Today is Thursday, November 3, 2022. The existence of a “post-truth” world propelled primarily by members on the far right is written about by Vanity Fair columnist Molly Jong-Fast in a new piece by her as RawStory covers the phenomenon in an online article by Travis Gettys entitled “Republicans have entered a ‘post-truth world’ – and their voters absolutely love it.”

Thus the situation in this country has become so fragile that Republicans have now run out of reasons to tell the truth because there’s no consequences for lying, especially if duped voters hand them election victories time and time again.

A brutal example of this Republican lying occurred recently with the terrible assault on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband that should have occasioned universal condemnation from both parties in a “normal” age, but only came from Democrats who were more typical in their responses to this violence against an 82-year-old man. The repugnicans’ lies about the event were broadcast to deflect attention away from the simple fact that a right-wing conspiracy nut was driven to attack the elderly Paul Pelosi in his own home. This bare truth exposes the party for its soulless quest to muddy the waters of reality.

In her column, Jong-Fast writes, “Such is the trajectory of information today: The world’s richest man [Elon Musk], using a global communications platform he just bought for $44 billion, promotes a story featuring baseless claims to his more than 112 million followers.” She adds, “Musk wasn’t alone in muddying the waters around the Pelosi assault, with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas using Twitter to cast doubt on the motivation for the attack, thus entering the murky post-truth zone where the GOP base operates in its own alternate reality.”

The Vanity Fair columnist also wrote that Republicans don’t care about the lies and actually seem to prefer them to the basic truth.

The magazine writer notes that many repugnican candidates running for office this midterm cycle have embraced this post-truth ethos, with the majority of those on the ballot this Tuesday having denied or questioned Joe Biden’s victory two years ago. Jong-Fast writes that “For Republican candidates, it seems, there’s increasingly no incentive to tell the truth.”

Voters should have a wealth of evidence at their fingertips to prove GOP candidates are always lying, “but conservatives have increasingly insulated themselves in an alternate reality where Democrats steal elections [ they don’t] and schools place litter boxes in restrooms to accommodate children who identify as cats.” This I have no idea what she means.

Jong-Fast concludes her synopsis of the current cultural situation by saying that people are rejecting the obvious because it just doesn’t fit into their reality. She ominously concludes, “In a post-truth world, everything, including fact, becomes subject to opinion. Kids aren’t identifying as cats and Paul Pelosi wasn’t having some kind of love affair with David DePape. Sometimes, actually, most of the time, the obvious answer is correct.”

In the meantime, those lies are well in evidence as repugnicans campaign openly on them in contest after contest. An extremely dangerous example of MAGA Republicanism on the ballot is Arizona candidate Kari Lake who takes the Donald Trump medal for mendacity about the previous election and the state of free elections as she vies for the governorship. She is called a dangerous candidate in an online The Guardian article by Maanvi Singh entitled ‘A really dangerous candidate’: Kari Lake, the new face of MAGA Republicanism.”

The dangerous candidate, Kari Lake, was a local news anchor two years ago who resisted announcing that Joe Biden had won Arizona on election night. Now, “she’s the telegenic new face of MAGA Republicanism, poised to possibly become the state’s next governor.”

Very sadly, with early voting under way, polls show Lake in a dead heat with her opponent Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Secretary of State. The contest will serve to test the strength of Dumpf’s enduring influence on his cult party and its supporters. And the entire enterprise of free elections hangs in the balance.

If this horrible candidate wins, her administration will oversee the 2024 elections in a key state that could help determine who wins the presidency. She could work with the likes of Mark Finchem, the far-right Oath Keeper [shit!] who is running to become the state’s top election official. I truly hope Arizonans are aware of this unholy alliance between Lake and Finchem and reject them outright. Lake has already said she will only accept the 2022 election results “if fair, honest and transparent” by her own corrupt standards, declining whether she would accept defeat. Totally chilling, in my view.

Lake is already behaving as an autocratic figure since she wants to use hand counts to tabulate elections – a method that is more time-consuming and less accurate – while also insisting that results should be declared on Election Day. She has threatened to punish journalists for publishing content she disagrees with and imprison her opponent over fictional accusations of election rigging. She is surely catering to the Viktor Orban playbook here and the playbook of other autocrats in the world.

Alejandro Gomez, the codirector of the progressive advocacy group Lucha, warned, “We’re dealing with a really dangerous candidate. This election is incredibly consequential for the future of our democracy.”

In her past life, Lake was a familiar face on local TV – delivering the evening news at Fox 10 Phoenix. On election night in 2020, Lake rejected calling the election for Biden, as her coanchor awkwardly insisted that they follow protocol. That must have been a supremely awkward moment.

In recent years, Lake had joined the far-right social media platform Parler and left an online trail of implicit endorsements of right-wing positions and conspiracy theories, much to the consternation of her station’s management. However, it was her seemingly sudden and dramatic resignation from the anchor job that laid the foundations for her political career. I say too bad she didn’t stay with the news, so we wouldn’t have to know about how she fell down the rabbit hole of disgusting Trumpism, where she wouldn’t be running for governor of a crucial battleground state.

To show how this now-execrable candidate for Arizona governor has radically changed her political philosophy, it’s instructive to know that she was a registered Democrat in 2008 and donated to the Democratic presidential campaigns of John Kerry and Barack Obama. In 2016, she proposed a plan to provide amnesty for undocumented immigrants. Today, she says she would declare an “invasion” at the southern border and evoked the white supremacist “great replacement” theory in describing immigrants.

At one time, she once considered a local drag queen a friend and often attended performances. Today this anti-LGBTQ homophobe runs ads featuring an extremist homophobic pastor and attacks drag performers as a threat to children.

Even on the controversial issue of abortion, she has been very inconsistent. Lake has called abortion “the ultimate sin” and has endorsed Arizona’s prestatehood ban, though, in recent weeks has provided muddled messages about her stance. She seems not to know that the vast majority of Arizonans believe that abortion should be legal in at least some cases. This backward antiabortion, anti-LGBTQ candidate for governor actually told a conference of young, conservative women that “God did not create us to be equal to men.” What the fuck! Is this woman for real?

What is particularly alarming with the campaign of this right-wing fundamentalist is that her campaign events have become a sensation and have drawn supporters across all demographic groups.

Though most sane Americans would find Lake to be disgusting, what is not surprising is that her orange-haired God, Dumpf, has actually told other candidates to be more like her. Repugnican insiders are already speculating that she could be Dumpf’s vice presidential [God forbid!] nominee in 2024 or run for president herself. Maybe in Turkey or Hungary, please not in the United States, in 2024. This MAGA acolyte has even been quoted, saying, “You can call me Trump in a dress any day.” How abominable!

Let us sincerely hope that Arizonans will not succumb to this woman’s hateful and anachronistic blandishments and vote her into office on November 8. Also Mark Finchem should be shown the exit door as well next week.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting worried about the upcoming midterms. It’s also being linked with my anxious feelings about hernia surgery two days after this pivotal election. I know I have no control over what happens over the course of the first event, and I’m learning I have not much control over the second event either. I have to trust in the skill and judgment of my surgeon to get me through surgery next Thursday. So I don’t know what I’m saying here. It’s up to the American people to control the outcome of that critical event next Tuesday. Can we trust the majority of voters to do the right thing? The polls say otherwise; but polls can be wrong.

Stay safe and be well.