TRUMP AND THE LOST CAUSE: BIG LIES

--

There were no two more dissimilar people than my late grandmother, a sweet Virginian who, as a single mother, ran a flower shop to support her two kids, and Joseph Goebbels, the evil Nazi propagandist.

There is one link. Goebbels, a proponent of the Big Lie, observed “a lie told once remains a lie but told thousands of times becomes the truth.”

He might have gotten some tips from America’s post Civil War “Lost Cause,” that falsely claimed the Southern cause was noble, the conflict wasn’t about slavery, Robert E. Lee was a great gentleman and General, while Union commander Ulysses S. Grant was a drunk and a military mediocrity.
The War was about slavery, the Southern secessionists were traitors and military historians like John Keegan consider Grant a brilliant general, strategically superior to Lee.
Yet for a century after the Civil War, my grandmother and many other Southerners bought into this lie told thousands of times.
The Lost Cause lies of today are the Trump-inspired Big Lies: he actually won the 2020 election, the Russian involvement in the 2016 contest was a hoax, Deep State insiders like former FBI director James Comey prosecuted him, the Mueller report cleared him, the January 6 riot at the Capital was a peaceful protest, and all the legal indictments against him were baseless.
The reason to discuss again these well-trodden matters is with the constant repetition of these lies they are believed by many Republicans and used as justification for the lawless acts of Trump’s 2.0 Presidency.
This was on full display Tuesday at the Senate Judiciary Committee. Attorney General Pam Bondi, evading questions on her questionable conduct, tried to shift the focus to Democrats; she was joined by most of the panel’s Republicans.
To briefly recap the past. The 2020 election results were certified by every challenge including 60 court cases, some with Trump appointed judges. The Mueller report said it couldn’t bring an indictment against a sitting President but found the Russians tried to interfere with the election to help Trump; the report explicitly said it “does not exonerate” the President. FBI director James Comey, fired by Trump, later wrote a critical book about him, but actually inadvertently helped Trump by reopening an investigation of Hillary Clinton eleven days before the 2016 election. Most of us saw the January 6th insurrection and know it was not a peaceful protest. Trump avoided an indictment because, aided by a slow walking Supreme Court, time ran out.
The Manhattan conviction for faking business records to cover up an illicit campaign-related payment was the weakest case. But Trump was convicted of 34 counts by a jury of his peers.
The other cases were ended by judicial incompetence. Trump after his first term took classified documents, lied about it and tried to conceal his failure to return them. His own Attorney General, Bill Barr, suggested the case against him was a slam dunk as his defense was “absurd.” But an inexperienced, Trump-appointed judge indefensibly threw the case out. The charge that he tried to steal the election in Georgia -- buttressed by being caught on tape telling the Georgia Secretary of State to “find 11,780 votes” -- fell apart due to the incompetence and ethical problems of the local prosecutor.
He has used the lie that these all were illegitimate partisan hit jobs to justify his genuinely partisan hit jobs against his perceived enemies, his revenge. He ordered his Attorney General to indict Comey after an experienced prosecutor refused to bring a charge; Trump replaced him with a personal aide, an insurance lawyer who predictably followed orders and indicted Comey. If this case ever gets to trial odds for an acquittal are overwhelming.
Trump invoked the power of the federal government against law firms who employed colleagues he saw as an enemy; FBI and Justice Department officials who did their jobs in winning convictions against the January 6 criminals have been fired. He demands his obsequious Attorney General bring more cases against his critics.

Astonishingly, he charges the Biden Justice Department was consumed by deeply partisan politics. Biden made clear he thought Trump was a crook but never tried to order Justice to indict him; the relations between the President and his Attorney General were frosty.
Moreover, the Merrick Garland-led department successfully prosecuted a senior Senate Democrat, New Jersey’s Robert Menendez, indicted the Democratic Mayor of New York City, and convicted the son of the Democratic President.
By contrast, this year federal prosecutors withdrew from a case against a Republican congressman, who had proposed a constitutional amendment to allow Trump to run for a third term, apparently fearing they’d be undercut by Washington. The Bondi run Justice Department dropped an investigation of Trump deportation czar Tom Homan, who was caught on tape taking $50,000 from two undercover FBI agents, promising he’d deliver contracts if Trump was elected.
It’s unclear if this was a prosecutable case. But it is clear if you’re a Trump supporter there’s little to worry about from this Justice Department. Trump and White House enforcer Stephen Miller keep Bondi on a short leash.
Trump may recycle one more lie: the Lost Cause. The Administration is trying to undercut the ban on naming military bases for Confederate generals . It is reinstalling monuments like a statue of Albert Pike, a bumbling Confederate general who was viciously anti-Catholic and pro-slavery.