He lies like he breathes

The destruction of democratic institutions, the relativization of truth and the frank and open lie constitute the greatest damage that López Obrador has done to our public life.

https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/opinion/fernando-garcia-ramirez/2024/09/09/miente-como-respira/

Fernando García Ramírez

September 09, 2024

One of the most notable events of the last six years is the way in which the president deceived millions of Mexicans.

He deceived not only the common people who receive support and scholarships. He deceived seasoned politicians and businessmen. People with and without studies. He deceived ambassadors, the opposition and his own.

From the first day, he placed social communication at the center of his task as president. Not education, health or security. Daily communication with the public through his morning conference. Installed in an autonomous and unpunished space, every day he transmitted to his bases his interpretation of the world and his vision of the state of national affairs. Reports, guests, opinions, national history, videos and lies. An official communication riddled with falsehoods. The Spin agency counted more than 110 thousand lies and inaccuracies in his conferences. Add to them those he pronounced in his reports and in his speeches on his weekend tours. They coined the exact phrase: he lies like he breathes.

The president not only lied. He incessantly repeated his lies. He spread his false phrases on the networks. His officials and a vast network of digital multipliers who work for the Presidency amplified the reach of his statements. “The pandemic is already under control.” The media repeated them. The president's lies were spread to every corner of the country. “We ended the theft of oil”. Above all, through television and radio. Perhaps the news programs were a little more careful with their forms, but not in the brief news summaries that are repeated every hour on all stations throughout the day. “We have a health system, not like Denmark’s, better.” Lies transmitted through a very efficient propaganda system.

But beyond the propaganda, there was a very large audience eager to believe. People disillusioned with the opposition found that the symbols that López Obrador lavished were honest. That his common speech connected with millions. With his accusatory finger raised, López Obrador not only lied with complete naturalness, but to reverse the terms, he called his critics liars and corrupt. He dedicated a section of his conference to denouncing the supposed lies of his adversaries.

Like an acid, López Obrador’s constant lies ended up corroding public discourse. If the president could lie with impunity, so could the governors and municipal presidents. The president could be confronted from time to time at the morning press conference. Jorge Ramos (anchor in Unvision) could tell him: “according to official data, there have been more murders under your government than under any other.” The president denied it. “But it is the data of your own government,” the journalist repeated. The president denied it and said that he had “other data.” Of course, he lied. He lied knowingly. And people did not care. The phrase “I have other data” became part of common language. When someone refused to accept some truth, he would mischievously say: “I am sorry, I have other data.” People accepted without much problem having a lying president.

People knew that the president was lying to them and still decided to believe the liar. That is the level of political awareness of Mexicans. We no longer deny lies, why? People hear that we have a better health system than the Danish one and later they must go to IMSS (Social Security System) Bienestar and find that they have no medicines, no beds, no doctors. And people accept it. They accept that the president lies to them. They accept tolerating his lies. They accept voting for them. They accept supporting him in the polls. Because the truth doesn't matter. What people sought and found in him was not the truth, but the desire to feel protected by a leader who proposed integration into a collective feeling. People want someone who is like them and looks out for them. Even if it's not true, as happened in Acapulco (after the hurricane Otis in 2023), where the government acted late and badly.

The lie is installed at the center of public discourse. The president can lie in his last government report about our health system being superior to the Danish one and the next day he can brazenly accept that he lied in his report. People accept it and laugh. The truth doesn't matter.

I don't know if when López Obrador leaves the public arena, if it is true that he is leaving, the truth will re-establish itself in public discourse. I'm very afraid not. The epigones of the AMLO government have already seen that lying has no consequences. Why would they abandon such an effective instrument?

More than the destruction of democratic institutions, the relativization of truth and the frank and open lie constitute the greatest damage that Andrés Manuel López Obrador has done to our public life. A society that tends to be dominated by force (authoritarianism, political centralism and militarization) must find in the defense of truth the las of its bastions.