We often use the term “pathological” to describe a person who lies so consistently, they seem unable to stop. When the condition goes further, however, and the speaker appears to believe his own fabrications, the condition is described as “mythomania” or “pseudologia fantastica”. These fantastic confabulations are also one of the certain signs of dementia.
These labels perfectly describe the fantastic inventions spun by the Liar In Chief in the white house. As the joke goes, “How do you know he is lying?” “Easy. His lips are moving.”
Little has been said, however, about the infectious nature of mythomania. In the case of current cabinet members and close advisors to the president, it seems to be spreading even more rapidly than America’s measles epidemic (speaking of people who mistake their own lies for truth, and make us pay for it), an epidemic that has removed the US from the world-wide “safe” list.
Let’s start with the little mini-me, JD Vance, who first opined that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating pets. Vance was infected early by the Great Orange Liar and continues to spout the falsehood that Orangey won the 2020 election. He has gone on to claim that the ICE agent who killed Renee Good in Minneapolis had “absolute immunity”, that it’s actually the peaceful protestors who are committing political violence, and that his purple-handed boss is presiding over a “great economy”. He’s been bitten and has converted to full-vampire mode.
Not to be outdone, AG Pam Blondie caught the disease big time. From trying to bury the Epstein files, to the shameful lies about the victims of ICE murders, to insultingly tossing off absurd falsehoods in answer to questions by Senator Whitehouse, she is fully infected. And she has, in turn, infected the entire DOJ, as they vie to see who can produce the greatest mischaracterizations about ICE actions, insist on the validity of non-judicial warrants signed by DOJ agents, and provide completely made-up “evidence” to grand juries who routinely find against them. This is true, from Todd Blanche on down, so to speak, as he is clearly the lowest of the low.
The infection has spread to Border Patrol head Greg Bovino who tap danced his way through a truly embarrassing Meet The Press Hour by telling us not to believe what we saw in the actual videos of the murders.
Clearly infected, DHS head Kristi Noem lied about the death of Renee Good at the hands of ICE agents, about the number of US veterans who had been kidnapped and deported, about ICE only conducting “targeted ” raids and even about attending a non-existent FEMA meeting which allegedly kept her from testifying.
HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. is deeply infected and, as a result of his lying, is making certain that the country suffers growing numbers of infections we thought were gone forever.
The good news is that America is waking up and pushing back so strongly that Bovino is out of Minneapolis and barred from his official social media account, Kristi Noem is facing a growing move for impeachment, Kennedy is thoroughly disgraced and the faux king, holding his finger up to see which way the wind is blowing, is noticing it’s hitting him smack in the face. Likely, he will continue to lie, but perhaps it will be to explain why he is backtracking in the face of these increasingly antagonistic voices.
Whatever it takes.
The Window Sign of Complicity
In a stunning example of a truly great speech, lest we forget, Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, inspired all of us with his words at Davos, words that starkly contrasted with the president’s ramblings and misstatements. In his speech, (painstakingly analyzed by Seva Gunitsky of Hegemon), Carney spoke of a greengrocer used as an example in a story about compliance, told by Vaclav Havel, the former president of the Czech Republic. Every morning the greengrocer would place a sign in his window to assure the growing communist invasion that he supported them: “Workers of The World Unite!” Though the greengrocer didn’t really believe what he posted, he thought that his performative compliance would protect him from harassment. Seeing his sign, every business on his street did the same, though all knew it was false, until finally, the system took over, not only through the use of violence, but because of the participation of ordinary people in what they knew to be a lie.
Carney goes on to point out that the “middle powers” like Canada have put the “rules-based international order” sign in their windows knowing that, in many places, the liberal order subscribed to was not, actually liberal, and, indeed, not even orderly. It was okay, though, so long as America could be counted on to provide stable finance, global trade and frameworks for resolving disputes. That seems to be over now, he says. “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”
However, power that controls because of “performance compliance” is very fragile. Remove the compliance and the power crumbles.
In a separate section of his speech, Carney also cited a line from the Melian Dialogue, which is a part of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. In a confrontation that took place in 416 BCE, Athenian envoys demanded that the neutral island of Melos surrender or face destruction. The historian concludes that “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”
Prime Minister Carney dissected this oft-misused quote to show that, contrary to Stephen Miller’s use of it to claim that the world is governed by power, in actuality, the Athens of Thucydides’ time was brought down by its own serious overreach. Because of its ill-conceived and overly-ambitious Sicilian expedition, its alliances begin to fracture, it lost a massive portion of its fleet and army and, within a decade, its empire was dissolved. Athens’ own hubris brought it down.
Both of these erudite examples from a sensible and educated leader show us that the white house mental case is destined to be defeated by his own hubris, by the people’s massive pushback to excessive cruelty and use of power by his minions and, need I say, by you and me.
Populus populum servabit.
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