Synopsis: Trump not lying may be more dangerous.

Consider, what if Trumps views are continually changing, and the more adulation he receives while expressing a viewpoint, the more he is triggered to come to believe that perspective.

Trump was elected to the US presidency in 2016 and came sufficiently close to being re-elected in 2020 that given some difference like Covid-19 not having happened, even those who don’t follow Trump widely believe he would have been re-elected.

It has now reached the point where the 2020 election is an example of the “the big lie” very much as outlined by Adolf Hitler, and again, the question that remains in the minds of many is who is telling the big lie.

Given the requirement of the “stolen election” argument for belief in a conspiracy between both Democrats and Republicans to all commit voter fraud that was in every case targeted to favour Democrats and the complete lack of evidence for such a conspiracy, together with even former US Republican Presidents concluding there was not significant voter fraud, it seems very clear that the claims by Donald Trump are false.

Yet Trump pushes this agenda and has even come to use the same “big lie” label used by Hitler to demonise the Jews.

The fact that Hitler published the logic of “big lie” strongly suggests this was not a deliberate strategy by Hitler to deceive, but rather it more suggests Hitler himself came to be deluded into believing. Hitler first progressively became convinced by the same propaganda that he then used to convince the masses, and we all know had badly that turned out. This could be the answer to the question as to how Germany elevated to power a leader intent on genocide. What if Hitler was not originally intent on genocide at all, and the leader they first elected was not yet the person who sent the Jews to the gas chambers? What if the adulation and power transformed and further radicalised Hitler as time progressed?

Trump initially condemned the riots of Jan 6th, although his heart did not seem to be in the condemnation, it seems very likely his current view that they are heroes now being held as hostages had not yet formed.

Trump is not Hitler, and not, at least so far, a warmonger by any means, but he could be following the same path of his delusions becoming stronger and more powerful the more he adulation he receives, until he reaches the point where he becomes a leader no longer needing democratic support. The threat of Trumps views on Christian Nationalism and Climate change could end up causing global loss of life on a massive scale.

As of March 2024, Trump looks to be on the path to re-election in 2024. Maybe the only thing that will stop him, is him going too far down his own rabbit holes in the lead up to the election to maintain support.

A leader caught up in a rabbit hole of their own increasing delusions could be far more dangerous than one twisting the truth but knowing the truth.

The big lie: The art of labelling the truth ‘a big lie’.

Hitler and the origin the big lie.

A big lie (German: große Lüge) is a gross distortion or misrepresentation of the truth primarily used as a political propaganda technique.^[1][2] The German expression was first used by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf (1925) to describe how people could be induced to believe so colossal a lie because they would not believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”. Hitler claimed that the technique had been used by Jews to blame Germany’s loss in World War I on German general Erich Ludendorff, who was a prominent nationalist political leader in the Weimar Republic.

Wikipedia: Big lie

The original use of ‘big lie’ was to demonise a group of people and claim they were in a conspiracy to themselves perpetuate a ‘big lie’.

The theory behind ‘big lie’ conspiracies and clickbait: “no one could make this up!”

Again, from the Wikipedia page on “big lie”:

All this was inspired by the principle – which is quite true within itself – that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.

It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.

— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X[9]

Wikipedia: Big lie

The bolding of the last sentence is by me, as I believe this is what “big lie” has in common with both conspiracy theories and clickbait.

Ironically, no, it seems Trump didn’t start the “big lie” label this time.

How did Trump come to adopt the term?
This is another irony.

There have long been warnings about Trump’s lies. That Jacobson story in the Post is from 2018. Trump falsely claimed after the 2016 election, which he won, that millions of people had illegally voted for his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Leading up to the 2020 election, Trump again routinely asserted that voting in the US would be rigged against him, and afterward, when he denied his loss, critics began using the term “the Big Lie” to describe his rejection of the factual world.

Trump, master propagandist, has since seized the term from his critics and now routinely uses it to claim it is he who is the victim of untruths and conspiracies. “The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE! ” he said in a statement issued by his PAC on May 3.

The 5 key elements of Trump’s Big Lie and how it came to be

Despite a complete lack of evidence, the “stolen election” won’t go away.

A large part of the reason there is not more effort towards debunking suggestions the election was stolen, is that those who accept it was not stolen believe the existing evidence is already sufficient to convince everyone. Yet there is no proof there was no fraud, and there cannot be proof no fraud exists because of the contradiction of “evidence of absence” that allows theories of many things from the Yeti to the Loch Ness Monster.

What we do have is evidence credible people have really checked and found no evidence, and the fraud did happen there would be evidence. And overall picture is compelling: Evidence of fraud or conspiracy would have been found and it hasn’t.

Even former Republicans like Chris Christie and President Bush has come out and stated that it is a lie, yet it is still a lie that almost half of all US citizens appear to now believe.

The election having been rigged relies on the following all being true:

• The way votes are counted in US elections, at least in the States where “stolen election” is claimed to have happen is open to fraudulent voting and/or vote counting.
• In every state where these “stolen election” voting or vote counting occurred, the fraud was in all cases directed to favour the Democrats vote over the Republican vote, even in states where the process over managed by Republicans.

This means either there is a way to commit voter fraud, but either only Democrat voters ever commit this fraud, or there was a conspiracy to exploit a set of vulnerabilities the vote fraud conducted by both Democrats and Republicans in order to elect a Democrat president.

Could history be rewritten on who won in 2020?

Does Trump Believe the lie or not?

Considering the lack of evidence, either Donald Trump either deep down knows the fraud claims are false but is deliberately lying in order to manipulate voters or believes his own conspiracy theory in spite of the all the logic and advice the claims are nonsensical.

In 2024 Donald Trump now faces legal problems that he may only be able to solve by being elected president, and this provides both motive to intentionally deceive and reason for application of such a strong confirmation bias that he is unable himself to see the truth.

It seems very likely rather that it being one these two factor it is both. The motive to believe drives the belief until he can no longer see the truth.

Updates:

• 2024 March 30 : Updated to reflect Trump legal issues as of March 2024.
• 2022 Nov 9 : Updated to remove content that had been duplicated.
• 2020 Dec 6th: First edition, containing both this content and that now in “Could history rewrite the truth“.