Trumpism is not new — it’s a mutant strain of old hate wrapped in social media algorithms and Fox News chyrons.
It always starts with the lie. Not the small-time frauds or political puffery Americans have come to tolerate like bad weather, but a Big Lie—designed to rewrite reality itself.
Joseph Goebbels knew this in the 1930s, when he turned German media into a pipeline of nationalist grievance, fear, and invented enemies. The Big Lie depends on relentless repetition and the erasure of truth. It feeds on anger. On paranoia. On the hunger for simple villains and simpler solutions.
Donald Trump understands this all too well. When he rails against “fake news,” calls the press “the enemy of the people,” and paints immigrants, minorities, and political opponents as invaders, he is not innovating — he is plagiarizing the darkest chapters of human history. His lie — that the 2020 election was stolen — is not just a political strategy. It is a loyalty test. A demand that his followers abandon observable reality in favor of a myth that keeps him in power.
We tell ourselves America is different. Stronger. Immune. But democracies rot from within — not in sudden coups, but in the slow, suffocating erosions of truth, accountability, and shared reality.
Trump’s lies aren’t just corrosive — they are contagious. And unless the press, the courts, and the public are willing to confront them, the end will not come with a bang — but with a standing ovation from a crowd too blinded by grievance to see they’ve cheered their own undoing.