For about the last 7 years, I have felt like having a single word - "lie" - cover such a wide range of deceptions has been weaponized to push back on peoples' i

For about the last 7 years, I have felt like having a single word - "lie" - cover such a wide range of deceptions has been weaponized to push back on peoples' innate (and accurate) sense that some lies are much worse than others. The "politicians lie" truism is meant to apply to campaign promises that candidates make knowing that they can't or won't even try to accomplish them. This manufacture of wholesale fictions by con artists and wanna be dictators is not the same thing, and is not actually at all common among politicians in the US historically or currently. Claims that these people are not so bad because they are just like any other politician are inaccurate and toxic. They are critical to the con succeeding.