There is a difference between “lying” and “being wrong.” There are differences between the concept of “sin” and the definition of “crime.” There are differences between an individual’s choices and behavior and the choices or behaviors of a group.
Keep those three competing ideas in your mind as you read on.
People post things on social media for a variety of reasons. Most of the time, the thing being posted is not original - the person posting it did not write it or design it but found it on someone else’s feed and shared it. Here’s one I put together all by myself:
![screenshot of a Facebook post showing a World War II veteran being interviewed on Fox News to commemorate the D-Day invasion of Normandy - comment reads "It was kinda surreal watching Fox celebrate Antifa all day." screenshot of a Facebook post showing a World War II veteran being interviewed on Fox News to commemorate the D-Day invasion of Normandy - comment reads "It was kinda surreal watching Fox celebrate Antifa all day."](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9a320e16-26b6-431d-af88-7fbd2660fb24_689x477.png)
The joke here (in case you’re a recently arrived alien from another galaxy trying to make sense of our world) is that Fox News has breathlessly lied and exaggerated about “Antifa” causing mayhem and destruction to justify authoritarian violence against peaceful protesters since 2017. That was the same year an authoritarian opposed to democracy was sworn in as president of the United States. And, of course, defeating fascism was the primary motivation for the U.S. invasion of Normandy on D-Day, thus, the veteran in the picture was by definition “Antifa.”
Technically, my post is a lie.
Fox News had no intention of supporting the actual Antifa movement. None of the nonagenarian WWII veterans are likely to have anything to do with the Antifa movement.
Hopefully, anyone who sees my post knows the facts and gets the joke. I did not intend to mislead anyone - if anything, I hope to draw attention to the tolerance of cognitive dissonance required to accept the reporting of Fox News. The “lie” here is intended to highlight how a media outlet manipulates its viewers.
There is something that I did not do with my post: I did not Bear False Witness against my neighbor. That’s a real screengrab of real Fox News coverage, and they really did spend all day on the subject.
(We’ve talked before about our relationship with lying, especially in the realm of politics. See “The Poisoned Goblet of Wine” for a refresher. And, of course, last week I talked about the Ten Commandments - one of which forbids bearing false witness against your neighbor.)
Here’s another meme I saw circulating amongst some of my Trumpier Facebook friends in response to Donald Trump’s conviction on all 34 charges of fraud the week before:
The lie here is much less obvious, or at best, it doesn’t seem like the people re-sharing this meme are aware that it is a lie.
Remember that I told you Fox News lied and exaggerated about “Antifa” - they did not do so in a vacuum. After George Floyd was murdered in 2020, the Black Lives Matter1 movement that had grown out of earlier protests against murders of Black people by law enforcement became a focal point for disinformation about the massive and peaceful demonstrations against authoritarian violence. These demonstrations were so effective that supporters of authoritarian policies and politicians went on a media offensive.
Fox News was caught using old footage of other riots2 and digitally altering images3 to make it appear as though “liberal American cities” were being overrun by violent looters and explicitly blaming the peaceful demonstrators for the violence they were showing. Two years later, people like Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) were claiming that “Antifa” had burned U.S. cities “for a year”4 - a lie based, in large part, on the misleading coverage.
The reality is that only a few months after the protests occurred, some 300 people were charged with federal crimes related to the protests - about 80 with offenses related to arson or explosives.5 The so-called “radical left” embodied by Black Lives Matter did not condone the violence, and in fact, they brought four civil cases against federal law enforcement which resulted in the U.S. Park Police and U.S. Secret Service updating policies governing demonstrations in the U.S. Capitol.6
You might argue that the lie in the Trump meme is intended to draw attention to a larger lie - but the larger lie here is the lie that “the radical left burned down U.S. cities because they didn’t like an outcome” which has been nurtured and spread amongst Trump’s faithful supporters.
There is a weird lie at the end when they say “We are not the same.” I have to assume that “we” refers to an authoritarian U.S. right-wing political blob that includes the person sharing the meme, as opposed to the so-called “radical left” being blamed for burning down cities. So the meme is trying to draw a distinction between those two groups. What’s odd about that is that “We are not the same” is a lie whether you believe that cities were burned down (because of the “January 6 United States Capitol attack”) or you don’t. If you don’t believe the cities were burned down, but you also believe the Capitol attack was a “peaceful protest” then you would seem to be saying that “we” are the same. I assume the average person reposting this meme does believe the lie about cities burning down, and also believes the lie that January 6 was just a “peaceful protest” - so “We are not the same” becomes true because I don’t believe either of those lies.
There is another implicit lie in that meme: that the “we” who raised $52.8 million includes the poster. I suppose it’s possible that some of them chipped in something, but considering how loudly those same people keep complaining about “Biden’s economy” I’m skeptical that they have anything left over to donate after all of the Bidenflation. (Or maybe there is another lie there that should be explored?)
Of course, thanks in part to Citizens United we may never know where that money actually came from. Lordy, lying is exhausting.
Business Insider, “Protests this past week have been largely peaceful, but Fox News continues to show old footage to rile up viewers,” 11 Jun 2020.
Seattle Times, “Fox News runs digitally altered images in coverage of Seattle’s protests, Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” 12 Jun 2020.
Newsweek, “Fact Check: Ted Cruz's Claim That 'Antifa' Burnt U.S. Cities for a Year,” 26 Oct 2022.
U.S. Department of Justice, “Over 300 People Facing Federal Charges For Crimes Committed During Nationwide Demonstrations,” 24 Sep 2020.
U.S. Department of Justice, “Justice Department Announces Civil Settlement in Lafayette Square Cases,” 13 April 2022.