But, assuming the account is correct, do we know that any significant amount of believed it? A lot of "big lies" are told not with the expectation that people a

But, assuming the account is correct, do we know that any significant amount of believed it? A lot of "big lies" are told not with the expectation that people are to believe in them literally but to distract from other issues or otherwise more subtly affect people. We get them all the time from politicians today. Why wouldn't they have the same thing in the past?