and especially with social media (has anyone else come to loath this term?), this becomes a spectacle, and typically involves being pseudo-passionately against something or someone. The most recent example is being outraged at “children being separated from their parents” when the parents cross the border illegally with their offspring. The concern here is not the issue itself, but rather the pretense that the outraged actually (forgive my obscenity) give a crap about the kids- they sure as heck didn’t care about them before and they certainly won’t care about them once this media-driven exhibitionism recedes, but for a few brief shining moments people can fool themselves into believing they “care about the children.” I have to admit I’m a little sensitive in this area due to some atypical (for an American) up close life experiences with these kids.
Anyway, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won the Democratic primary in New York’s 14th congressional district (part Bronx, part Queens), unexpectedly beating an entrenched establishment hack (good fun in a way). This is a guaranteed Democrat seat so she’ll be in the House with the next congress. Alexandria is 28 years old, a “Democratic Socialist (Bernie Sanders is her political mentor),” and was born in the Bronx but her family moved to suburban Westchester County when she was five. Keep this in mind for a moment.
There is a tradition in American politics of candidates stating they are poor and their opponents are rich going back to at least the Presidential election of 1840. This claim might be made by all but the wealthiest of candidates and can be entertaining if not a bit galling with candidates raised solidly middle-class lamenting their pretend poverty. Similarly many Americans embrace victimhood, including economic, and politicians are more than happy to promise them 1) I realize you’ve been oppressed, a pain I personally know well and 2) I will bring you heretofore unimagined prosperity with lots of free stuff. We cling to the concept of poverty in the US and, while I won’t deny it per se, the years I spent living in poor areas of poor countries have informed me that whatever poverty we have is relative and not absolute. In other words, relative to the guy with a 3,500 square foot house, a new SUV, latest smartphone, and a 70 inch TV, I’m poor.
Back to a short bio of our girl Alexandria. Her father was a professional (architect) born in the Bronx and her mother was from Puerto Rico. She was born in the Bronx in 1989 then the family bought a modest house in the wealthy suburb of Yorktown, Westchester County, in (perhaps) 1994 for $150,000. She attended the local schools then on to Boston University (private college, $70,000 a year with room and board) and graduated in 2011 with a degree in economics. Her father died while she was at BU, maybe without a will (internet sources vary), and there was some probate difficulty; the house was sold in 2016 for a reported $355,000.
Except for her father’s death this is a perfectly happy story- a guy works hard and becomes an architect, marries, has a kid, moves out to the suburbs, the kid goes on to an upscale college; a solid middle-class success story with no need for embellishment. Nevertheless, embellish she did. In her version, the family never moved to (wealthy) Westchester County but remained in the Bronx- her campaign biography originally stated: “She ended up attending public school 40 minutes north in Yorktown, and much of her life was defined by the 40-minute commute between school and her family in the Bronx.” Apparently there is more cachet being “Bronx Girl” as compared to a “Solidly Middle-Class Westchester Girl.”
This type of deceit is not exceptional for political corruption and lying but her reaction to it is. Yes she modified her website so that it doesn’t contain an absolute falsehood but, in response to criticism of her deception, she said the following: "Your attempt to strip me of my family, my story, my home, and my identity is exemplary of how scared you are of the power of all four of those things." Her statement on face value is comically absurd. The deeper fear is that it’s delusional, that because she wants to be “a girl from the Bronx” therefore she is: her feelings determine reality, not truth.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a young and reasonably attractive girl of Hispanic origin who won a low-turnout Democratic primary over an establishment white guy in a district that is 18% white and 50% Hispanic; not a huge feat but good for her (keep in mind modern Democrats don’t judge someone based on content of character but on the color of skin and other superficialities). The question and worry is: are we headed for a future in which feelings become the primary, if not sole, determinant of law and policy? Will future “leaders” be chronological adults but emotional children, whose fantasies become required realities for everyone else? The trend is towards that end, and when we get there it’s not going to be the utopia these burgeoning immature elitists such as Alexandria think it will be. On the other hand they’ll probably do quite well for themselves, which is perhaps the actual goal.