The Endless Fight Against the Conservative Fib Factory

The right wing rehabilitation of traitor Ashli Babbitt and ideologue Clarence Thomas

A key reason America’s right wing is politically successful, beyond its actual voting numbers, is because its billionaire donors have set up a powerful infrastructure. This includes think tanks, media companies and trainings for those who want to run for public office. Anyone willing to spout the Party Line is embraced and handsomely rewarded with gobs of money, and bogus titles, such as “thinkers”, “intellectuals” and “leaders”. These pliant puppets, who slavishly play their roles, are paid well to offer the rank and file talking points to justify their delusional worldview.

Unfortunately for Republicans, these fantastical, fanatical Fib Factories, that pump out political pollution, have their limits. The truth may be a turtle and the lie a hare, but eventually the quixotic falsehoods sink into the quicksand of reality. Even if you’re a champion right wing sprinter, like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), the facts will find you and your carefully crafted facade will crumble. Try as they may, one can’t indefinitely outrun the truth.

But that doesn’t keep the conservative establishment from trying. For example, the right wing is trying to rehabilitate the image of Ashli Babbitt, an insurrectionist who was shot to death by police on January 6 as she stormed the U.S. Capitol. Her goal, like those who joined her, was to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power because she did not like the results of the election. Instead of recognizing that Babbitt was a turncoat terrorist, the right-wing Fib Factory is trying to revise history and portray her as a martyr.

As part of this ignoble effort, Ashli Babbitt’s mom appeared on Rudy Giuliani’s podcast, the hilariously misnamed, “Uncovering the Truth.” Let’s not forget that Giuliani’s law license was suspended in New York for shamelessly (and drunkenly) peddling Trump’s election lies, most memorably at the Four Seasons…landscaping company. Writer Manny Otiko monitored Giuliani’s show and found that Babbitt’s mom bizarrely claimed, “the real violence on Jan. 6 was due to the FBI, the Capitol police and, of course, antifa.” She also said that “the Jan. 6 hearings were trying to brainwash the American public” and her Q-Anon-loving daughter “tried to prevent violence”, rather than contribute to it.

The right wing often seems to forget that most of us have televisions and footage of her daughter’s unpatriotic behavior lives eternally online. The attempts of fabulists to recast Babbitt from a zero to a hero, brings to mind a Marx Brothers line, “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”  

As individuals, we are sometimes defined by what we break into. If we break into song, we are probably a musician. If we break into a store, we are a thief. If we break into a house, we are defined as a burglar. If we violently break into the House of Representatives, we are a traitor. If you’ve taken action to destroy democracy, you can’t call yourself a patriot, any more than a burglar gets to call himself a house guest. Or the thief gets to call herself an “extreme discount shopper”. No matter how many times one repeats such lies, they remain untrue.  

Ashli Babbitt joins the dishonorable ranks of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Donald Trump as ignominious seditionists who back-stabbed America. She knew what she was getting into and got exactly what she deserved. Quite frankly, it’s a miracle that the Capitol Police exercised super-human restraint in electing not to open fire. They were true heroes who put their lives on the line for this nation, protecting besieged lawmakers –including unpatriotic cowards like Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz -- while reclaiming our Temple of Democracy from invading marauders.

President Joe Biden was correct when he said police on Jan 6 were “speared, sprayed, stomped on and brutalized”, while “subjected to a medieval hell.” Ashely Babbitt was a part of this barbaric mob that was “bashing the blue” and working to destroy our country. These brave police officers deserve medals, while Babbitt earned her aluminum box. No apologies, and we must unwaveringly resist any pathetic attempt to rewrite reality.

Our nation made the tragic mistake, once before, of allowing defeated southern secessionists to erect statues and monuments in honor of traitors and distribute these eyesores across former confederate states. These historical revisionists falsely portrayed these quislings as warriors who bravely fought against the “war of northern aggression” and defenders of “southern heritage”. They even claimed that the Civil War was not about slavery, but a noble fight to preserve “states’ rights”. Yes, there is a grain of truth, it was over the right of states -- to keep slaves.

Never again should loyal Americans, who believe in democracy and freedom, indulge these unsavory fabricators who promote false historical narratives. Had we properly dealt with the “Revisionists of Reconstruction”, America could have moved forward, and we would not be in the precarious position we are in today.

Another Orwellian example of the right-wing Fib Factory whitewashing reality is the emerging narrative on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. A fake Astroturf organization, People for Civility, is placing expensive full-page ads in newspapers defending Thomas, portraying this predator as a victim. The ad headline is “An Open Letter Denouncing the Attacks on Clarence Thomas.” It is signed by a long list of familiar African Americans on right wing payrolls, such as Kenneth Blackwell, Ward Connerly and Larry Elder.

Their ad, pitifully and unsuccessfully, evokes race in an underhanded attempt to browbeat white progressives into curtailing their legitimate criticism of Justice Thomas. They write in the text, “White progressives do not have the moral authority to excommunicate a black man from his race because they disagree with him.”

This misleading, divisive drivel aims to slime white progressives, while conveniently omitting the fact that 92-percent of Africans Americans voted for President Joe Biden, and a significant number disagree with Thomas’ rulings. CNN writer and producer John Blake explained:       

Here’s my question to people who say or imply black people revile Thomas because he’s a conservative: If black people are so opposed to conservatives, why have so many accepted black conservatives such as Booker T. Washington, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice?

Thomas isn’t despised in the black community because he’s a conservative. Many dislike him because they see him as a hypocrite and a traitor.

Yet many white conservatives keep recycling the same selective stories about Thomas. These stories don’t just distort black culture – they carry an undercurrent of racism.

Thomas has lectured blacks about the evils of affirmative action. Yet he made it into Yale Law School because of an affirmative action program.

I’d add that Thomas was deliberately nominated to the Supreme Court, by cunning right-wing operatives, to undermine the magnificent legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall, a genuine trailblazer and true civil rights hero. Furthermore, Thomas’ noxious opinion that that the invalidation of Roe v Wade, should invite challenges to gay marriage, private intimacy, and contraception, deserves every bit of harsh backlash and criticism it has received.

However, “the tell” that this wretched ad to rehabilitate Thomas is nothing but cheap, unadulterated propaganda, is when it calls Thomas “a model of integrity.” These “family values” conservatives are lauding a sex fiend and creep who sexually harassed Anita Hill and publicly lied about it to get confirmed.  

This “model of integrity” also refused to recuse himself from January 6 related cases, even as his treasonous wife sold the Big Lie and advocated for the overthrow of democracy. The ad accuses Thomas’ detractors of “character assassination”, when they are really involved in “character revelation.” The right wing just can’t handle that most people don’t like what they see.

But what else can you expect from insincere, disingenuous, power-fixated nuts who claim to be religious, yet voted for Donald Trump, a thrice-married serial cheater who bragged on tape about grabbing women by their genitals and paid to keep the silence of a porn star? They also worship Representative “Gym Jordan”. The former Ohio State wrestling coach, was accused of ignoring complaints by wrestlers who said they were sexually harassed by a team doctor. What a paragon of morality.   

When lies are not met with truth they metastasize. The result is an Orwellian outlook, that passes through a looking glass. Up is down, black is white. Lies are truth. Hate is love. And treason is patriotism. The news is fake, but Trump, a man who lied more than 30,000 times in 4 years is real.

We must remain vigilant and never allow fantasy to be elevated to the same plain as fact. If we don’t act, society ends up disconnected and discombobulated. Without shared truth, there is nothing but competing “versions of veracity”. Such gaslighting creates the confusion necessary for an aggressive, motivated, well-organized fascist minority, to stun the majority into submission. Once this occurs, they can seize power and rule.

That’s why we have a solemn mission and unwavering duty to challenge every last lie, with everlasting truth. If we don’t unfailingly shine our light on their shameless propaganda, we will be thrust into a new Dark Age.