When Memes, Spin and Lies Become Conspiracy Theories and Lots of People Believe Them, They Are Still Not True

Thursday, February 19, 2026

I.C.E. is not separating families nor using children as “bait.”  The host explained it all when Obama repeated this lie.  Neither the Trump administration nor Bari Weiss forbade Colbert from airing an interview.  Jim Geraghty explains that quite thoroughly.  It seems clear to me that Trump Derangement – hatred actually – is turning memes and spin into lies, then those are morphing into conspiracy theories and the Trump paranoid are biting – hook, line, and sinker.  Which makes me wonder just how much weed is being consumed by the average Trump hater.  One must begin to consider if Trump Derangement can reach levels of pathological mental health.

Ironically, these paranoid delusions of evil machination arise in spaces created by normal bureaucratic functioning, and in some cases bungling.  For decades now conservatives have been chided when they have lost patience and complained about the bureaucratic entanglements involved in starting a business, building a building or or selling your car. We have been told that it was what was best for us as the government were our benevolent minders there to keep us safe and free from harm.  We complained, but we endured.  But when the shoe is on the other foot and those entanglements stand in the way of some left-leaning sacred cow they take to the streets and accuse that same government that was benevolent just moments ago of being censorious and Nazi-like.  Again, blurring the line between opposition and mental illness.

If there is any insidious behavior in this miasma it is when politicians and public figures repeat these paranoid delusions as if they are fact, bolstering and spreading them without regard for truth or the safety of those that suffer with them.  Consider a mental experiment.  Presume with me for a moment that the death of Renee Good is a completely justified shooting by law enforcement.  (It is, but the debate continues so I ask for the presumption for the sake of the experiment.)  Her actions, the actions that put her in harms way, were fostered and urged by people like Tim Walz and Jacob Frey as they cried “wolf” – loudly.  Renee Good was indeed a victim, just not of I.C.E.

Count your blessings if you have not had to deal with dementia in the life of a loved one.  It is a no-win scenario.  You watch these people you care for so deeply live in a different and non-existent world.  Your impulse is to drag them, kicking and screaming, back into reality, but they generally are unable to make the trip.  So then you consider simply placating their situation yet they suffer so in that state.  My mother spent eleven years thinking my dead father was coming to pick her up that night – it was painful to watch as her longing for him, and pain at his absence, was very real.  Yet when you reminded her that he was dead, she experienced grief as if for the first time and her pain was only worsened.

We cannot give in to the lies, even if they result in these paranoid delusions, and harm follows.  Yet we need feel a compassion for those that suffer under the delusions.  They are victims – of the lies – of the politicians and media that spread them – and of their own biases and utter distaste for the president.  In many ways we are in a no-win situation.  So intense are these paranoid delusions that reality cannot penetrate them and if it did, the emotional cost would be tremendous.  Yet we cannot continue to live in the lies.

There is a bit of business wisdom that I learned in my youth – “First you fire them, then you help them.”  Compassion cannot override reality, but it cannot be set aside either.  At some point reality will penetrate the delusions – at that point our compassion will be most necessary.  Until then, we must press on with asserting reality.