Consider This from NPR - The 'Big Lie' Continues To Threaten Democracy

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

A year ago, insurrectionists stormed the Capitol building in hopes of overturning the election results - fueled by the "Big Lie" that Donald Trump actually won. He did not.As NPR Special Correspondent Melissa Block reports, this lie has become entrenched in the Republican party. And Republican state legislators across the country have used it to justify passing new laws restricting voting access. We look at those changes, and what all this might mean for elections in 2022 and 2024. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu. Okay, 2021 may not have been an election year, but it was in no way a quiet one on the voting front. We saw a very aggressive push to restrict access to voting in many states. That's Wendy Weiser. She's the vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank. So the 19 states that passed laws restricting access to voting, making it harder for eligible citizens to vote, is a major development and much more aggressive than anything

we've seen in literally decades and decades. She told NPR that there were two examples in particular that really concerned her. The first in Georgia. Famously, the legislature has empowered a new partisan board to fire local election administrators for very little cause, even mid-election cycle, and replace them with even partisan operatives of their choosing. And the second example that concerned her is in Texas. It is now a crime for an election administrator to truthfully tell people, encourage them to apply for an absentee ballot and to truthfully tell them what their rights are under Texas law to submit an application for an absentee

ballot. These new laws and policies are fueled by the big lie, the fabrication that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. It was not. But an NPR Ipsos poll from earlier this week shows that two-thirds of Republican respondents say they believe this, and that 64 percent of all Americans believe that American democracy is, quote, in crisis and at risk of failing. I am worried that if we don't pass federal legislation, if we don't put in place strong protections against election sabotage, that we are going to see a repeat of January 6th and that this movement's not going to go away. Consider this. The majority of Americans believe our democracy is in crisis, but for vastly different reasons.

And the deceptive claims of those who support the big lie are eroding the very foundations of American democracy under the guise of protecting it. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Tuesday, January 4th. This message comes from NPR sponsor I'm Elsa Chang. It's Tuesday, January 4th. of low-cost index funds in minutes. They do all the trading, rebalancing, and can help you lower your tax bill while you invest. To start building your wealth and get your first $5,000 managed for free for life, visit wealthfront.com slash consider today. This message comes from Wise, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally

and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. Now, the significance of this week could be an opportunity for Senate Democrats. The big lie which Donald Trump perpetrated created January 6th, and that is a continuation of what's happening around the country. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wants this reminder of what happened at the Capitol a year ago to give voting rights legislation now a needed boost. Here he is speaking to MSNBC. The idea that January 6th is totally a one-off is wrong. It's now being perpetrated by this attempt to take away voting rights of so many people, people of color, young people, people who live in urban areas, handicapped people, elderly people.

Schumer has vowed that the Senate will vote on changing its rules by January 17th if Senate Republicans continue to block the voting rights bill. This is the closest Schumer has ever come to directly suggesting to his colleagues that changes are necessary when it comes to the filibuster rules around legislation. We have to fight against this because if we don't change the rules, the Republicans will block this and our democracy could be at risk and even wither in very real, in real ways. As Senate Democrats weigh new voting rights legislation, former President Trump has been back on the road holding rallies where he continues to spread lies about the election that he lost.

I have no doubt that we won and we won't win. They rigged the election and now, based on the rigged election, they're destroying our country. NPR special correspondent Melissa Block has been reporting on how that fiction poses a very real threat to democracy. The headlines claiming that Biden won

are fake news and a very big lie. See what Trump did there? Fake news and a very big lie. See what Trump did there? Fake news and a very big lie. He flipped the narrative. It's an age-old tactic. Part of the character of the big lie is that it turns the powerful person into the victim, and then that allows the powerful person to actually exact revenge, like it's a promise for the future. Yale history professor Timothy Snyder has spent years studying the way

tyrants skewer truth. He points to Hitler's original definition of the big lie in his manifesto Mein Kampf and how he used it to blame Jews for all of Germany's woes. The lie is so big that it reorders the world. And so part of telling the big lie is that you immediately say it's the other side that tells the big lie. Over the past year, the big lie is that you immediately say it's the other side that tells the big lie. Over the past year, the big lie has become firmly anchored in public opinion. The most distressing thing about American news coverage right now is that we don't treat the end of democracy in America as the story. That is the story. We imagine that there's somehow this immovable American democratic background, which doesn't really exist.

We can lose democracy just like anybody else can, just like most people have in the history of democracy. We can lose it, and we're losing it right now. Consider the raft of new election laws enacted around the country. Snyder says what it adds up to is that the big lie is not just in people's minds. It's also now in the law books. In the last year, 19 states have passed new voting restrictions. We see Trump loyalists in battleground states running for powerful offices that control elections, candidates who are endorsed by could overrule voters and substitute their own slate of electors to choose the winner. All of it, Snyder says, a direct outcome of Trump's big lie. All of those things set us up for a scenario where the candidate who loses by every measure, not just by the popular vote, but by the electoral college, the candidate loses by every measure will nevertheless be installed as president of the United States. I think that is probably the most likely scenario in 2024,

as things stand now. The democratic emergency is here today, says election law expert Rick Hasson. I've never been more scared about American democracy than I am right now, because of the metastasizing of the big lie. Hasson, a professor at UC Irvine, warns there's now a well-established playbook for how to subvert an election. This is not the kind of thing I expected to ever worry about in the United States, but we're at a moment, I kind of feel like a climate scientist from five years ago or an expert on viruses a couple of years ago, sounding the alarm and just hoping that we're not too late already. I see a Democratic Party that does not understand that American democracy is hanging by

a thread and does not grapple with the fierce urgency of now. That's Carol Anderson, professor of African American Studies at Emory University. We have been, in her words, baptized in American exceptionalism, the naive belief that this can't happen here. write these laws figuring out not only how to stop Black people, Brown people, Indigenous people from voting, but also how to lower the guardrails of democracy that prevented Trump from being able to overturn the results in these states. So even after seeing this, to not move and do what needs to be done to protect this nation, it's unconscionable. from the same twisted roots as his birtherism lie. The conspiracy theory Trump peddled, falsely claiming that Barack Obama was born outside the U.S. and ineligible to serve as president. You can't ignore the clear racist through line in both, she says. Foundational to that is the devaluation and the dismissing of American citizenship for Black people. This is about, my nation is about the real Americans. And all of those folks aren't real Americans. It is so vile.

It is so racist. And it works. That's the thing. It works. Because, Anderson says, if you repeat the lie enough times, it starts to sound like the truth. In Congress, a House select committee is working to establish the truth of what happened on January 6th. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois is one of just two Republicans on the committee. Yeah, there's only two of us, but, you know, two is a mighty number, I guess.

Kinzinger, an outspoken Trump critic, has announced he won't run for re-election. He compares conspiracy theories to a cancer eating away at the Republican Party, and feeding that cancer is the big lie. The thing that's most concerning is that it has endured in the face of all evidence. And I've gotten to wonder if there is actually any evidence that would ever change certain people's minds. Beyond his committee's mission of uncovering what happened on January 6th itself, Kinzinger has broader questions. More importantly, in my mind, what is the rot

in the system that led up to January 6th? And how do we stop anything like this from happening again? Because even though January 6th technically failed, there's a lot of areas where you can learn from if your goal is to overthrow a legitimate election and potentially do it successfully next time. And that is precisely the lesson from history, says Yale professor Timothy Snyder. I mean, this is what historians and political scientists

who studied coup d'etat say. They say a failed coup is practice for a successful one. What we are potentially looking at, Snyder says, is nothing less than the end of the democratic United States as we've come to know it. That's just the reality. And in order to prevent things from being frightening, you have to look right at them and say, okay, that's the monster. How can I disassemble it? How can I take it to pieces? How can I make sure that that story isn't our only story? But it will be unless we tell it to ourselves straight. We have to confront that reality, Snyder says,

to find the courage and conviction to do something about it. That was NPR special correspondent Melissa Block. You are listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang. This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University drives discovery, innovation, and creative endeavors to solve some of society's greatest challenges. Groundbreaking investments in neuroscience, climate change, Alzheimer's research, and cybersecurity mean IU sets new standards to move the world forward, unlocking cures and solutions that lead to a better future for all. More at iu.edu forward.