After insurrection, what becomes of Big Lie?

Every child understands that lying has consequences. We are all raised to respect truth and condemn lying. We honor our “truth tellers” and those who speak truth to power. Those who testify in our judicial system swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Our education system is built upon respect for evidence. Students do not get passing grades for fabricating evidence or creating falsehoods.

Inventing fictions that pass for truth is universally frowned upon. And yet, in recent years, lying has been embraced not only by those who frequent social media platforms, but also by governors, senators, representatives and even by — most especially by — the president. And we recently witnessed the consequences, as a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol and interrupted a constitutionally mandated process.

Lying can have deadly consequences. As a historian of the Civil War, I research and write about the Big Lie of the 19th century. The Republican Party emerged in 1854 after Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act that opened up the northern portion of the Louisiana Purchase to the possibility of slavery. Northern Whigs and some Democrats formed the Republican Party in opposition to the expansion, but not the existence, of human bondage. Although some abolitionists were members of the new political entity, the official position of the Republican Party supported slavery where it already existed in 15 Southern states.

Slave-state politicians, however, consistently characterized Republicans as abolitionists. Despite explicit denials by Abraham Lincoln that he and his party had any interest, or constitutional authority, to interfere with the institution in the states, Southern elected officials charged them with abolitionist intentions. By the time of Lincoln’s election, it was widely accepted throughout the South that Lincoln was an abolitionist and upon taking the oath of office he would begin dismantling the South’s peculiar institution. “The people of the South must prepare either to abandon it [slavery], or to fortify and maintain it,” lectured Tennessee’s governor in January 1861.

The Big Lie that had been perpetrated by pro-slavery politicians resulted in seven states leaving the Union even before Lincoln’s inauguration, and over the next four years, the death of 750,000 United States citizens. Lies have consequences.

Now we face the Big Lie of the 21st century. Although secretaries of state and election officials from all 50 states have certified the accuracy of the 2020 presidential election and have repeatedly pronounced the legitimacy of the vote, the president of the United States and his sanctimonious minions have claimed voter fraud and challenged the integrity of the election process. To be clear, no examples of fraud have been documented. The courts have repeatedly rejected such claims for lack of evidence.

Yet the Big Lie, which has been promoted by New Mexico’s Republican Party, led directly to a deadly assault on our duly elected members of Congress. Encouraged by the president himself and white supremacists on social media, the angry mob disgraced the constitutional norms and democratic ideals of this nation.

Whether the Big Lie will continue to challenge the legitimacy of the election and promote civil unrest remains to be seen. Our democracy has certainly been tarnished, but the cause was not the election. The cause must be laid at the feet of politicians who favor lies over truth and who fabricate false notions for the own political gain. Lying has consequences, and those who knowingly perpetrated untruths about the presidential election should be considered co-conspirators in the seditious, destructive and deadly attack on the Capitol.