No Lie Can Live Forever

At the threshold of the Civil Rights movement, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited Nashville, Tennessee. Sit-ins staged by local students had successfully defeated the policy of the city’s department stores, denying lunch counter service to Negroes. Dr. King congratulated the brave individuals who confronted verbal and physical abuse and arrest with passive resistance, saying, “No lie can live forever.”

Today, Americans face a very different challenge threatening our nation—socially, politically and economically. At its center is the charlatan who used falsehood and fabrication to deceive voters with a promise of greatness he never intended to deliver. His gift of persuasion employs a lexicon of hate and bigotry as he attacks adversaries with schoolyard epithets, calling the legitimate media fake news, the electoral process a rigged system, and any actions by the previous administration a disaster.

The other side of the coin suggests an ego that requires continuous self-congratulation. His reality is built upon lies and an astounding level of arrogance, with words like greatest, biggest and best. It has become clear ethics and decency play no part in his administration as he defies the rules and appoints himself the final arbiter of right and wrong. He exploits his position only to enrich himself, and an accounting of his misconduct must also include his abhorrent sexual behavior and misogynistic treatment of women.

With the many dangers he poses to our country, the most frightening is the threat that he has invited from a longstanding adversary who has applied the tools of deception to undermine the foundations of our democracy. Irrefutable evidence from our intelligence agencies of past and continuing Russian meddling in our national dialog, and the steady march of the Special Counsel in uncovering conspiracy in the administration are dismissed with the repeated denial, “no collusion.” The closer authorities get to the truth, the more erratic his actions become and the deeper he plunges our country into danger.

It has become equally clear the Republican majority in Congress has chosen to abandon its duty as a Constitutional counterbalance to a corrupt executive branch and in doing so, forfeits its own legitimacy. This leaves corrective action to the citizenry—to be aware of the peril, to raise voices in protest and to exercise the tool more powerful than any tyrant, the right to cast an informed ballot for change.

Denial of the facts persists with those who continue to be duped, but there are even more who choose to remain ignorant of the harm that will surely touch each of them if left unchecked. Once again, Dr. King anticipated the clear and present danger we are facing today when he said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Richard Kushnier