Anatomy of a Lie

Truthful talking points for the Maga-adjacent in your life.

I’m going to start a running list of short takes on hot topics that might help you when discussing things with family and friends still in your life. If you want to engage with the hard-core MAGA that’s up to you, but that’s usually a fruitless endeavor and these don’t go deep enough for that.

I’m talking about the otherwise good folks you know — and pretty much all of us have them — who may have serious issues with Trump but follow enough MAGA media that they parrot things that are either not true, wrong, or both.

And while there’s some opinion in them, I’m trying to base everything on facts without getting into the weeds.

Anatomy of a Lie: No Tax on Tips, Overtime, and Social Security

I’ll try to make this brief. I traditionally liked TikTok. I like the mindless nature of it, the stupid videos, the recipes. I used to like it even because it was a means to get AWAY from politics.

That changed last summer & fall when it became literally a non-stop lie and disinformation service for the Chinese, Russians, MAGA, and any other bad actors. If you’re not on it, I can’t even explain the avalanche of lies. And I know from personal experience that it swayed people to vote for Trump.

The politics magically disappeared after the election. But, now they’re coming back, all on one topic: That the House Republican resolution (it’s not yet a budget) included Trump’s promise to pass not tax on tips, overtime, and Social Security. And every Democrat voted against those thing.

That is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE. None of those things were in what was passed. And nice of Congresswoman Luna to add the additional Balanced Federal Budget whopper. I mean, there used to be a time when people in congress had some shame to not be so blatant.

There were GIANT cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP and a host of social programs to help pay for another GIANT tax cut for the rich. This budget process has a long way to go, and if those lies make it into the final bill (I doubt it) Democrats still won’t vote for any bill that hurts so many people.

On the bad side, it shows the disgusting disinformation machine that social media has become and how Democrats are completely ineffective in fighting it.

Then again it also shows how fucking scared Republicans are about the realities of a budget they desperately want to pass — but know will be deeply unpopular to a majority of Americans.

Anatomy of a Lie: The Dreaded DEI

Like woke, MAGA media has been on a now years-long concerted effort to turn DEI into something that is absolutely destroying our country. And while true racism is at the core of those who spread this lie, that doesn’t mean that your cousin is a racist because he brings it up. They may think every black or gay person that works with them is perfectly qualified, but the onslaught of what they constantly hear makes them believe there’s got to be something to it.

There are two major common-sense truths at play here. 1. The majority of workers in tons and tons of fields — and in the upper jobs of even more — are still straight, white men. 2. Almost every job on this planet has countless people out there who are perfectly qualified to fill it. The same can be said for admission slots for colleges.

What DEI tries to do is make sure that a company (or university) reflects the demographic make-up of the larger society. Beyond the broader societal good of doing that, there have been plenty of studies that show that it’s also good business. I work in advertising. Even if we’re not trying to market a particularly ethnic product, having people around to know how to talk to those demographics is inherently good for sales.

But, it’s not the positives that are being ignored as much as the negatives being lied about. There’s been a big push on the right that minorities and women are somehow unqualified for some positions simply because of their race, gender, or sexual preference. A sick case in point is black pilots. The argument is not necessarily that they’re unqualified because of their race, but because of their race they’ve been given unfair advantages all their lives, and thus, don’t really have the skills.

That’s bullshit. The reality is that minorities almost always have to work harder and prove themselves more than their white, male counterparts. 92% of commercial pilots are white men and I can guarantee you that at least 99% of all commercial plane crashes ever have been at the hands of white men. If you want to increase the odds that your plane doesn’t crash, feel better if you see a minority or female captain greet you at the cabin door.

Nothing is perfect in this world. Unqualified people are hired all the time for any number of reasons and actual white privilege and nepotism are much more likely to be the case than an unqualified diversity hire.

And one last point. If minorities and women are inherently unqualified for some jobs, what is the next logical step. Can women only handle being secretaries, nurses, and school teachers? Should Puerto Ricans be barred from being in a top-notch law firms because you don’t see many Puerto Rican litigators and thus the one you see must have gamed the system?

The truth is, the system has been gamed for, well, ever. It’s just not being gamed the way some people claim it is.

Anatomy of a Lie: USAID and DOGE Disinformation

It made a certain amount of sense that the first agency that Elon Musk and his DOGE team of douchebag kid coders went after is USAID.

The majority of MAGA is against pretty much foreign aid of any kind, no matter how much it’s needed or how much it helps. And, for as long as I can remember a majority of Americans have been wrong about how much we spend on foreign aid. I remember a poll in the 90s where the majority said they thought we spent 30% of our budget on foreign aid and believe that we should only spend 10%.

The reality, then, and pretty much now, is that we spend far less than that, with USAID accounting for just a little over 1%.

Given this fact, the financial savings of killing this once quasi-independent agency are suspect. But, then came a flurry of Musk posts claiming massive fraud at USAID. Five of those eight claims were deemed outright lies by independent fact-checkers. The other three were gross miscalculations. Which begs the question — why USAID?

It didn’t take long for a pattern to emerge as what entities Musk was going after. When it comes to USAID they had been investigating him for cutting his Starlink system in Ukraine which helped not just the Ukrainian military against the Russians but allowed aid organizations to coordinate.

Then there was the FAA. They were looking into safety problems with Musk’s Space X program which gets billions in government contracts. He was also mad at the Food and Drug Administration because they were pushing back on his crackpot idea of implanting microchip in people’s brains — literally the basis for a cautionary sci-fi movie. The fact is, Musk and Doge cannot be trusted on ANYTHING.

But, back to USAID. It is very little money that pays dividends way beyond saving lives and helping people. It’s called soft power and any smart military official will tell you that the goodwill about America that it provides is far less expensive than fighting more terrorists.

Finally, USAID buys most of its products from US farmers — both fruits and vegetables and meats of all kinds. They literally spend billions buying from our farmers.

The bottom line: Funding USAID is both the right and the smart thing to do. Killing it is immoral, financially stupid, and makes our country less safe.

Anatomy of a Lie: Lifestyles of the Rich & Illegal

This one was recently spreading like wildfire — that FEMA sent New York City upwards of $80 million to put up illegal immigrants in luxury hotels.

This story came to light when the Trump regime literally stole money out the city’s bank account. For starters, that’s something that is illegal and amazing to think about since Trump and Musk have access to the personal bank accounts of virtually everyone who gets any money from the federal government electronically.

Just imagine the possibilities of abusing that power.

But, back to the story, which was a mix of lies and exaggerations.

The larger issue of immigration aside, we know that governors of both Texas and Florida had been shipping immigrants to New York and other “blue cities” that aren’t set up with the money or infrastructure to deal with them.

This money was Congressionally approved for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to help cities who had these emergencies — and would have been allocated to border areas who have the infrastructure to deal with immigration services.

But, the money was sent to NYC because of this cruel stunt.

First, this wasn’t FEMA money being taken away from natural disasters — which the last Congress wouldn’t fully fund.

Customs simply uses the FEMA funds distribution system to allocate the money because they’re the best at it. I think what you call that is efficiency.

That’s the first lie.

The second is the luxury hotel thing. In actuality NYC took an old hotel and tried to rehab it to serve as a “Ellis Island” type facility to document, process and keep together these immigrants — most of whom were fleeing hardship and persecution and legally applying for asylum in the United States. I’ve seen video of the hotel. It’s one of those old shells of a formerly awesome old hotel that looks like it’s been abandoned for decades.

And yes, they did have to pay for other hotel rooms when the immigrants were dropped off from buses beforehand, on average $152 a night for rooms where people stayed. Most weren’t in Manhattan and far from luxury rooms which run $400 to $1,000 a night. They also had to put people in school gyms because they were desperate. I guess these families should have just wandered the streets? If your argument is being pro abject cruelty, then, yes, you win. Money was spent.

So, manufactured crisis, no FEMA disaster money, and no luxury hotels.

It takes about five minutes to debunk this kind of stuff.

But, it’s always easier to simply share things that fit your preconceived notions and political affiliation. And I’m not immune from doing the same. I’ve shared stuff that turned out to be false. Of course, I admit and retract the it when it happens.

We all need to get better at this, but this isn’t a both sides phenomenon.

It is Republicans who are purposefully injecting disinformation into the cultural bloodstream to keep their supporters constantly outraged which clouds a rational conversation on what they are actually doing.

Oh, and as a side note, Trump is talking about killing FEMA and letting the states handle their own natural disasters. States already have funds for natural disasters and rely on the feds when disaster strikes, which it does way more often in red states.

If that happens it’s going to be, well, a disaster.