The Big Lies

The original description of the big lie appeared in Mein Kampf. Adolf Hitler applied it to the behavior of Jews rather than as a tactic he advocated. Specifically, he accused Viennese Jews of trying to discredit the Germans’ activities during World War I. Hitler wrote of the Jews’ “unqualified capacity for falsehood” and “that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.

It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation…

The OSS psychological profile of Hitler described his use of the big lie:

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

Author John Toland wrote a two-volume biography of Adolf Hitler, Published by Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, NY. In Volume 1 Chapter 4, describes the birth of the Nazi Party and the politics of the party including in the big lie about Jewish influence being behind Germanys ending up signing an armistice based on harsh terms. In that chapter after laying out various samples of Hitler blaming the Jews for all of German World War I problems through governments and organizations under their control, Toland concluded on page 146:

“In his obsessive hatred of Jews, Hitler had gone over the edge of reality. His antisemitism, though expressed in logical terms, had passed all boundaries of logic. He turned the world upside down: France, England, and America had really lost the war. Germany was the eventual winner since she was freeing herself from the Jews. If Hitler was deceiving himself, he had also succeeded in deceiving his listeners. Hitler skillfully appealed to primitive emotions and when audiences left meetings they remembered few details, only that they must join Hitler’s crusade to save Germany; that France must be driven out of the Ruhr, and, most important, that the Jews must be put in their place.”

Shortly after that. Hitler went to Berlin and was of the leaders of a failed insurrection known to history as The Beer Hall Putsh. Hitler was jailed and had time (1925-28) to write Mein Kampf, subtitled The National Socialist Movement. The book contained the history of the party, his views of and plan for the Jews, and his plan to provide living space for the German people through the conquest of lands to the east toward Russia. He acted on his plans. 

Trump is known for his lies. The Washington Post reported Trump’s false or misleading claims total 30,573 over the four years of his presidency.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/

From all the Trump lies one has emerged as the big lie: Trump actually won the 2020 Election, but it was rigged or stolen by the Democrats. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that 57% of Republicans believe Democrat Joe Biden was not legitimately elected as president. Hitler used his big lie as the basis for forming a political party winning elected office and then taking over the Government of Germany and converting it from a democracy to a fascist state. Trump has pledged in recent speeches to do the same thing in America.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/12/trump-rally-vermin-political-opponents/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trumps-ramped-up-rhetoric-raises-new-concerns-about-violence-and-authoritarianism

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/detention-camps-vermin-government-purge-trump-full-authoritarian

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/trump-becoming-frighteningly-clear-about-what-he-wants/676086/

Criminal actions are being litigated in Washington DC and in a Georgia RICO case which includes the issue of the big lie in charges of Trumps criminal attempt to stay in power. Several defendants have already pleaded guilty under Florida admitting, under oath that there was a conspiracy, they were part of it, and then guilty to one or more specific charges.