Michael Barone:
The “big lie” is back in style. Wikipedia tells us that the term was invented by Adolf Hitler to describe what other did — though he was the biggest liar of all. “The broad masses of a nation,” he wrote in Mein Kampf, “more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie.”
No one on the political scene in this country or any democratic nation is a monster comparable to Hitler. But some have resorted to the big lie in their attempts to override clear decisions of the people, at the risk of delegitimizing the nation’s democracy.
Exhibit A: The increasingly common claims that Democrats Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum “won” last fall’s elections for governor in Georgia and Florida. Actually, both of them lost by 50%-49% margins.
Abrams admits this, but insists that “so many people were disenfranchised and disengaged … that I feel comfortable now saying, ‘I won.’” “Without voter suppression,” presidential candidate Kamala Harris told the Detroit NAACP, “Stacey Abrams would be the governor of Georgia, Andrew Gillum is the governor of Florida.”
This is nonsense. Voter turnout was up 54% in Georgia and 38% in Florida over 2014 levels. And the “voter suppression” that people are complaining about was standard procedure, required by longstanding federal and state laws.
The suggestion that anything happened in Georgia or Florida tantamount to the voter suppression blacks experienced before the 1965 Voting Rights Act — suppression by unfair laws, threats of violence and murder — is preposterous. Perhaps Abrams hopes to convince the many blacks moving to Georgia that it’s run by white segregationists, or to discourage people from voting by making them think their vote won’t count. But she and those who echo her charges are saying that America is moving backward on basic civil rights. That’s a big lie, one that stokes racial mistrust and hatred.
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