A big lie (German: große Lüge) is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”
Big lie – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
That’s the thought that immediately came to mind after VP-elect Mike Pence made several appearances yesterday repeating the mantra that Donald Trump won in a “landslide.”
On Face the Nation: ” As I’ve said, Donald Trump won a landslide American. The American people spoke decisively.”
He repeated the statement in another interview:
“I joined this campaign in the summer, and I can tell you that all the contact by the Trump campaign and associates was with the American people,” Pence said. “We were fully engaged with taking his message to make America great again all across this country. That’s why he won in a landslide election.”
This “landslide” claim is disturbing because it is factually, demonstrably untrue. Since that has been pointed out repeatedly, it has to be considered a lie. An intentional lie. And a blatant lie told as part of the incoming administration’s policy.
First, there’s the little problem that Trump lost the popular vote. More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton. There’s no dispute about that.
As CNN reported earlier:
The Democrat outpaced President-elect Donald Trump by almost 2.9 million votes, with 65,844,954 (48.2%) to his 62,979,879 (46.1%), according to revised and certified final election results from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
And, second, is electoral college margin was far from a landslide.
From FactCheck.org:
But it turns out that the percentage of electoral votes won by Trump, 56.9 percent, is hardly a landslide by historic comparison.
John Pitney, a professor of American Politics at Claremont McKenna College, put together a chart showing the Electoral College share won by every president since George Washington and found that Trump’s margin of victory ranked 46th out of 58 U.S. presidential elections.
“It’s just not true,” Pitney said of Trump’s “landslide” boast.
From the New York Times: “Trump’s Electoral College Victory Ranks 46th in 58 Elections”
Trump repeated the landslide claim on Monday after the Electoral College voted to put him over the 270-vote threshold needed to secure the White House.
Even Abraham Lincoln won a greater percentage of electoral votes (with 59.4 percent) than Trump in the 1860 election, when the country was on the brink of the Civil War.
In fact, Trump ranks 46th out of 58 in terms of winning the electoral vote — a spot far down on the list, sandwiched between Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy’s narrow 1960 win.
And the same point made by NPR:
Comparing Trump’s 306 electoral votes to recent history, he falls between the 2000 and 2004 razor-thin margins of George W. Bush, and Barack Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012.
2000 — Bush 271, Gore 266
2004 — Bush 286, Kerry 251
2008 — Obama 365, McCain 173
2012 — Obama 332, Romney 206
2016 — Trump 306, Clinton 232So on the historic score, Trump’s margin is pretty average for recent elections, and way down the list if you go all the way back to the beginning of the nation.
So what’s the point of continually repeating a blatant lie that has already been discredited many times over? That’s a question for another day, I think.
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The “follow up” next “Big Lie” is that he has “a mandate” for whatever. Remember he started off with the biggest lie of all, embracing “birtherism.”
I’d have to argue that there’s some legitimacy in using the term “landslide.” Clinton won her 2.9 million popular vote majority on the two coast and in a very narrow election band. If you subtracted her heaviest areas in New York and California, there wasn’t a whole lot of the country she carried.
That’s a bizarre perspective, somewhat similar to saying that if I didn’t take money out of my checking account to pay my bills, I’d have plenty of money.
Mike Pence characterizing Trump’s win as a “landslide” might be an exaggeration. But calling it a “big lie?” The term landslide as it applies to elections is subjective. Last I heard, there’s no universal, quantifiable demarcation as to what constitutes a landslide election. Bob has his own idea of what a landslide win entails. Are you going to call him a liar as well?
Trumpers like to repeat untruths – so if you say something often enough maybe it turns into fo’ real?
Landslide, Schmandside: Trump was elected and we can argue about it forever. The real issue is what happens next, and what can those who opposed him can do about it.
Here are three “big lies” about Hawaii’s history.
1. “There is no Treaty of Annexation.” Williamson Chang and I have had dueling commentaries about this in The Garden Island newspaper. See especially my webpage “Treaty of Annexation between the Republic of Hawaii and the United States of America (1898). Full text of the treaty, and of the resolutions whereby the Republic of Hawaii legislature and the U.S. Congress ratified it. The politics surrounding the treaty, then and now” at http://tinyurl.com/2748fgg
2. “Hawaiian language was made illegal following the overthrow of the monarchy” and also “After the language was banned in 1896, it would not be heard in schools for four generations.”
See “Was Hawaiian Language Illegal?” at
http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/hawlangillegal.html
and also “Holding the State of Hawaii Department of Education accountable for propagating the lie that Hawaiian language was banned.” at
http://www.angelfire.com/big11a/DOEHawnLangBan.html
3. A fake 1894 Presidential Proclamation by Grover Cleveland was used as the basis for a phony 2006 national day of prayer for an evil purpose, led by a disgraced pastor. The Pastor went forward with his long-planned and expensive propaganda circus spanning 5,000 miles, in April 2006, even after being given proof that the proclamation was fake. A year later, clearly knowing the fakery and having had plenty of time to repent of his sin and avoid repeating his historical fraud, that same Pastor nevertheless pushed a resolution through the State of Hawaii Legislature declaring the same date of April 30 for a day of prayer for Hawaiian restoration, and specifically citing Grover Cleveland’s (fake) proclamation in the whereas clauses justifying the resolution. In April 2007 the Pastor repeated the propaganda circus in New Jersey at the birthplace of Grover Cleveland, this time also formally presenting a resolution which the Hawaii Legislature passed despite being given proof that there was no Grover Cleveland proclamation.
http://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles3/fraudpattersoncleveland.html
UPDATE FOR APRIL FOOLS DAY, 2008: April Fools Day 4-page flyer, poking fun at Hawaii Legislature for passing a resolution in 2007 which assumed that an April Fools joke from 1894 was actually true. The joke was sarcasm against President Grover Cleveland in the form of a fake proclamation by Cleveland calling for a national day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer in repentance for the U.S. role in overthrowing Liliuokalani.
http://bigfiles90.angelfire.com/AprilFoolsGroverClevelandHawResoFlyer.pdf
There was no path to victory for Trump in the days leading up to the election according to the mainstream media. Kind of like lakes and trees in the path of the Mt St. Helens eruption, mainstream news outlets were obliterated. There will be no putting the top back on that mountain.