Category Archives: Death of Truth

History is Important

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Critical thinking, Death of Truth, History, Indigenous People After Contact, Truth Seeking

 

 

I believe there is a lot to be learned from history.   And much history can be learned from travel. History teaches us the truth about the past. At least it always tries to find the truth. Sometimes that truth lies underneath decades or even centuries of obfuscations or outright propagandist lies. Those lies were designed to obscure uncomfortable truths.  I want to face those truths; not escape from them.

Barbara Huck’s book has helped to do that and it has enriched our journey.  Huck made some very interesting comments about our Canadian history. As she explained,

Today, on the cusp of a new millennium, North Americans have more tools than ever before for travelling through time. Thanks to new technologies and new perspectives, we are well equipped to imagine life five thousand or five million years ago. We can contemplate doing blood tests on the body of  an ancient trader found high on an Alpine pass or cloning a woolly mammoth in China. Yet for the most part, an appreciation of life here just 500 years ago eludes us.

 

I did not want to elude that story. I wanted to approach that history on this journey.  I think it is important.

History is important because the truth is important. Nowadays a lot of people don’t want old monuments to be taken down.  Some say that is erasing history. I disagree. Paying homage to old statues, or refusing to critique history is to erase history. Many people don’t want to look at our past history because it might make them uncomfortable.  They prefer self-satisfying illusions.  Personally, I would rather be disturbed in my comfortable pew than sit there in ignorance ignoring the truth. If the truth is not challenging its probably not the truth.

 

 

The Mythic Past

American Fascism, Authoritarianism, Death of Democracy, Death of Truth, Political Violence, Populism, Trump, Tyranny and Fascism

 

Invariably, fascist political leaders justify their ideas by destroying the common view of history and replacing it with a mythic past to which they aspire to return. Some thinkers have said this is the predominant trait of fascism. Fascists use propaganda to change the perception of them and disarm their opponents by promoting anti-intellectualism or anti-reason in order to insulate their false myths from reasoned attack.

 

As a result, they often attack the educational system to ensure that only their rosy view of history is taught and challenges are discredited. For example, although not yet fascists, this is what American conservatives have been doing in the US by making sure that their children only hear comfortable stories which won’t challenge them. They don’t want their children to be challenged. They want their children to preach the party line that Americans have always been good and their children need never feel bad about their history.  Again, the Nazis were masters of such techniques.

As Jason Stanley said in his book How Fascism Works, ,

“Eventually with these techniques and racist politics create a state of unreality, in which conspiracy theories and fake news replace reasoned debate.

As the common understanding of reality crumbles, fascist politics makes room for dangerous and false beliefs to take root. First, fascist ideology seeks to naturalize group difference thereby giving the appearance of natural, scientific support for a hierarchy of human worth. When social rankings and division solidify, fear fills in for a understanding between groups. Any progress for a minority stokes feelings of victimhood among the dominant population.”

 

I have seen this happening many times in the US and Canada. Dominant groups like Christians, or heterosexuals, or whites see any progress for minorities as taking away from their rights and privileges. They begin to see themselves as the beleaguered group, even though they are the dominant group. They feel unmoored by the perceived disappearance of their privilege. It is very disturbing to see privileges slip away. It seems not only unfair, but unreasonable. So long for a time they thought it was better. A time when their beloved country was great.

But we must remember that the mythic past is just that—a myth. It is unreal. We must hang on to reality. It is our only way to ensure that we get out of this mess.

When we are in the grip of such myths we ourselves, “us”, as lawful citizens, as the  good guys and “them” as criminals who are threatening the society we love. Stanley put it this way:

“As fear of “them” grows, “we” come to represent everything virtuous. “We” live in the rural heartland, where pure values and traditions of the nation still miraculously exist despite the major  threat of cosmopolitan from the nation’s cities, alongside hordes of minorities who live there, emboldened by  liberal tolerance. “We” are hardworking, and have earned our pride of place by struggle and merit. “They” are lazy, surviving off the goods we produce by exploiting the generosity of welfare systems, or employing corrupt institutions, such as labour unions, meant to separate honest, hardworking citizens from their pay. “We” are the maker; “they” are the takers.”

 

These of course are myths. History is replete with them. Many countries have harboured them. Fascist Italy. Nazi Germany. America, Canada and many others. We have them. We must not give in to them. We must recognize their holes. Their big holes that weak leaders try to fill with bombast and lies. It happened in the 1930s. It is happening again today.

Let me comment briefly on the election for an American president tomorrow. I will feel the same unease tomorrow I feel today no matter who wins the election. Such feelings won’t disappear in a day. The myths are too engrained. They are deep. Millions of people in America and Canada and elsewhere believe those myths and are drawn to them. They must be challenged by an awakened electorate that is on its guard. Or we will suffer a heavy price. We can still do it, but will we do it? Only time will tell.

 

How Fascism Works

American Fascism, Books, Death of Truth, Political Violence, Right-wing Extremism, Tyranny and Fascism

 

Philosopher Jason Stanley argued  in his excellent book How Fascism Works, that in essence “fascist politics dehumanizes minority groups.” It does that even if the state is not fascist. I have called this the philosophy of the bully. Pick on the vulnerable. In the recent election in the US the Republicans have made this a major part of their platform.  Pick on the immigrants and the trans kids in particular. Easy targets for bullies. The shocking thing is how many Americans love this.

 

What fascist policies do, according to Stanley is amplify the divisions in society. It takes advantage of them. For example, in Nazi German the Nazis intensified the beliefs that were already pretty common that German society had been undermined and sold out by Jews and their supporters, even though the percentage of Jews was very small. According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia:

“According to the census of June 16, 1933, the Jewish population of Germany, including the Saar region (which at that time was still under the administration of the League of Nations), was approximately 505,000 people out of a total population of 67 million, or somewhat less than 0.75 percent. That number represented a reduction from the estimated 523,000 Jews living in Germany in January 1933; the decrease was due in part to emigration following the Nazi takeover in January. (An estimated 37,000 Jews emigrated from Germany during 1933.)’

 

This was really a very small percentage of the people and it was absurd and immoral to lay the blame for Germany’s decline on such small numbers, just as it is absurd and immoral to blame Trans-gender people and their sympathizers for poisoning the United States as so many Conservatives have been claiming.

 

What fascists do is turn the hated group (the others) into an enemy—i.e. “them.”  Then the world is turned into one of “Us” versus “Them.” And, of course, they [or them] can be dehumanized into something non-human, which makes them ripe for targeting. This is what Jason Stanley said about fascist politics:

“The most telling symptom of fascist politics is division. It aims to separate a population into an “us” and a “them.”  Many kinds of political movements involve such a division; for example, Communist politics involves describing the very specific way that fascist politics distinguishes “us” from “them,” appealing to ethnic, religious, or racial distinctions, and using this division to shape ideology and, ultimately policy. Every mechanism of fascist politics works to create or solidify this distinction.’

 

 

And of course, the most extreme manner of “Us’ vs “them” is to dehumanize them. Since it is the most extreme version of this, it can lead to the most extreme consequences—such as placing them into concentration camps and killing them.  That is why it is so disturbing to see Donald Trump and millions of his supporters start this awful process. Once the process is begun it is not clear how we can stop it or how far it can go. Germany demonstrated it can go very far indeed.

 

Often fascist politicians justify their abhorrent ideas by appealing to a common belief in a mythic past—a golden age where things were great.  For example, Donald Trump says he wants to bring America back to greatness whatever that means. But clearly it was some time in the past where things were great. At least for some—i.e. the privileged. It might be a time when men were men and women were women. Or the whites were in ascendance without any fear that they would be replaced. Again, whatever that means.

What it really means is that it justifies pummelling the others to make things better for those doing the pummelling.

 

To me it really seems that this is where America is headed.  And Canada, as usual, is not that far behind.

 

 

Q

Death of Truth, Right-wing Extremism, The Sleep of Reason, Trump

 

The next incident at the Pizza restaurant in the bizzarro world of right-wing radio and radical right-wing extremism was even crazier than all the others. This was the rise of Q who claimed that everything Alex Jones said was true, that Hillary Clinton was a murderer, that a Deep State runs America, and that a ring of pedophiles who worshipped Satan were kidnapping children and keeping them against their will in the basement of a pizza restaurant. Led by mythical and mysterious Q a new movement was formed to defend president Trump from perceived left-wing attacks by the Deep State. That movement was called QAnon, in honour of their leader—Q.

As Justin Ling said, “A whole new class of do-it-yourself broadcasters emerges online to introduce the masses to their new hero.”

 Jerome Corsi became a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy. He said QAnon was actually military intelligence. He said it came from Trump. He claimed to know the identity of Q. QAnon was a group in the Pentagon that was close to Donald Trump he said. Trump of course did not care what QAnon did, or how divisive they were, or destructive of society, so long as they treated him kindly. As always with Trump, no one mattered but Trump. He lived in a universe where only Trump matters.

Trump said, “I don’t know very much about the movement except I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate, but I don’t know very much about the movement.”

And that, of course, was good enough for Trump. No matter how wild the conspiracy theories were promulgated under the name of Trump, it did not matter to Trump, because Q supported Trump. That was all that mattered.

 

Nonsense on Steroids: Hillary Clinton Child Trafficker

American Fascism, Conspiracy Theories, Death of Truth, Hate, Right-wing Extremism, The Sleep of Reason, Trump

 

In the fall of 2016 Right-wing talk radio was consumed by a bizarre conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton and an evil cabal of liberal elites like Tom Hanks were supposedly involved in trafficking young children for sex while worshipping Satan in the basement of a Washington Pizzeria. It was nonsense on steroids but that did not stop conspiracy purveyors like Alex Jones from spreading these vicious lies in the service of his leader Donald Trump. And right-wing radio was abuzz with this rubbish.

Less than a week before the presidential election of 2016, Jones interviewed a private investigator and conspiracy theorist about this crazy conspiracy theory. Supposedly, also involved were disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner, the Clintons and a private aircraft called the Lolita Express.  This was the craft that took many young girls to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean. The island was often referred to as the island acquired local nicknames such as “Island of Sin” and “Pedophile Island” not entirely without reason. The mere mention of this island or Epstein was enough to send American conservatives into rapturous hate.  This was a vast and constantly metastasizing conspiracy theory, fertilized by insinuations from Rush Limbaugh that the Clintons, while Bill was governor of Arkansas had Vince Foster, a party worker, murdered. There are many constantly evolving and growing versions of the nastiness that went on there.

Alex Jones calls these claims from the investigator “seismic, historical, wow.” Breitbart Radio devoted a whole segment to this conspiracy theory. Right-wing radio was energized like never before, and, of course, this also energized Trump’s supporters just before the election and there was nothing Hillary Clinton could do about it. Breitbart Radio alleged that Hillary Clinton went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. They said Bill Clinton went there at least 20 times, and Hillary Clinton at least 6 times.

As Justin Ling said on his CBC podcast The Flame Throwers,

“New elements are getting bolted on to this conspiracy theory. Suddenly Clinton is part of a Satanic Cult. Children are being sacrificed and they are begin kept in a secret location.”

 

It did not matter that the conspiracy theory was wildly false.  It sent nasty dust into the air to cover Hillary Clinton with outrageous allegations that were impossible to counter and ushered in nasty rumours that spread through Right-wing radio and the Internet like wildfire.

Yet this bogus claim, had serious real-life consequences. One rabid listener to all the crap on Jones’s show and right-wing radio, Edgar Welsch, from South Carolina, took it all seriously and after leaving his wife with a voice mail message that he was likely going to die, drove from his home with loaded guns to Washington D.C. to rescue the children from the basement of the pizza restaurant. He was unable to find a basement in the restaurant since there was none. He found no victims just young families enjoying pizza and playing games. Sadly, Welsch, was arrested and criminally charged with assault with a deadly weapon for his reckless actions that had been fueled by Alex Jones and his colleagues on right-wing radio. Jones actually pointed the gun at someone he saw in the restaurant, but fortunately, no one else was hurt as a result of the reckless actions of Jones and the other right-wing radio hosts.

We should also remember how Donald Trump shortly after being elected President in 2016 told Alex Jones how much Jones was respected.

All of this was part of the right-wing American assault on truth that has, by no means, diminished since 2016

And the Lies Became Truth

Death of Truth, Freedom to Read, Truth Seeking

 

As Richard Ovenden the Oxford Librarian said in his CBC recorded lecture at the Toronto Public Library:

 

“Libraries and archives provide a diversity of knowledge and ideas. They make it possible to face the present and the future through deepening an understanding of the past. The ideas we encounter, the histories that we understand, and the culture that we engage with help us to make us who we are. But we need this pool of ideas and information to be constantly refreshed if we are to be creative and innovative. This is true not just in the creative fields of art, music, and literature, but more generally. The success of the democracy we enjoy today lies in the free circulation of ideas in order to pour light into the questioning spirit of our democratic processes. This means in part the freedom of the press, but citizens need access to all shades of opinion. Libraries acquire all kinds of content and this resource allows our views to be challenged and for citizens to inform themselves following John Stuart Mill’s insistence in On Liberty, that only through the diversity of opinion is there in the existing state of human intellect the chance of fair play to all sides of the truth.”

 

And we must remember that this is what it is all about—the unreserved pursuit of the truth. In no other way, can we do that. We need the liberty of which Mill spoke to pursue the truth in any meaningful manner. Nothing else will do. We must have that liberty or else the truth will forever be enshrouded and us blinded from it. The task of making the conditions necessary to obtain the truth is a noble task. And, I dare say, a holy task. We must not shrink from it and we must not concede any limitations on our ability and capacity to do that task with all of our power. That may sound overheated. So be it. I think it is true.

 

We should always remember the immortal words of George Orwell from his incredible book 1984: “The past was erased. The erasure was forgotten. The lie became truth.”

Alex Jones: never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like

Conspiracy Theories, Death of Truth, Right-wing Extremism, Trump

 

Unlike the ‘Never Trumpers,’ Alex Jones was an early supporter and a long-standing supporter of Donald Trump. He was all in for Trump. Bombast loves Bombast. Bullshitters love bullshitters. Trump and Jones fawned over each other in a dubious mutual admiration. Society.

In the past Jones had said Democrats and Republicans were all part of the same wicked game. He said, “the politics of George Bush and Obama are identical.” He had no use for either of them. But like so many, Jones saw something different in Trump. And he liked what he saw. Jones said that he was a populist and believe that is what Trump was too. He was not wrong about that.

Alex Jones was on the extremes. As Justin Ling said on his CBC podcast The Flame Throwers,

“So far he has stoked fear of a new world order shadow government, accused George Bush of plotting 9/11, claimed that the Sandy Hook elementary shooting was a false flag operation, claimed that  secret Satanic cults made up of government leaders who sacrificed children, vaccines caused autism, there was a Jewish cult running the world, that billionaire Bill Gates was trying to eliminate minority populations, accused Glenn Beck of being a CIA operative, said the government was adding estrogen to the tap water to feminize the population, accused George Soros of organizing a chemical attack in Syria to discredit Bashar el Assad, floated unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud, and so much more. “

 

He also believed Hillary Clinton with other prominent liberals was part of a Satanic cult to sexually molest young children in the basement of a pizza restaurant in Washington D. C. He urged his viewers to go to the Pizzeria to save the children. One of them went their armed to rescue the poor children, but he could not find any of them. He couldn’t even find a basement. You can sum up Alex Jones by saying he never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like.

 

At the time Jones was a pariah among right-wing radio hosts, but that did not stop Trump from embracing him. When Jones interviewed Trump on his show Trump said, “Great to be with you.” He also claimed Jones was very well respected.

 

The future president of the United States was pleased to be with and be interviewed by Alex Jones the man who believed, or at least claimed to believe that those first graders at Sandy Hook school were child actors who were a part of a hoax perpetrated to help government officials take away guns from extreme right! Later the parents of those children sued Jones into bankruptcy for spreading such lies.

 

Jones swooned over Trump. As Ling said, “In Jones view Trump was going into the belly of the beast, the murderous swamp beast that is the deep state.”

And this is what the next president of the United States said about this extreme bullshitter:

“Your reputation is amazing, and I will not let you down. You will be very, very impressed, I hope. And I think we’ll be speaking a lot and in a year or two years, give me time to run things, but you’ll be saying, but a year into office you’ll remember this interview and you’ll be saying ‘Wow, he said he would do and he did a great job. You’ll be very proud of our country.”

 

Watching the president of the United States fawn over one of the worst conspiracy theoriests was sickening.

 

 

 

Whacky Can be Dangerous

Death of Truth, Immigration and Refugees

 

A lot of people—me included—have been giggling about the whacky claims made by Donald Trump against immigrants. Why do conservatives believ such crazy stuff?

 

The claims were whacky. They deserved our ridicule. But they can also be dangerous.

As political commentator Ana Navarro said, passionately, on CNN,

 

“This thing that Donald Trump said about immigrants eating cats and dogs came out of left field and you thought he was completely absolutely insane. If Joe Biden had said the same thing he would have been pulled off the stage and sent immediately to a loony bin, but because Donald Trump gets away with being Donald Trump, and saying crazy things. What’s happening with Donald Trump, as Kamala Harris said, he always goes to an old tired playbook. He always tries to go against immigrants. He tries to cause fear. He tries to build that so folks vote out of fear. Last week it was about Venezuelan gangs taking over Aurora Colorado. The official of that city said that story was false. This week it is a completely made-up story about somebody eating a cat and it turning into a Haitian immigrant. It may be funny to some people. A lot of people have made funny memes. But it’s also incredibly racist and incredibly dangerous. Because I remember when a whack job triggered by things that were said against Latinos, took a gun and hunted down Latinos in an El Paso Walmart. And I remember when a whack job triggered by conspiracy theories  went to the Comet Pizza Parlour in Washington D.C. and sex ring that the Clinton’s were supposedly running there showed up there with a gun. So, its crazy. It may be funny. It may lead to a lot of memes but it’s also racist and dangerous and it is shameful that it continues to be amplified by people like Donald Trump his followers and his vice-presidential candidate.”

 

Once again Donald Trump is an instrument of ignorance and hatred. This is a deadly and combustible mixture that we must expunge from our societies. People, like me, ask where all the hatred and violence in America come from. Some of us blame guns. Others blame a lack of religion or a lack of morality. Some of us blame the other side. There is plenty of blame that can we spread around like shit from a honey wagon, but without a doubt, political leaders like Donald Trump and his cohorts, deserve a significant portion of the blame. Their actions against vulnerable immigrants are despicable and disgraceful. They really are not funny. They are dangerous.

 

Lies have Consequences

Death of Truth, Immigration and Refugees

 

There are rational claims made against allowing the current immigration system in the US to continue.  Not all objections are racist or bigoted.  For example, as an immigration lawyer said the day after the election on CNN,  in some small towns in America,  they are overwhelmed by thousands of immigrants who have been flown in to make “asylum” claims that amount really to desires to pursue the American dream. These people are not real asylum seekers at all and they are jumping the queue  when there are already millions of legitimate claims for asylum in America that should have their case heard before these.

 

This could have been debated in the presidential debate. Instead, Trump claimed immigrants are eating cats and dogs without evidence to back up his claims. He does this to rile up his base.  Fox News does the same thing. Trump does not care about evidence, or even truth. Neither does Fox News. Trump just wants to make his anti-immigrant statements as pumped up as possible. He wants to throw raw meat to his base. He does not want a rational debate. Rational debate is being obfuscated by Trump’s electioneering and “firehose of lies.’

As Laura Coates said on CNN, “such false claims lead to fear mongering and ‘otherism’ and someone purportedly eating pets.” Such lies trigger hate and make rational debate and discussion impossible. That is exactly what Trump wants to do.  The last thing he wants is to have a rational debate since he knows in a rational debate his arguments crumble like stale cookies on a hot September night.

Such lying can have serious consequences. As Chuck Rocha a political commentator said on CNN the day after the presidential debate, “This is dangerous by the way when you say this in front of 68 million people on TV, for such lies can trigger crazy people to do what they did in El Paso, and take a gun to a Walmart.”

We must demand more from our political candidates. We must not let them get away with such nonsense.

 

 

A Firehose of Lies

Death of Truth, Trump

 

We live in the age of lies. Lies are so pervasive in our society that we rarely find them remarkable.

On September 10, 2024 Vice-President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump engaged in a televised 90 minute debate broadcast on the  ABC television network.  The debate was spectacular in many ways. One was in the number of lies that were told by one of the candidates. Guess which one?

CNN’s senior reporter Daniel Dale   who reported on CNN immediately after the debate concluded said this:

“what stood out tonight was that this was a staggeringly dishonest debate performance by from former president Trump—just lie after lie after lie on subject after subject. By my preliminary count Trump made at least 33 false claims. By contrast again by a preliminary count, vice-president Kamala Harris made at least 1 false claim, though she added at least a few more misleading claims and a few more that lacked key context. I think that most Americans say ‘well all politicians lie, but no major political presidential candidate before Donald Trump has lied with this sort of frequency.  A remarkably large chunk of what he said tonight was just not true. And this wasn’t like little exaggeration or political spin. A lot of his false claims were untethered to reality. Like on abortion, saying “every Democrat wanted Roe v. Wade overturned” when actually more than 80% of Democrats supported Roe v. Wade. On crime, saying it was “through the roof” when actually it has come sharply down since 2023. It’s now lower than it was when Trump left office. On health care, saying he’s the one who saved Obama care, the law that he repeatedly tried to overturn. On Kamala Harris herself, saying that a Howard University grad, a black law students’ association president, had claimed that she wasn’t black at one point. Frankly, I don’t have enough time here to run through each false Trump claim. I urge people to go to our CNN website or our app to read our team’s detailed fact checks on this and a whole bunch more.”

 

CNN a year and half ago during a televised Town Hall broadcast by the same CNN news channel, had referred in a headline to Donald Trump saying he was spewing out “a firehose of lies.” That sums it up pretty well.  Oliver Darcy said it this way:

 

It’s hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening.

Kaitlan Collins is as tough and knowledgable of an interviewer as they come. She fact-checked Trump throughout the 70-minute town hall. Over and over and over again, she told him that the election was not stolen. That it was not rigged. That there was no evidence for the lies he was disseminating on stage.

“The election was not rigged, Mr. President,” Collins told Trump at one point during the event. “You cannot keep saying that all night long.”

Yet, he did. Trump frequently ignored or spoke over Collins throughout the evening as he unleashed a firehose of disinformation upon the country, which a sizable swath of the GOP continues to believe. A professional lie machine, Trump fired off falsehoods at a rapid clip while using his bluster to overwhelm Collins, stealing command of the stage at some points of the town hall.

Trump lied about the 2020 election. He took no responsibility for the January 6 insurrection that those very lies incited. And he mocked E. Jean Carroll’s allegations of sexual assault, which a jury found him liable for on Tuesday.”

This debate was another such night in front of millions of American television viewers seeing him disgorge lie after lie apparently without notice or shame or regret. Trump was indeed “A professional lie machine,” as Darcy said.

Dale said instead of trying to cover all those lies live on TV he would focus on one “egregious false claim.” This was the one about migrants supposedly eating people’s pets.

This is what he said,

“In Springfield they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets—eating the pets—of the people that live there.”

 

This was a crazy conspiracy theory that reminded me a lot of another crazy conspiracy theory spread a year or so ago about young people in schools transitioning to cats and demanding kitty litter in schools. I cannot blame Kamala Harris for laughing during the former president’s presentation of these absurd claims. Why does the MAGA crowd believe so much crazy stuff? As Dale said,

 

“This is not only false, I think it is fair to call this odious. For people who have not been online the last couple of days, this claim about Haitian migrants in Springfield Ohio eating people’s pets originated with a Facebook post that attributed the claim to a “neighbour’s friend’s daughter.” A third hand broken telephone kind of thing. The city of Springfield and the Springfield police  say there are no credible reports of this happening. And even J.D. Vance the vice-presidential candidate who himself had promoted these claims, acknowledged this morning that the “rumors” might prove out to be false though he still encouraged people to spread these cat memes. Trump himself added dogs ot the equation. They had not even been part of these viral nonsense rumours before.”

 

CNN also looked at the one false claim made by Harris during the debate. She said, “Let’s talk about what Donald Trump left us. Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since       the Great Depression. And what we have done is clean up Donald Trump’s mess.”

 

As Dale analyzed,

“So, the Biden Harris administration was not actually left the worst unemployment. They were left a 6.4% unemployment in January 2021. That was certainly elevated by recent standards. It was pretty high, but it was significantly down from the 14.8% a level it reached in early in the pandemic. So it was already improving at the time that Biden-Harris administration took office and that 14.8% was the highest since the Great Recession. So in the last 20 years not going back decades further.

 

Harris’s lie was a pipsqueak compared to Trump’s big fat lies!