politics

What If They’re All In On The Lie?

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There’s a thing about lying in that, past a certain point, liars need people to actually believe them. Not just pretend to believe them, but actually believe them so they do what the liar wants. You can’t have that terrible risk of being dishonest to someone and finding out they’re as bad as you are. They might not do what you want or lie to you about it.

In the year of 2026 (how I hate to date myself, but it is necessary) I keep an eye on political pathology, conspiracy theories, and what is currently called The Right in America and Elsewhere. I say currently, again, since context and times change.

One of the things I notice as I scrape through podcasts and writings on conspiracy theorists is how many of them lie and it’s clear they’re lying together. You can watch or listen to assorted people, famous and want-to-be-famous shaping narratives as they go, taking the yes-anding to new levels as they add things together. Liars lying together.

But these are the actions of Conspiracy Theorists who, let’s be honest, are pretty much the same as what we call Influencers. They have a lifestyle of, well, saying and promoting things. Their goal is to Influence. I guess we used to call it propaganda or marketing, but now it sound almost respectable until they think about it.

Then I look at the legions of would-be Influencers. Maybe some of them want to make it a career, maybe they want social media hits. But many of them also jump onto the conspiracy train, be it to sell their courses in 5D Immune Meditation or for likes. So their job is already to at least sort-of lie to us, then they latch onto the Conspiracy crowd and just get in on the lie.

In the past I commented about how people have sounded more and more like the 3 P’s – Politicians, Pundits, and Preachers. The Conspiracy Theorist-Influencer-Political dynamic has made so many people impossible to differentiate, from the podcaster spewing crazed anti-semetic theories on aliens down to someone who just wants to be loved for their content. It’s liars all the way down.

But I wonder how far down it goes. Because if you’ve ever heard someone “normie” talk these weird theories you wonder how much they believe them. Is that friend of yours who’s getting increasingly radicalized one of the honest people being affected or are they getting in on it?

How much of our culture, our politics, is liars all the way down? Everyone is lying, from selling products to wanting to “own” their family members in a dinner table argument?

This makes me think the more conspiratorialist side of American (and world?) culture is inherently unstable. If everyone’s job is to lie, to be abstract from the truth, top to bottom, how do you function? How do you trust each other, since the person in on the lie with you has proven they will lie? For that matter how much of conspiratorial politics is even actually believed?

What if the people who are bellowing the loudest don’t believe their own bullshit and neither do most of the people who listen to them? What if everyone is lying?

Do I have an answer? No, but I invite speculation. And I will probably write more on it.

I’d promise to write more, but I’m being honest.

–Xenofact

You Can’t Win Myth

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Some of the political writing of these days (2025 AD), has dare I say it a mythic quality. Well an attempted mythic quality. Yes, we’ve often seen attempts to make politicians mythical (the reference to “Camelot” for JFK, for instance), it feels like it’s worse in 2025. A fusion of easy publishing, Influencer Brain, and media-oriented culture seems to involve both more mythmaking, and worse mythmaking.

(Yes, to date this, this was inspired by Olivia Nuzzi’s American Canto, which led me to contemplate other issues.)

I daresay most of my readers know myths and legends. I’ve got a head stuffed full of all sorts of things I picked up from reading, an interest in theology, getting a psych degree (and being into Jung), plus my own spiritual practice. I’[m sure all of you have your own path to and your own myths that you treasure. Myths are funny things, we know they may not be literally true, but they speak to us in a way that is true. You don’t have to believe Hermes stealing Apollo’s livestock is literally true to stand before, say, the crackling aliveness of the good parts of the internet and say, like the ancients, “Hermes is here.”

The thing is myths also are things of many edges. I recall the tales of Taoist Immortal Lu Dong-Bin, who went from failed bureaucrat to immortal but also as an immortal got up to shenanigans, including those of a sexual nature. The aforementioned Hermes was lovable but also a troublemaker – which seemed to make him even more fun to be around (don’t we all know someone like that). Kingdoms rise but also fall. Heroes triumph before being laid low or aging to dust.

Some myths may promise paradise, but many remind us of our ever-changing world. Besides promises are just that, and truth is often where we are now.

But a lot of modern American political myths seem to be more self-argrandizing. We might say they’re myths as some chamelonic politician is hailed as an eternal savior or some reporter invokes how they’re like famed reporters of the path. Such actions may have mythic qualities but they’re really arguing “I am the best, I am awesome.” They’re hagiographic.

Doubtlessly our Christian heritage is part of this. We in America are steeped in stories of the apocalypse, of prophets, of a clock ticking down to the victory. Everyone wants to be on the right side when Armageddon happens so they can declare themselves victor. Everyone wants to be on the side of God, but apparently decided just making it up is fine – they certainly don’t seem afraid of any lighting bolts.

But that’s not mythical. You don’t win myth. Hagiography runs in one direction.

In myths and legends too often things fall, people die, and there’s some ambiguity. Many of them are – intentionally or not – funny or amusing because of the foibles of gods, heroes, and regular people. Just like life.

This is probably why such attempts at “mythologizing” come off as so ridiculous. They’re not relatable because they’re about how awesome someone is and only about that. Because they’re not relatable, they’re hard to make sense of or learn from or feel. They’re disconnected from our realities, just attempts to puff someone or someones up. Emperors and Empresses who have no clothes.

So when I see all these “mythical” innovations, there’s nothing there. No balance, no caution, no depth. It’s sales pitches and pretentious. It’s a great warning when someone is blowing smoke – and a warning to be very careful of said mythmakers.

–Xenofact

Art Is Unstoppable

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We’re all used to hearing about how oppressive governments crack down on art. They don’t like free expression. They want to control information. They also like to destroy joy because they are controlling assholes.

But I’d add something else to these control freaks – art is terrifying to them. Art is something that is a threat to dictators and they must control it.

Think about what Art is – not even good art, but sincere art. Art is personal expression, thoughts and feelings turned into another form. It often combines different media forms, like sound and visuals together, or penmanship and words. Art is a bundle of ideas, of feelings, that works it’s way into your head – that’s what art is, and even intentionally obscure art can intrigue people to actively engage.

Art spreads. Art infiltrates. Art infects. Art can be symbiotic with the people who encounter it. This is the kind of thing that unsettled a would-be tyrant.

A play, a stunt, a book, a song can soar across the radio waves and the internet and change people. Art is communication, and communication will go as fast as it can (and sometimes as slow as needed). A piece of art can change people fast and dictators don’t like change and they aren’t happy with fast either.

And you might not know they’ve changed. Someone may have become changed by a book or by a TV show or a bootleg tape and you won’t know! People become different people but you can’ tell. Well, can’t tell until too late, and dictators fear people not being what they seem.

People infected with art might even make more art. They get inspired to do things. Art combines with the appreciator’s own ideas to make something new. That fast-spreading art can produce even more art that risks the control a dictator wants. Von Neuman’s catastrophie with bright brushes and a poison pen.

Finally, dictators are not creative people. They’re not imaginative. Art is creative. Art is imaginative. Dictators can’t understand it, can’t deal with it, so the have to destroy it or control it.

(Some Dictators even posture as artists, but you know, they never really are.)

So of course they feel threatened by art. They can’t control it, can’t stop it, can’t do it and it’s lurking right behind them.

Of course that means if we keep doing art we keep breaking dictators. And as I’ve noted art and spirituality are pretty much the same thing, who knows what you can do to would-be tyrants with just some innocent art with spiritual elements . . .

-Xenofact