Again Trump lies to the American people and insinuates Zelensky started the war.

It was Russia that invaded Ukraine.

How much longer will the American people deal with this.

Why is no one doing anything to stop him? pic.twitter.com/JfXqArorC6

— Bricktop_NAFO (@Bricktop_NAFO) December 14, 2025

I’m not familiar with the Anchor Light Substack page, but it floated to the top of my algorithm today, and I found the posting to be insightful and useful, though I don’t agree with the actions the author plans to take. The author remains anonymous, as far as I can tell after a quick AI search.

It’s a long post, and worth a read, I excerpt key passages of interest here. The graphic and social media inserts are mine, for illustrative purposes.

Anchor Light Substack:

This dialogue represents a synthesis of conversations with multiple AI systems (ChatGPT and Claude) conducted on December 13, 2024, the day after my 65th birthday. The questions were mine. The analysis emerged from AI systems trained on large bodies of historical and comparative political research on democratic erosion, authoritarianism, and comparative political systems worldwide. I have edited for flow and clarity, but the substance remains unchanged. This is my final online political post. After this, I redirect my energy to local action and preparation.

Why Are Political Leaders Pushing Anti-Science Rhetoric and Easily Disprovable Lies? ** I asked AI**: What is your best theory as to why many on the political Right in the U.S., I’m talking political leaders, push anti-vax rhetoric, conspiracy theories, and lies easily proven false by science? What is the motive and the likely long-term intent?

The answer was uncomfortably clear: This isn’t about ignorance of science. It’s about power.

Many right-wing political leaders push anti-science rhetoric because epistemic breakdown, the destruction of shared reality, is politically useful. If you can convince a large segment of the population that experts cannot be trusted, institutions are corrupt, objective truth doesn’t exist, and loyalty matters more than evidence, then power no longer depends on performance or results. It depends on identity and obedience.

That’s the motive. The long-term intent is durable minority rule.

Science has three characteristics that are fatal to authoritarian politics:

First, it produces falsifiable claims. You can test them. You can be wrong. You must update your beliefs when evidence changes.

Second, it’s institutionally distributed. No single leader controls it. It requires peer review, transparency, and replication.

Third, it undermines charismatic authority. A scientist doesn’t demand loyalty. Data doesn’t care who you voted for.

Authoritarian movements cannot survive in an environment where people accept that some claims are simply false, expertise matters, and reality constrains power. So science isn’t debated, it’s delegitimized.

Anti-vaccine rhetoric is particularly effective because vaccines sit at the intersection of government authority, personal autonomy, fear of harm, complex science, and immediate bodily stakes. That makes them ideal for narrative manipulation.

Anti-vax rhetoric accomplishes several things simultaneously: it reframes public health as tyranny, converts inconvenience into persecution, turns expertise into elitism, casts personal feeling as equal to evidence, and creates an “us versus them” moral divide.

Once that framing is accepted, any future policy can be painted the same way: climate action, election integrity, court decisions, civil rights protections.

Here’s what many people miss: The lies are often deliberately obvious.

Crude falsehoods serve a purpose. If followers accept them, they prove loyalty. If they reject them, they self-identify as outsiders. This is the same mechanism used in cults and authoritarian regimes historically. The lie becomes a bonding ritual, not a claim about reality.

And here’s what makes this particularly insidious: Americans and journalists spend hours and hours debating these lies, thinking it somehow combats them. It doesn’t. Most journalists never consider the objectives of the regime or explain the big picture. They just do the regime’s work by broadcasting divisive rhetoric and treating obvious lies as if they deserve serious fact-checking and debate. They are being used for the very purpose they, at least, pretend to want to expose. The endless cycle of “Trump said X, but actually Y” doesn’t expose the strategy, it amplifies it. Every fact-check is free publicity. Every debunking is another news cycle. The lie has already done its work by the time anyone “corrects” it.

From a power perspective, this strategy delivers a base that cannot be peeled away by evidence, immunity from scandal or failure, a permanent grievance engine, justification for extraordinary measures, and a population conditioned to accept coercion “in defense of freedom.”

It also creates an enemy class: scientists, journalists, doctors, judges, educators. Once labeled as corrupt, they can be ignored, sidelined, or purged.

This is part of a Bigger Strategy, Isnt’ it?

I asked AI: That makes perfect sense. It’s part of a bigger strategy. Can you provide a simple list of issues, subjects, plans, incidents, and the most basic explanation that are being used in a similar way, all part of a plan to increase authoritarian power?

The answer: Yes. Vaccines are just the training ground. What follows is the pattern, stripped down with no rhetoric:

Elections: Claim they’re rigged unless we win. Purpose: Make democratic outcomes conditional on approval. Result: Justifies overturning results or restricting voting.

Courts and Judges: Claim they’re corrupt, political, or “deep state.” Purpose: Pre-emptively delegitimize rulings. Result: Law becomes optional when inconvenient.

Science and Public Health: Claim experts are lying or controlled. Purpose: Train distrust of evidence itself. Result: Facts lose authority.

Media (”Fake News”): Claim all non-aligned media lies. Purpose: Eliminate external verification. Result: Leader becomes the only trusted source.

Education: Claim schools indoctrinate and corrupt children. Purpose: Control historical narrative. Result: Future generations lose shared reality.

History and Memory: Claim past injustices are exaggerated or invented. Purpose: Remove moral constraints. Result: Abuses can be repeated without shame.

Civil Service (”Deep State”): Claim bureaucrats sabotage the will of the people. Purpose: Replace professionals with loyalists. Result: State serves leader, not law.

Law Enforcement: Claim investigations are political persecution. Purpose: Immunize leadership from accountability. Result: Two-tier justice system.

Minority Groups: Claim outsiders are criminals, parasites, or threats. Purpose: Create fear and unity through scapegoating. Result: Rights become conditional.

Nationalism: Claim leader equals the nation. Purpose: Make dissent unpatriotic. Result: Opposition becomes treason.

Emergency and Crisis Framing: Claim we are under existential threat. Purpose: Justify extraordinary powers. Result: Normal rules suspended indefinitely.

Loyalty Tests: Claim neutrality is betrayal. Purpose: Force public alignment. Result: Fear replaces conscience.

Corruption Reframed: Claim “everyone does it.” Purpose: Normalize abuse. Result: Corruption becomes governance.

Religion (Selective Use): Claim God endorses our cause. Purpose: Sacralize power. Result: Authority becomes unquestionable.

Violence Excusal: Claim “they forced our hand.” Purpose: Legitimize coercion. Result: Violence becomes policy.

One sentence summary: Break shared reality, isolate the public, delegitimize constraints, centralize power, make reversal impossible.

That’s the plan.

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There’s a whole lot more, including a very detailed timeline of the last 50 years, highlighting key mileposts in the long slide. Example here:

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1988 – The Propaganda Model Goes National

• Rush Limbaugh goes into national syndication

• Strategic purpose: Not just conservative commentary, this was infrastructure. Limbaugh trained millions of listeners to:

• Distrust all mainstream sources

• Accept obvious lies as “truth-telling”

• View politics as tribal warfare, not governance

• Believe expertise equals elitism

• See compromise as betrayal

• Why it mattered: Created the first mass audience conditioned to reject shared reality while feeling informed. This wasn’t performance, it was systematic audience preparation for authoritarianism.

2001-2003 – Lying for War

• George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice fabricate WMD evidence for Iraq invasion
• Strategic purpose: Demonstrate that obvious lies, even about war, carry no consequences if repeated with authority
• Why it mattered: If you can lie the country into war without accountability, you can lie about anything

2005 – Climate Science Denial Goes Mainstream

• ExxonMobil, Koch Industries fund massive climate denial infrastructure
• Key figures: Charles Koch, David Koch fund think tanks and fake “research”
• Strategic purpose: Prove you can create doubt about scientific consensus through money and propaganda
• Why it mattered: Established that reality itself could be made “controversial” with enough funding