In the wake of Donald Trump's incredibly horrible remarks about Khzir Khan and his family, the right wing noise machine has turned up their spew levels to 10 to drown out anything which closely resembles truth.
And, as with all right-wing smear machines, that means inventing the most despicable lies about the Khans in order to justify Trump's malicious statements about them, because they must, at all times, protect their candidate.
Today, Richard Grenell amplified the smears by suggesting that Mr. Khan is just trying to ramp up business for himself, since he is an immigration lawyer and also assists foreigners in buying real estate in the United States. Breitbart's head smearer Matthew Boyle jumped onto that bandwagon, too, because it's just a teeny bit better than what the Trump camp is dishing up.
Trump ally and Nixonian ratfcker Roger Stone led the charge Sunday evening with a claim that the Khans are really a Muslim Brotherhood sleeper cell. Stone took his smear to an all-time high when he intimated that Khan's son died while assisting, rather than defending, a terrorist attack on his base in Iraq.
Quickly after, Jeffrey Lord, Corey Lewandowski and Lou Dobbs joined the parade right behind Roger and Trump.
No matter what they say, no matter what they do, no matter how they spin it, it doesn't change the fact that Humayun Khan died saving his men from a suicide bomb by running toward the driver of that death taxi.
Nothing changes that. Khan saved hundreds of lives that day. Hundreds. That fact is what the right-wingers do not want in front of anyone. They'd much rather smear him and other devout Muslims by saying they are terrorists and opportunists.
Projection, much?
There's still a problem, though. It's building up a head of steam, because that's what these smears do. Just like "death panels" and Obama's birth certificate, the rumor is all they need, because it fuels the machine that grinds the lies. It's working, too.
Here's a pair of tweets from CBS reporter Sopan Deb. These are real.
This is an actual exchange I just had with a Trump supporter here in Ohio about Khizr Khan. On camera. pic.twitter.com/KWnahBCHmv
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) August 1, 2016
And no, I wasn't being trolled, re: previous tweet. Trust me. This is a 73-year-old woman who has worked in insurance for forty years.
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) August 1, 2016
In case it's hard to read, the 73-year old woman Deb interviewed who has worked in the insurance business for forty years is convinced that because people are saying on the internet that Khan doesn't live in the United States, wants more Muslims to immigrate to the United States, and was paid to appear at the convention, all these things are true. Every one. Because everything that's on the internet is true in her eyes.
And further to that, she also believes that Khan was a "plant."
Just transcribed more of that interview I posted earlier: "I think he was planted. I’m just sorry. I think he was planted for that purpose."
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) August 1, 2016
Here's some truth for that 73-year old lady who thinks all things on the Internet are true: That picture at the top of this post which is posted on the Internet is a real picture of Humayun Khan's grave, which was dug in the ground when he was just 27 years old. The same age as my son, and many others' sons.
Humayun Khan was a mother's son, a father's son, and a hero. He rests in honor at Arlington National Cemetery.
These are facts. Anyone can look up the location of his gravesite. This, too, is information available on the internet.
Everything the right wing is spinning right now is intended to diminish one family's sacrifice for this country in order to "other" them. The same way they "othered" Barack Obama, the same way they "other" those who look different, or believe differently from them.
Our job is to counter it. Every day, as often as necessary, over and over again. Face-to-face, online, and wherever else we encounter these lies.
As Hannah Arendt wrote in Crisis of the Republic, "Lies are often much more plausible, more appealing to reason, than reality, since the liar has the great advantage of knowing beforehand what the audience wishes or expects to hear. He has prepared his story for public consumption with a careful eye to making it credible, whereas reality has the disconcerting habit of confronting us with the unexpected, for which we were not prepared."
