The Big Gaslight

By John Gaski, AM THINKER

The term “gaslighting” was just selected word of the year because of its overuse.  But why would that usage increase have happened?  Maybe because the practice itself has become more common as a political weapon.

In practical parlance, “gaslighting” means trying to persuade others not to believe their “lying eyes,” or not to believe what they already had known as established fact.  Recent examples of such disinformation themes include:

• The summer 2020 riots were not really riots but “mostly peaceful” demonstrations.

• The Hunter Biden laptop emails are not real but instead a Russian disinformation tactic.

• The U.S. southern border is closed.

• It was Republicans, not Democrats, who favored defunding the police.

• Voter ID requirements are actually voter suppression.

• Critical Race Theory is not really racist — and is not being taught in schools anyway.

• The Afghanistan surrender/retreat was really a great achievement and success.

Curiously, all these familiar ploys are authored by the same political camp.  I wish I could balance with Republican cases, but sometimes reality is unbalanced.

One gaslight theme has become so prevalent — without adequate response — that its contribution to rhetorical disequilibrium needs to be addressed before it does any more damage to the national cognition.  You have seen and heard much about the U.S. Capitol “insurrection” of January 6, 2021, especially on the two-year anniversary.  The trouble is, that event was not an insurrection.

An insurrection is organized and armed uprising against authority or operations of government. The January 6 Capitol near-riot — which is a fair descriptor — did not involve organization or arms, and was hardly a “large” group relative to the scale of its opposition or historical comparison with real insurrections.   (Even the hostile and politically weaponized FBI has admitted the absence of prior coordination.)  This was one “mostly peaceful” protest that really was.

So, what else was the January 6 event?  It was trespassing.  It involved some vandalism.  It was an invasion of the Capitol that turned ugly.  It resembled radical leftist “occupation” of government or university buildings in past decades.  But January 6 was not a literal riot.  Unlike the Democrats’ 536 genuine riots in 2020 which yielded at least 25 fatalities and an attack on the White House, there was no arson, mass looting, or bombing perpetrated by the demonstrators, contrary to the false image cultivated by the liberal media.  Violence?  Yes, some, but compared to an average weekend night in Democrat Chicago, negligible.  The claim that one policeman was beaten with a fire extinguisher turned out to be a lie, and the only mortal violence was the homicide committed by a Capital cop against a female demonstrator.  Objectively, therefore, violence against the protesters transcended any violence attributable to that group.  (Can we agree that rioting by Republicans would be a man-bites-dog phenomenon?  Rioting is what Democrats do.)  January 6 was largely, although not entirely, a group of people walking around the Capitol building like tourists — because they were invited in.  Just look at the videos that finally are available.

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