When people begin to believe lies, trouble lurks around the corner

May 24, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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A sucker is born every minute. But it appears as if Guyana has gotten the hog’s share of suckers.
When Donald Trump made his remarks about the possibility of neutralizing the coronavirus by injecting oneself with some kind of disinfectant, there were persons in and outside of the United States who actually believed that this was possible.
A great many people believe Donald Trump is a stupid man. He is not. He has played a political game of making wild and often crude and illogical remarks but those controversial statements helped him to win the elections and may allow him to be reelected.
Days after Trump’s remarks about disinfectants, the Maryland health authorities reported almost one hundred cases of persons having to be treated after ingesting disinfectant. Two persons in Georgia and one man in Kansas actually died after drinking disinfectant. In Iran, more than 700 persons were killed after consuming toxic methanol and in Turkey a man from chemical poisoning following the ingestion of a disinfectant which he believed would have prevented him from contracting the coronavirus.
A sucker is born every minute in the world. But we here in Guyana have suckers being converted after every silly statement issued by our politicians
It is incomprehensible that so many persons can fall victims to those pathetic narratives which are being churned out by the APNU+AFC to justify why the ballot boxes are not confirming the victory that it claimed it had secured in the fair, free and orderly elections of March 2, 2020. The majority of those who are parroting the view that dead and migrated people voted in droves, right under the eyes of the more than 20,000 elections officials, party agents and international observers, do not believe what they are repeating. But those lies are the only straws to which they can clutch at this time.
It also quite dangerously is part of a conspiracy which is being hatched to discredit the results of the recount and to lay the basis for deeming the PPPC government, which will emerge as the winner of the elections, as being illegitimate. This is the reason why the APNU+AFC does not wish to have the Carter Center return. They will not be comfortable with international certification of the results and therefore they are blocking the return of the Carter Center.
International certification, however, will come from the western countries which are observing the process. And that is why, parallel to what is being done to discredit the elections, there is an orchestrated campaign to taint the western countries as being partisan and biased.
While the majority of those who are part of these nefarious schemes are fully aware that they are producing falsehoods and setting the stage for political and social instability, there are many persons who actually fall victim to these falsehoods. They are suckers and they would actually believe the lies they are being told because not only do they want to believe it but they also are silly enough to do so.
The APNU+AFC is engaged in political deception, the illusory truth effect. A lie is repeated often enough, and from persons who are viewed as knowledgeable, to the extent that after a while the receivers of the lie come to accept it as being true.
It matters not what rational arguments are provided to debunk the lies. Once persons are zealots of a political cause, they eventually can reach a stage in which they are prepared to believe any lie.
There are persons who are having a grand laugh at the ridiculous claims which are being made by the APNU+AFC. The Coalition has been caught with its pants down on more than one occasion. It made more objections to persons voting at one polling station than the votes received by opposition parties. It has made false claims which have been exposed. It has said that its objections are based on hearsay. It was uncovered that a family, which the Coalition claimed had migrated, was in Guyana on Election Day and voted.
You would think that the APNU+AFC would try another tactic rather than repeating the same old discredited allegations. But the Coalition knows what it is doing. It is repeating its lies often enough because it knows that eventually many of its supporters will believe it. Research recently found that persons are likely to believe fake news if it is repeated often enough and especially when it accords with their own interests.
The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago was correct. He predicted that the election results was not going to end well. He is right, especially considering how easy it is to sucker people in Guyana.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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