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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsConfession: I once used a lie to create my own reality
It was a relatively harmless lie, but I needed it because of the situation I was in.
Many years ago, I was working for a very horrible boss, think Kevin Spacey in Swimming With Sharks on steroids. In order to save my own sanity, I needed to get out of that toxic workspace.
So without any truth to back it up, I floated a rumor that I was going to get a transfer. Pretty much everybody I told this to knew that it wasnt true and that I sounded downright delusional at the time.
Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I was desperate to get out from under that tyrant. Eventually word of my pending transfer got around to a guy who needed a replacement for himself, so he called me up and asked me if I was interested in taking his place. Of course, I said yes and his boss contacted my bosss boss and I was out of there.
Needless to say, my friends that knew I was lying about some pending mythical transfer were amazed that I actually pulled this thing off.
That was the only time that I willfully lied about something that I knew that everybody else knew wasnt true to get what I wanted.
But it actually worked out for me and I got a better job with a much better boss.
Now, although it did work to my advantage that one time, since Im not pathological, theres no way that I could lie all the time in order to get whatever I wanted. Years later, Im still rationalizing that one lie, because I know that it wasnt my proudest moment.
However, seeing Trump and his cult shamelessly lie about everything for the last four years only indicates to me the dire consequences that have been wrought by those lies. Mostly the millions upon millions of people who have internalized them. These people are going out of their way to lie themselves into a reality that cant possibly exist.
Trump didnt win the election.
There was no mass voter fraud.
Wednesday we saw these same people try take these lies and fabricate a second term for Trump. It was seditious domestic terrorist attack on American democracy. Trumps lies have fractured the nation for his own benefit. He doesnt care who will suffer and die because of lies. All he cares about is cheating and lying to win.
Those calling for forgiveness for Trump and national unity are really begging for immunity. Which is the most dangerous thing we can give to him and his seditious mob. These people failed once, but they havent given up their lies. Theyre going to persist with them until they succeed. Theyre planning more attacks as I write this.
Inaction is national suicide.
I know that the right lie to the right people will sometimes succeed, because I did that myself. Its the thing that scares me the most about Trumps lying. Anyone who cares about the future of this nation should feel the same.
Were at a crossroads right now. What are we going to do?
NJCher
(37,588 posts)Today were insisting that the liars go to their district and tell the truth, in public, about the election.
That's one step forward.
joshcryer
(62,371 posts)...is that if you lie your way to the top and do the bare minimum you will get ahead. Somehow. Not chastising you for what you did but you learned at least part of that. Lying works. And that's why conservatives are so good at lying and still winning. It is just a nature of the universe, the cold dark uncompromising universe.
Even now though you realize that that lie got you ahead and it sucks and it's on your mind, which means you're a good person. But those people, they lie, and they believe their lies, and then their lies become their "truth." They don't feel bad about it. This is where the whole "basket of deplorables" comes from. It's people who, will, at any cost, do anything to get ahead, even if that means screwing over their fellow Americans.
What can we do? We can't do anything about those people who don't care about lying and cheating and being completely dishonest on everything. We can only nurture the good in people, and we need to resist that open, public, disdain from fellow Americans. When they openly advocate making it harder to get mail in ballots, when they openly advocate for closing polling places, when they openly use some of our own well meaning good people to make us angry at one another, we must resist it, we must resist it at all costs.
I_UndergroundPanther
(12,869 posts)About how narcissitic authoritarian and sociopath people operate and the damage they do and why they need to be rejected and shunned everywhere they show up and play games and cause strife and suffering..
ProfessorGAC
(69,459 posts)There was a legitimate grievance. No reason for me to think you were imagining it, especially since you complimented the new boss in your piece.
The situation we have with the radical right, is that they lie to get what they want while the things they want to change cause them no real grief.
Lying to get one's way due to imaginary complaints is very different than what you describe.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)moonscape
(5,278 posts)the guy whp needed a replacement? Not trying to be dense, just am
Was it that you now seemed more desirable? He also could have thought you were taken and considered someone else, no?
MrScorpio
(73,699 posts)But to a different office. Someone told him that I was supposed to be going there and that it was only a matter of moving bodies around.
Again, none of it was true, but he thought it was. Thats why he called me with the offer. Needless to say, he did a bit of overselling, not knowing that I was going to accept his offer no matter what, in order to get from under that tyrant boss.
He needed a replacement pretty soon and he wasnt getting any offers. Turned out that both of us were operating under some urgency. It worked out for both of us in the end.