There is truth and there are lies.

[Lynx]

I don't think it could be stated better than Biden put it. A short opinion column at the Chicago Tribune adds clarity.

I hope the majority of those people who have been lied to and had come to believe those lies recognize this fact.

Column: Biden calls for unity on Inauguration Day, but that won’t come until Americans reembrace facts
By REX HUPPKE
CHICAGO TRIBUNE | JAN 20, 2021 AT 3:32 PM
https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/rex-huppke/ct-biden-i ... u-story.html

The new, duly elected president of the United States is Joseph R. Biden. That’s a fact. It’s provable, quantifiable. There was no grand conspiracy, the election was not rigged. To say otherwise at this point is to cross that eroded boundary from the reality we have into the reality you want.

If we are to come together, we must invite back the people who crossed that boundary. But to get back, they have to acknowledge they bought into lies. They have to accept they were conned. That’s not a toll, it’s an intellectual necessity. You can’t return to reality without first recognizing you’ve been living somewhere else.

This doesn’t mean we all have to agree on everything, or even on most things. Biden acknowledged that “the forces that divide us are deep and real.”

But there’s a mammoth difference between disagreeing on issues relating to immigration or the economy and disagreeing on whether Biden is a secret communist about to let Chinese troops storm the country.

A writer at the Daily Kos highlighted his commentary.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/1/21/2010784/-Thursday-Pundit-Round-up-Day-One

[ItsaZoo]

The concept of “alternative facts” is now ingrained in the minds of those who believed Trump. They are like cult members, refusing to be de-programmed. I don’t know how Germans recovered from believing the Nazi propaganda, but that’s where we need to go.

And I really believe the press and social media sites need to be more involved than just letting lies be repeated until people start thinking they’re true. The social media platforms are private businesses that can set rules for their posts. Allowing people to post that liberals are devil-worshipping pedophile cannibals who are working with China to take over the US is pretty easy to fact check.

[Lynx]

The Washington Post's database of trumps lies is a mind blowing compendium. Some lies he repeated and repeated ad infinitum.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/

[Bookfan]

A lot of Nazis, particularly of a certain generation, never really changed their views. They had no choice but to move on because of how things were going in their society and gov't. A friend who was born in postwar Germany said it was drummed into them in school, year after year, what to watch for in terms of totalitarianism.

I read somewhere that once a lie gets "loose" in the world, it's almost impossible to squelch it. Like the fraudulent MMR/autism connection, thanks to Andrew Wakefield.

[Lynx]

One would think trump's big lie (he won) would have been easy to squelch - due to, say, facts? A lot of other lies could fall into the bin of lies that are hard to tear out of people's minds.

It seems people have to be taught how to tell truth from lies, though the effort may fail.

[RavenShade]

Sir Terry Pratchett:
“A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”

[Bookfan]

Yes.