This is the kind of thing that drives me into impotent rages, shaking my tiny fists at the universe.

So Jim DeMint, former senator from South Carolina, goes on a Truth* in Action radio show and says that “no liberal is going to win a debate that big government freed the slaves.”

I’m not even going to get into a debate with this person about the historical record.  My concerns are rather with the framework here.  This man went on a radio show and stated point blank a lie so egregious that any elementary student could win that “debate,” and he did so without any fear of being called out on it.  He can say whatever he wants, and no one is going to say, “Hey, wait a second…”

My biggest fear for our nation is that this kind of lying simply breaks our citizens’ ability to remember history and apply its lessons.  A lie of this size simply pegs out the WTF-o-meter in most peoples’ heads; it goes sproing and they can never again distinguish truth from BS.

Indeed, now the right-wing Wurlitzer can use this lie as a statement in their own assault on an informed citizenry: “As Senator DeMint set the record straight in 2014, the federal government had nothing to do with ending slavery, and so the big government liberals should just back off pushing for legal protections for [insert right-wing boogieman du jour here].”

And to think that the Heritage Foundation used to have a plausible claim to status in the policy world.  Mercy.

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*for differing values of Truth

P.S. I hope everyone downloaded their paper cut-out My Little Cthulhu…