Evolution of Mendocracy

Donald Trump lies. A lot.  If that's news to you, then let me be the first to congratulate you on your recent emergence from your years-long coma. You should probably eat something and hydrate before you do anything else. And, to avoid shocking your system, stay away from cable news for at least a week. You're good? You sure? Ok, let me bring you up to speed, gently, with a little story.

Recently Donald Trump ran for president. His campaign consisted almost entirely of lies. During most of the campaign, the press listened to him lie, but they didn't like to just say, "he's lying," because that seemed so rude. Even his political opponents were unwilling to say "that's a lie" to every word that came out of his mouth and anyway, it wasn't like he was actually going to win, so, whatever . . .  Instead they all sent his lies to "fact-checkers" who questioned the accuracy of what he was saying. Now doesn't that sound nicer?

But he actually became president (I know . . . take as long as you need . . . Ok?) When he did actually become president, the lies became more sinister. Mostly because they carried more weight and more consequences, but also because he began putting them in the mouths of other people. Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway were his most visible victims. They've learned to parrot his lies so well that some are convinced they are actually human beings.  Maybe they were, once.

Trump appointed people to powerful positions like Attorney General and Secretary of Education and  head of EPA and the Supreme Court. These were not good people for those jobs. They had done bad things like suppress voters and steal funding from public school kids and help polluters dump shit everywhere and plagiarize. So these nominees lied about their pasts.

The Republican Senators who could have prevented them from taking these positions thought it wasn't so bad. So they ignored the lies. Everyone lies a little, they reasoned. Who doesn't lie at least a little? It would cause a lot of trouble if all of a sudden everyone had to tell the truth all the time, even under oath.

Also they told people who tried to speak the truth, like Elizabeth Warren, that they had to shut the fuck up. You know, because it wasn't nice.

Seeing all the attention and success Trump was getting for all of his lying and elevating liars to important positions, some people, let's call them Republican Congress People for lack of a better term, got jealous and thought: You know, it's not like Trump invented lying. We've been doing it for a long time, especially about healthcare, and we're pretty good at it too.

So they lied a whole bunch to try to pass a healthcare bill.

Now some people were getting tired of the lies and were getting better at saying "you lie you fucking lying liars!" and as you can see not being nice about it at all and at first it looked like they were going to beat the lying people.

But the lying people thought: We won't go down like this, we just have to lie even harder! So they put more and more and more lies into their lying healthcare bill and they said, "See? Now we fixed it!" Which was a lie.

And they passed their healthcare bill.
(Oh, your coma is probably a pre-existing condition. Just so you know.)

But Trump doesn't like losing. He said so and it may be the only true thing anyone has ever heard him say other than some things about grabbing that we can't get into right now. So he said "Republican Congress People, you are not the most bigly liars! I am and I will prove it now!"

So he made up the biggest lie ever. It was huge. It was such a bigly lie he thought maybe no one would ever top it. He loved his lie. He kept his big lie to himself for a whole week, just to enjoy some private time with it. Then he fired his FBI chief and he said his big lie.

He said: "I did this because the FBI man was so so mean to my good friend Hillary Clinton, and not at all because he was trying to catch me and my friends doing naughty stuff with Russians." To celebrate his big big lie, he went and did some naughty stuff with Russians. Right there in the Oval Office. There are pictures.

Everyone agreed that this was a very bigly lie. Maybe the bigliest. The Republican Congress People just wanted to laugh and laugh at it. I swear I don't know how they didn't.

That's where the story is now. It will go on. There are some people who could stop the lying, or try. They are called Republican Senators. Maybe you remember them from earlier in the story. They are the ones who didn't mind the lies told by the nominees for Attorney General and Director of the EPA and Secretary of Education and Justice of the Supreme Court.

Maybe the Republican Senators will change their minds and they won't like lies so much and they will try to stop all the lies.

Or maybe not.