Gaslighting Ground Zero: Arizona
"Gaslighting is not a behavior that just stops. Lies and liars don’t just disappear. They must be actively deterred. It never gets easier; only more important."
By Dan W. Goldfine
The first time I ever thought about gaslighting, or fake news was when I participated in my high school’s performance of N. Richard Nash’s The Rainmaker. It tells the story of a grifter who’s come to small-town America. The play sounded tinny to me at the time (1980); it just seemed like a bunch of desperate folks who are easily fooled. As a teenager, I figured there were so few of these people in the real world that Nash’s theme didn’t really matter very much in the big picture.
Forty years later, The Rainmaker resonates with me almost daily in Arizona. The definition of the word “gaslighting” is: “manipulating someone using psychological methods into questioning their own sanity or powers of reasoning.” In other words, continuous lying.
Gaslighting by the MAGA-GOP, Antifa, neo-Nazis, racists, bigots and anti-Semites in Arizona has been running rampant for several years now. It is particularly glaring in our politics.
In 1983, the late Senator Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) famously remarked:
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."
This is not the case anymore. Social media, which has democratized political expression to a great extent, has also allowed for the unfettered practice of gaslighting. Amplification of fallacious messages can be achieved very easily. As well as anonymously.
Adding to that, there are many in the traditional news media who are incapable of identifying — or choose not to vet — content that can be verified as specious or factually incorrect. When lies that are born in social media silos receive oxygen through elevation to larger, mainstream media outlets, the danger of the message can compound very quickly.
Our justice system is usually the last stop when we see malicious behavior that’s resulted in a high-stakes impasse. Judges’ decisions are supposed to set precedents — but they cannot stop anyone in our society from taking their next real-time action. No matter what the content. Or from filing the next baseless lawsuit.
My home state of Arizona, where I practice law, is a prime example of this: the courts have seen lawsuit after lawsuit challenging the 2020 and 2022 elections — based entirely on gaslighting.
In Arizona, the MAGA-GOP has filed more than 30 lawsuits challenging the last two cycle’s election results. Their allegations contained a stack of lies, and the GOP legal tactics have amounted to nothing more than screaming out loud about the lies. The mainstream media and social media largely “two-sided” the issue, effectively giving a level of credence to the false claims. All of the court filings and coverage caused many to believe that the 2020 and 2022 Arizona elections were rigged — when they were not.
The litigation opponents of the MAGA-GOP — made up of many Republicans — vigorously and elegantly fought these claims. Many risked their political careers to do so. Some risked their and their families’ lives. And this was no easy task. As someone who has litigated in federal and state courts in over 40 states, I can tell you that the courts can be susceptible to gaslighting. Many judges believe that there are no objective truths, and “two-sides to every story.”
I and others had real concerns. The waning faith and trust in American institutions now also extends to the justice system. We wondered: would our courts stand up for self-belief in what’s right versus wrong? Indeed, would they protect the rule of law?
Arizona courts — made up of almost exclusively Republicans — uniformly rejected MAGA-GOP’s claims about the 2020 and 2022 elections. Piece-by-piece, the judges took apart plaintiffs’ provable gaslighting.
As recently as last week, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake lost her third trial over the 2022 election. Maricopa County Judge John Hannah Jr. expressed the following in his decision:
"Ms. Lake regards the electoral process much like the villagers in the famous fable regarded the goose that laid the golden egg, except that her goose failed to lay the egg she expected."
There have been dozens of judges like Hannah who’ve plucked out the lies and put them in their place. You could say that they were just doing their jobs, yet in this acrimonious political atmosphere, you could just as easily day that they were acting bravely and heroically.
I’m grateful for the way these justices stood up for the rule of law in Arizona. But will the next set of them be as brave and heroic? Gaslighting in the courts is so dangerous because the courts are more-often-than-not the last refuge of the truth. In 2020 and 2022 in Arizona, anyone with any conscience and self-belief knew who won the elections — knew what the truth was.
In Nash’s The Rainmaker, the self-belief of what was right and wrong prevailed over all of the gaslighting and fake news – and it saved that small town. Our judges did much the same. Yet as we can see, Arizona remains one of the handful of swing states where the gush of lawsuits just keeps on coming — obvious truths be damned. What this means is that vigilance will once again be the watchword as the 2024 elections play out — every step of the way.
Gaslighting is not a behavior that just stops. Lies and liars don’t just disappear. They must be actively deterred. The righteous fight to present factual sunlight in the face of cynical attempts to cheat voters must continue. That’s our job.
But once we the people serve up the evidence of what is true, our courts and judges must continue to exercise the kind of independent consideration and decision making that has kept our system intact. It never gets easier; only more important.
DAN GOLDFINE is an attorney at the international law firm Dickinson Wright and a former Federal Prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
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