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This is a series of posts involving Dr. Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny. In the book, Snyder, a professor at Yale University who specializes in the history of tyrannical movements, shares twenty lessons on how to address and defeat tyranny.

Each lessons contains a short amount of text as well as a video featuring Snyder expanding on the text. This is lesson #5:

Lesson 5: Remember Professional Ethics

“When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.”

This is a series of posts involving Dr. Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny. In the book, Snyder, a professor at Yale University who specializes in the history of tyrannical movements, shares twenty lessons on how to address and defeat tyranny.

Each lessons contains a short amount of text as well as a video featuring Snyder expanding on the text. This is lesson #4:

Lesson #4: Take Responsibility for the Face of the World

“The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.”

 

This is a series of posts involving Dr. Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny. In the book, Snyder, a professor at Yale University who specializes in the history of tyrannical movements, shares twenty lessons on how to address and defeat tyranny.

Each lessons contains a short amount of text as well as a video featuring Snyder expanding on the text. This is lesson #3:

Lesson #3: Beware the One Part State

“The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start. They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents. So support the multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections. Vote in local and state elections while you can. Consider running for office.”

This is a series of posts involving Dr. Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny. In the book, Snyder, a professor at Yale University who specializes in the history of tyrannical movements, shares twenty lessons on how to address and defeat tyranny.

Each lessons contains a short amount of text as well as a video featuring Snyder expanding on the text. This is lesson #2:

Lesson #2: Defend Institutions

“Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of ‘our institutions’ unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf.
Institutions don’t protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.”

This is a series of posts involving Dr. Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny. In the book, Snyder, a professor at Yale University who specializes in the history of tyrannical movements, shares twenty lessons on how to address and defeat tyranny.

Each lessons contains a short amount of text as well as a video featuring Snyder expanding on the text. This is lesson #1:

Lesson #1: Do Not Obey in Advance

“Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You’ve already done this, haven’t you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.”

I often refer to things Dr. Timothy Snyder says. Snyder is a history professor at Yale University who specializes in the history of fascistic and authoritarian movements around the world. He has been a welcome and important voice at a time when the United States is witnessing attacks on our democracy from the Republican Party, both within and outside of government.

Snyder recently took to X (formerly Twitter) to talk about comments made by Donald Trump during a political rally in Dayton, OH last weekend. In his speech, Trump referred to people imprisoned for their role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol as “political prisoners” and “hostages.” He even stood and saluted while a revamped version of the “National Anthem” played over loudspeakers. The alternative version of the “National Anthem,” re-named “Justice for All,” was sung by the J6 Prison Choir and featured the voice of Trump himself reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

It’s hard to put into words how sickening and un-American this all is, but Trump wasn’t finished yet. During his address to the gathered crowd, Trump predicted that there would be a “bloodbath” in the country if he does not win the Presidential Election this November. Snyder recognized the scene as something straight out of Nazi Germany. Here’s what he said:

“The thing Trump did in Dayton – celebrating his fascist movement’s dubious “martyrs” – is exactly what Goebbels and Hitler did between the Nazis’ failed coup and their seizure of power. Their song was called the Horst Wessel Song. 

“The Nazis were obsessive about being the victims. Once in power they put up monuments to their “martyrs.” They sang their Horst Wessel Song as they conquered countries and killed millions to say that they, the Nazis, were the real victims and therefore always innocent. 

“Trump’s claim that his people are hostages and political prisoners is meant to justify endless revenge on whomever he wishes as soon as he is in power. That is how this martyrdom thing works. We know it from the history of fascism.

“Trump promised a ‘bloodbath for the country’ if he’s not elected president. Then followed the predictable bout of (self-)deception, claiming Trump’s bloodbath (comment) was out of context…Trump is telling them (and us) that he doesn’t really plan to win the election. As he did in 2016, as he did in 2020, he is telling us that the vote count does not decide the issue for him.”

In his book, On Tyranny, Snyder lays out a 20-point plan to address and defeat the type of anti-democratic efforts being put forth by Trump and his supporters. He begins his book with these words:

“Americans are no wiser that the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so.”

In the coming weeks, I will share the 20 lessons Snyder includes in his book. Each lesson will be accompanied by a video Snyder did designed to expand his thoughts and further explain each lesson.

Although I’m incredibly grateful to Snyder for writing the book and creating the video lessons, I’m heartbroken and horrified that we in the United States find ourselves at a place where such a book and video lessons are necessary.

The series on fighting tyranny will begin on Monday, March 25. Each Monday for the next ten weeks, I’ll feature two of Snyder’s 20 lessons. I hope you’ll follow along.

Recently, you may have seen Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) in front of a microphone stumping for former President Donald Trump and asking the gathered crowd, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Stefanick has been mentioned as a potential choice as Trump’s Vice-President, so you can imagine her answer to that question. But she is not alone in asking it. Trump himself recently took to Truth Social asking the same question. And some version of the question has been asked on practically every news program and in every newspaper and magazine that includes political coverage.

The answer should be obvious. Four years ago, in 2020, we were in the middle of a global Covid pandemic. Schools were closed, we were required to wear masks in most public places. Grocery store shelves were depleted, toilet paper was in short supply, millions of non-essential workers were laid-off from their jobs, and countless businesses were shuttered, many of them permanently.

Weddings had to be cancelled. People couldn’t attend family funerals. And those that were hospitalized—many of them sick with Covid—died alone because visitors were not allowed.

Healthcare professionals were forced to re-use masks because the Trump Administration nearly exhausted the nation’s strategic supply and didn’t make arrangements to restock it. In large cities, refrigerated trucks were used to store corpses, since morgues and funeral homes were over capacity with the bodies of those who had died. Sadly, four years ago at this time, deaths from Covid had just begun. We were counting deaths in the hundreds. Very soon, we would be counting them in the millions.

I’m 64-years old, and in my lifetime, I have never seen a more desperate, horrible time in the United States. To make matters worse, the President and many of his party faithful lied to us, simultaneously claiming that Covid was a hoax, it would go away quickly, it was no worse than the flu, and that it was a biological weapon unleashed on the United States by China. Thanks to Trump’s divisive nature, the reality of Covid and how best to treat it became a political issue as much as a healthcare issue. As a result, the virus impacted the United States much more severely than it did other countries.

Now, four years later, we have weathered the worst of the Covid storm. While still a concern, we now have supplies, treatments, and protocols in place to handle Covid, in schools, the workplace, and in public.

Since those dark days of 2020, our nation has rebounded economically. According to The Economist magazine, economic growth in the United States has outpaced the economy of every other G7 country. Entrepreneurship in the United States is booming. During the first two years of the Biden Administration, new business applications increased 33% over the number filed during the final two years of the Trump Presidency.

Inflation is currently at a reasonable 2% and unemployment remains at record lows. There is a job for any American that wants one. More importantly, wages have grown for 80% of Americans. The only group that has witnessed a wage decrease is the top 20% wealthiest Americans, helping to reduce wealth inequality that had been growing at a significant pace in recent years.

The stock market has also hit record highs in recent months. Although the average American does not own individual stocks, many do have retirement savings (pensions, 401(k)s, IRAs) that are invested in the stock market. These gains may not put food on the table for most Americans, but they do provide peace of mind and the promise of a more comfortable retirement.

Not everything is rosy. Immigration still poses a challenge to the nation, although it isn’t the mess Republicans would have you believe. In fact, the Senate passed a bi-partisan immigration bill—the toughest in our nation’s history—but Trump has asked Republicans not to take up the bill in the House so he can use immigration as a political issue in his campaign to re-take the White House.

We also see a rise in neo-Nazism, white supremacy, Christian Nationalism, fascism, and other attacks on our democracy. In his campaign for President, Trump has detailed a plan for further attacks on our democracy and on our freedoms, embracing political violence and the un-American values espoused by these groups.

On the world stage, NATO has never been stronger, yet we (the United States) are currently failing to help Ukraine in their battle to repel Russia’s unprovoked attack. In addition, the situation in the Middle East worsens and China continues to be a threat to Taiwan, but Republicans in the House refuse to do more than issue strong statements and condemnations.

Even with these challenges, it is clear that the vast majority of Americans are objectively better off today than they were four years ago. That is an inconvenient truth for Donald Trump and his surrogates who preach doom and gloom as a campaign strategy. Despite their claims, by almost any metric, both domestically and internationally, we are in a far better place today than we were in 2020. I don’t want to go back. How about you?

The Presidential Greatness Project is a periodic survey done of current and recent members of the Presidents & Executives Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. The 2024 version of the survey was completed during the final two months of 2023 and was overseen by Dr. Brandon Rottingham of the University of Houston and Dr. Justin S. Vaughn of Coastal Carolina University.

According to the Presidential Greatness Project report:

“The primary purpose of this survey was to create a ranking of presidential greatness that covered all presidents from George Washington to Joe Biden. To do this, we asked respondents to rate each president on a scale of 0-100 for their overall greatness, with 0=failure, 50=average, and 100=great. We then averaged the ratings for each president and ranked them from highest average to lowest. “

Who was the best and who was the worst? We’ll get to that in a minute. But what I found most interesting was the differences (or lack of difference) in how Republicans and Democrats voted, as well as between those that identified as conservative compared to those that identified as liberal. The results are really fascinating.

Let’s start with the overall results:

Top 5 Presidents Overall

Abraham Lincoln (93.87)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (90.83)
George Washington (90.32)
Theodore Roosevelt (78.58)
Thomas Jefferson (77.53)

The top five don’t really surprise me. What does surprise me is the huge fall off in score from the top three Presidents to the fourth and fifth ranked. Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Washington are held in much higher esteem than any of the other Presidents.

Next, let’s look at the bottom five presidents overall beginning with the worst:

Five Worst Presidents Overall

Donald Trump (10.92)
James Buchanan (16.71)
Andrew Johnson (21.56)
Franklin Pierce (24.60)
William Henry Harrison (26.01)

One thing that has always amazed me is the way current Trump supporters claim that Donald Trump was one of the greatest Presidents in history. The folks that actually study the accomplishments of Presidents disagree strongly. I suspect that at this juncture, Trump supporters will be saying that the former POTUS scored so low because the pin-headed academics that voted in this survey are all a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals. If that’s true, then we should see those scholars who identify as Republican and/or conservative rank Trump differently. Let’s see if that happens.

Next, let’s see how the rankings break down based on party affiliation. Let’s start with Republicans:

Top 5 Presidents Ranked by Republicans

George Washington  (96.94)
Abraham Lincoln (94.31)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (86.75)
Theodore Roosevelt (81.31)
Ronald Reagan (80.56)

It’s a little odd to me that overall, Lincoln ranked first, but among his fellow Republicans, he ranked second. Perhaps that goes to show how different the Republican Party is today compared to what they stood for in the mid-1800s.

It’s also a little surprising to see FDR rank so highly among Republicans. Not only was he a Democrat, but he is one of the most progressive Democrats to ever serve, ushering in social programs that many Republicans now find repugnant.

Finally, it should not be surprising to see Ronald Reagan rank so high among Republicans. After all, he is considered the father of the new conservative movement, and despite the fact that he is often pilloried by MAGA Republicans, he is still held in high regard among Republicans writ large.

Who did Republicans say were the five worst Presidents:

Bottom 5 Presidents Ranked by Republicans

James Buchanan (14.50)
Andrew Johnson (23.88)
Franklin Pierce (27.00)
William Henry Harrison (29.13)
Donald Trump (31.38)

Even among self-described Republicans, Donald Trump is considered one of the five worst Presidents in history. It will be interesting to see where he ranks among conservatives.

Next, Let’s look at how Democrats rank the top five Presidents:

Top 5 Presidents Ranked by Democrats

Abraham Lincoln (94.73)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (93.13)
George Washington (90.19)
Theodore Roosevelt (81.31)
Thomas Jefferson (78.88)

We see the same Presidents come up time and again on the “best ranked list” regardless of who is doing the ranking. The exception is Ronald Reagan, who Democrats ranked as the 18th best President; definitely not as high as Republicans ranked him, but still in the top half, which is respectable.

These are the Presidents who Democrats ranked as the worst in history:

Bottom 5 Presidents Ranked by Democrats

Donald Trump (6.66)
James Buchanan (16.33)
Andrew Johnson (20.00)
Franklin Pierce (23.27)
William Henry Harrison (25.96)

Republicans and Democrats agree that Trump is one of the worst presidents in history. The only difference is, Democrats think he is the worst ever, while Republicans think he is one of the worst, but not the absolute worst. BTW, Trump’s score among Democrats is not lost on me.

How about self-described conservatives? Who do they think are the top five Presidents?

Top 5 Presidents Ranked by Conservatives
George Washington (97.10)
Abraham Lincoln (91.29)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (87.00)
Thomas Jefferson (81.19)
Ronald Reagan (79.14)

The only difference between the top five Presidents as ranked by Republicans and those ranked by conservatives is Republicans had Theodore Roosevelt ranked fourth, while conservatives had Thomas Jefferson ranked fourth. Otherwise, their lists are the same.

Again, FDR makes the conservatives list of top five Presidents. The survey doesn’t provide insight into this phenomenon. I find it interesting and would like to understand it better.

For conservatives, these were the five worst Presidents in history:

Bottom 5 Presidents Ranked by Conservatives

James Buchanan (17.57)
Franklin Pierce (25.81)
Donald Trump (26.76)
William Henry Harrison (27.85)
Andrew Johnson (28.57)

Republicans and conservatives agree on the bottom five Presidents in history, but they don’t agree on the ranking of those five worst presidents. Once again, Donald Trump makes the list of the five worst Presidents.

I think it’s worth mentioning that conservatives rank Trump lower than self-identified Republicans do. Should this be surprising? I don’t think so.

Self-identified conservatives are more closely married to a political philosophy than Republicans. To simplify this point, Republicans are a political party focused on winning elections. Conservatives are a group that is less concerned with political victories than with political philosophy. Naturally, there is some cross-over in both of these descriptions, but the point is that conservatives likely view Trump more harshly than Republicans because he is not a true believer.

Trump is not conservative. In fact, he has no core values or beliefs. He is an opportunist who will use any group–be it evangelicals, social conservatives, military hawks, country club Republicans, etc.–to get what he wants. He’ll also abandon any of these groups if he thinks it will help his cause. Conservatives, at least the conservatives involved in this project, see Trump for who he is. That’s why they are so critical of him in this survey.

Let’s next look at how liberals rank the top five Presidents:

Top 5 Presidents Ranked by Liberals

Abraham Lincoln (93.60)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (91.39)
George Washington (88.75)
Theodore Roosevelt (78.17)
Thomas Jefferson (77.22)

The usual suspects again make the top five list. Who made the liberal’s worst five list?

Bottom 5 Presidents Ranked by Liberals

Donald Trump (6.97)
James Buchanan (16.24)
Andrew Johnson (20.36)
Franklin Pierce (23.50)
William Henry Harrison (24.63)

Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, and liberals agree that Donald Trump is one of the worst, if not the absolute worst, President in history. It’s hard to argue with these findings.

Mount Rushmore

Survey Respondents were asked who should be the next face on Mount Rushmore. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt are the faces currently on Mount Rushmore. Who did respondents say should be next to join them?

Unsurprisingly, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was chosen by a wide margin (65.4%). Next was Barack Obama (11%), and a three-way tie between Dwight Eisenhower, James Madison, and John F. Kennedy (4%).

I happen to like Barack Obama, but I don’t think he was a great President. I might be wrong. Here’s how he was ranked by the various category of voters:

Overall — 7
Republicans — 15
Democrats — 6
Conservatives — 13
Liberals — 6

For me, this may be the biggest surprise of the entire survey. It’s not surprising that Democrats and liberals ranked Obama highly, but it’s hard to fathom that Republics and conservatives ranked him well in the top half of all Presidents. That’s an eye-opening surprise to me.

Most Polarizing

Respondents were asked to rank Presidents from the most polarizing to the least polarizing. Here are the results (average polarization rank):

Top 5 Most Polarizing Presidents

Donald Trump (1.4)
Andrew Johnson (3.1)
Andrew Jackson (3.4)
Barack Obama (3.5)
Richard Nixon (3.5)

Presidents who were considered almost as polarizing as these top five were Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Joe Biden, and Abraham Lincoln.

I’m trying to wrap my head around these rankings, and I have to admit I’m having a little trouble. I’m not surprised that Donald Trump tops the list. In my lifetime, there has never been a President that was nearly as polarizing. However, I’m surprised to see Barack Obama on the list, with Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Joe Biden close behind. Even Richard Nixon is a bit of a surprise. It seems to me that there might be some recency bias going on here.

Abraham Lincoln also seems like an outlier on this list. Of course, he was on one side of the bloodiest war in our nation’s history, so he was certainly polarizing in that regard. Nearly half the nation hated him. So, maybe it’s not so surprising.

Least Polarizing

According to respondents, the least polarizing Presidents in U.S. history are:

Top 5 Least Polarizing Presidents in History

George Washington (1.5)
Abraham Lincoln (1.8)
Dwight Eisenhower (2.7)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (2.9)
James Monroe (3.1)

These top five least polarizing Presidents were followed closely by William Henry Harrison, Gerald Ford, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room. How can Abraham Lincoln be one of the most polarizing and least polarizing Presidents in history? This is how surveys go when there is a large split in opinions among the respondents. One group of respondents felt strongly that Lincoln was polarizing, while another group felt he was among our least polarizing Presidents. I think both groups can justify their position.

Under Lincoln, the country broke up, states seceded, there was a great and bloody civil war. Many people in the country blamed Lincoln for the war. They didn’t believe the cause of emancipating the slaves or preserving the Union was worth the cost of so many lives. You can see how that would have caused polarization.

On the other hand, Lincoln did a masterful job of uniting a very divided government, including his own cabinet. The country was being pulled in many different directions, and it was Lincoln’s skill of negotiation and compromise that kept the government together. Lincoln also re-united the nation, a task that was seemingly impossible at the time. It makes sense that people see him as among our least polarizing Presidents.

I’m not sure what to make of William Henry Harrison being on the least polarizing list while also being considered one of our country’s worst presidents. Can it be that he did a horrible job but didn’t rub anyone the wrong way?

I think it probably has to do with the fact that Harrison was only President for 31 days, the shortest Presidential tenure in history. Depending on who you believe, Harrison either caught a bad cold while giving an especially long-winded speech at his inauguration, the cold eventually turning into pneumonia, or he died of enteric fever, a bacterial infection known more commonly now as Typhoid fever.

Is it just me, or does it seem unfair to rank Harrison as one of the worst Presidents in history when he was only President for 31 days, and much of that time was spent too ill to work? I mean, give the guy a break.

Most Underrated

Respondents to the Presidential Greatness Project survey were also asked who they thought were the most underrated and most overrated Presidents. Here are the top five most underrated:

Top 5 Most Underrated Presidents

Jimmy Carter (2.2)
Lyndon Johnson (2.3)
Ulysses Grant (2.4)
Dwight Eisenhower (2.8)
George H.W. Bush (2.9)
Joe Biden (2.9)

I think there is a good case to be made for all of these Presidents as being underrated. The presidency of Jimmy Carter in particular is being re-examined and re-evaluated by scholars, and they are finding that far from leading an American malaise (a term he never used), he actually ushered the country through a very difficult economy and fraught foreign policy period.

More recently, Joe Biden has almost criminally not received credit for the job he has done over the past three-plus years. If you’ve read my political stories before, you know I’m not the world’s biggest Joe Biden fan,. But there’s no denying that he inherited a horrible situation from his predecessor and has turned the country and the economy around. We have one of the strongest economies in history, we produce more oil than ever before, wages are trending up, and he has not only held NATO together during the Russian-Ukraine war, he has strengthened and expanded it. Sure, he’s had a couple of missteps, but overall, he has done a fantastic job. Yet, according to polls, he has not received the credit he deserves and he is in danger of losing the upcoming Presidential race to the very guy that ruined our economy and damaged our relationship with our allies. It defies explanation.

Who are the most overrated Presidents in history?

Overrated Presidents

Top 5 Most Overrated Presidents

Ronald Reagan (2.1)
Andrew Jackson (2.3)
John F. Kennedy (2.4)
Thomas Jefferson (2.5)
Donald Trump (2.7)

I don’t know what to make of Reagan being at the top of these rankings, although I suspect that Democrats and liberals were united in ranking him as the most overrated President in history. To be certain, Reagan is a darling of the right and is credited with creating or championing or passing into law, all that Republicans and conservatives hold dear. I think the push to name him the most overrated President in history is overblown, but I guess I understand it.

JFK was viewed as near-royalty when he was in office. He was adored by the public as much, if not more, for the perception surrounding him and his family as he was for his politics. But a more sober examination of his presidency reveals many more missteps and errors than we knew at the time. Many scholars portray Kennedy as a man in over his head. True, he didn’t cause World War III, but there were times when he came close, either because of his inexperience or misunderstanding of the situation. I understand Kennedy’s inclusion on this list.

Jefferson has fallen out of favor with scholars in recent years, in no small part because he was a slaveholder who impregnated at least one of his slaves (Sally Hemmings) several times, then forced the offspring into slavery. On the one hand, that has more to do with his personal than his professional life. But I think scholars view it as, while not part of his presidency, it is part of his legacy, which they now feel has been overrated. It’s hard to argue with their reasoning.

Finally, Trump’s inclusion on this list gives us an idea of how really terrible he was. Not only is he considered one of the worst Presidents in history, but the people who ranked him as one of the worst also feel he is still overrated. Now, that’s bad.

Part of the problem with Trump is that, to this day, he takes credit for programs and laws that he was not involved with. For instance, he constantly takes credit for an improvement to veterans medical benefits that actually was put into law in 2014, two years before he was elected to office.

Another example is how right now, Trump is taking credit for the record high prices on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASDAQ. This, despite the fact that in 2020, Trump predicted that if Biden were to win the election, the stock market would tank. Not only did the stock market not tank, it’s soaring. So, Trump has changed his tune, claiming that the stock market is doing so well because investors know he’ll soon be back in the White House.

If nothing else, the survey shows that Donald Trump was a historically bad president. Across all party affiliations and political beliefs, Trump was ranked as one of our nation’s very worst Presidents.

It’s official! Congratulation to Donald Trump, the Presidential Greatness Project’s worst President in American history.

Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) gave the Republican response to President Biden’s State of the Union address this past week. In her overly dramatized speech, Britt painted a dystopian view of the United States, complete with the country being “invaded” by illegal immigrants, cities rendered unsafe and plundered due to rampant crime, and our economy in ruins, all thanks to an ineffective President Biden.

Unfortunately for Britt, the data does not support her assertions. For instance, crime has decreased nationally during Biden’s tenure in the White House.  FBI statistics indicate that crime is down significantly since Biden took office. Violent crime is down 8% since 2020, and property crime is down 6.3%, the lowest it has been since 1961.

Likewise, despite what Britt and Republicans would have you believe, by nearly every measure, the economy is strong. Inflation is at acceptable levels, unemployment is at record low levels, wages are up, and the stock market has reached record highs.

But what I’d like to focus on is the story Britt told to illustrate what the crisis at our Southern border means for the average American.

Here’s what she said:

“We know that President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis. He invited it with 94 executive actions in his first 100 days. When I took office, I took a different approach. I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas. That’s where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at the age of 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped. The cartels put her on a mattress in a shoe box of a room, and they sent men through that door over and over again for hours and hours on end. We wouldn’t be okay with this happening in a Third World country. This is the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it. President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace.”

Britt claimed that she visited the Southern border in 2023 and spoke to a young woman who had been sex trafficked by drug cartels beginning when the woman was just twelve years old. She was sexually assaulted everyday in a tiny room. Britt intimated that this sexual assault occurred in the United States, although she wasn’t specific. It was a horrible story and Britt blamed it on President Biden’s immigration policies. There’s just one problem. Britt misrepresented the whole story.

The woman Britt was speaking of is named Karla Jacinta Romero. She was truly sexually trafficked by drug cartels. In fact, she testified before Congress about her ordeal, which appears to be where Britt heard her story, not at the border. However, Romero was not sexually assaulted in the United States. Her story took place in Mexico. And it took place beginning in 2004 and ending in 2008, when George W. Bush, not Joe Biden, was President.

Here’s more on Britt’s lies about the sexual assault of Romero:

@katzonearth

This isn’t going to make her like TikTok more. #katiebritt #sotu #stateoftheunion #lies #politicians #biden2024 #trump2024 #immigration #traffickingawarenes #mexico #bordersecurity #fyp

♬ original sound – Jonathan M. Katz

Think about the process Britt had to go through to craft this story for her speech. She knew the truth and understood that the story was not reflective of our current border crisis. So, she had to twist the truth, telling the story in such a way that it sounded like she was making her point–that Biden was to blame for the border crisis–when, in fact, the story had nothing to do with either Biden or the border crisis. Britt had to intentionally lie, and she was willing to do it to promote her own political career. It was an ugly, shameful, and dangerous decision.

And keep in mind, Britt was willing to use Romero’s story for political gain at the same time she and her Republican colleagues are pushing to keep people like Romero out of the country. In addition, the GOP is also opposed to allowing victims of rape, like Romero, from ending a pregnancy that results from rape. This is the height of hypocrisy and cynicism.

The type of misinformation Britt foisted on the nation in her speech has become textbook propaganda for Republicans looking to retake power. Sen. Britt knew that the story she was telling was not true and that she was misrepresenting Romero’s sexual assault for political gain. Yet, that didn’t stop her from sharing the story in an attempt to damage a political opponent.

Unfortunately, people who support former President Trump and his MAGA agenda either don’t know or don’t care about Britt’s misinformation. To these people, it doesn’t matter that crime is down, the economy is strong, or that the sexual assault story Britt told isn’t true. They will deny the truth, or ignore it completely, in order for the narrative to conform to their preconceived beliefs. And Britt and the Republicans are only too happy to keep their supporters angry and misinformed in order to keep them within the MAGA tribe.

There is a big difference between political spin and outright lies. What Britt did during her speech involved outright lies. It’s not spin to say crime is up when crime is down. It’s not spin to say the economy is in ruins when it is actually quite strong. And it’s not spin to change the date and location of a sexual assault to make political points.

In 2012, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), as Chair of the Democratic National Committee, lied about presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s position on abortion in a fundraising email the DNC sent out to supporters. Sometime later, she lied about the amount of money Romney had spent on negative campaign ads. The purpose of those lies was to misinform voters and benefit Democrats.

Wasserman Schultz wasn’t spinning these issues. She didn’t misunderstand the issues. She lied. The exact same thing can be said about Sen. Katie Britt. It was wrong when Wasserman Schultz did it and it’s wrong now. Wasserman Schultz was forced to step down as the DNC Chair. Will any Republicans denounce Britt’s lies, or will they, as I suspect, defend and amplify them?