Donald Trump and the Big Lie

"The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous."

Joseph Goebbels

"All this was inspired by the principle—which is quite true within itself—that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.
It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."

Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf"

"His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."

OSS Psychological Profile of Hitler

It seems that Donald Trump has been taking lessons from Hitler and his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Trump tells lots of small lies, but it all evolves around his Big Lie attack on "fake news." He characterizes every news story that is critical of him as "fake news." And he repeats it over and over so after awhile people come to believe it. To further his goal he set up his own propaganda Trump TV channel on Facebook. 

Nevertheless because more than a few Americans rightly believe that much of the news media is biased against Trump, it behooves the news media to get the story right. Otherwise if the news media gets it wrong it supports Trump's "fake news" argument and further entrenches his big lie.