"We die by lies." The most important note I'll ever post.

If you don’t have a slogan for this NO KINGS Day, I have one to propose.

This past week, I joined my friend Nicolle Wallace (video at the bottom) and told her that I’ve been on a quixotic odyssey to reduce all of human history, science, and philosophy into the briefest possible phrase. One that could explain everything. At a later time, I will explain why I’ve been on this journey.

But for now, let me just skip to my findings. The phrase I keep coming back to is this: “We die by lies.”

At the foundation of everything — from the laws of physics to the laws of nations — is a single polarity: existence versus nonexistence. All of nature, every living thing, is animated by the drive to persist. The motive power of our existence is the impulse toward continued life. From that impulse springs consciousness, perception, and intelligence. These tools evolved to help us understand the world so we could survive in it. The better we perceive reality, the better we endure it.

That’s why Francis Bacon wrote one of my favorite phrases in all the English language: “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.” In order to shape our world, we must first see it as it actually is by understanding how it functions.

Truth is pro-existence; lies are anti-existence. Truth sustains us physically, mentally, morally, and politically. Lies corrode us at every level. They distort our perception, destroy trust, and ultimately unravel societies that were originally built on reality.

For example, understanding the truth about how the immune system works helps us live longer. Recognizing the truth that self-government outperforms despotism helps free nations endure. Every civilization that has thrived did so by aligning its moral and political life with truth. Every civilization that has perished did so because it could not.

So why am I lobbing this into your inbox on a Saturday morning? Because never before in American history have we been so beset by lies from our own government. Lies about justice. Lies about health. Lies about education. Lies about loyalty, law, and love of country.

The man at the top, Donald Trump, lies most of all. He and his team even lie about his lies. They lie so reflexively that the truth itself is treated as a threat itself and (as I’ve discovered all too well) as an act of high treason.

That’s why government officials have equated prospective NO KINGS protesters with “terrorists” who “hate America,” an accusation so outlandish and inexplicable that I can hardly find the words to condemn it. Again and again, the president’s allies have suggested protesters are in cahoots with or pawns of “antifa,” which the FBI director said would be treated “just like we do al Qaeda or ISIS.” They want to discredit your criticism — your efforts to expose the truth about the president — as terrorism.

A year ago, such language would have felt like dialogue from a derivative and farcical screenplay. Now it’s the language of people who control the U.S. military and federal police agencies.

When you study the fall of societies, one thing stands above all others as a hallmark of decay. And that’s systemic deceit. It’s true of everything from the Roman Empire to the Soviet Union, and in hindsight, it’s often nakedly obvious. The lies look and sound like lies because they are. Lies meant to confuse the governed. Lies meant to turn neighbors into enemies. Lies meant to enrich rulers. Lies meant to justify repression and to conceal the lies that made repression possible in the first place.

At one time, I grew almost obsessed with this realization. During rainy days in grad school, I posted up in the Bodleian Library and pulled books about early nation-states and empires, certain that at least one of them would be devoid of this phenomenon. I never found one. Every book, every history, every firsthand account of a society’s collapse that I’ve read ultimately reached the same conclusion, in one way or another. They died by lies.

The consolidation of power is often the beginning of the end. When fewer and fewer people control the organs of the state, dissent tends to suffocate. Flattery becomes policy because all incentives encourage lower-level officials to validate the beliefs of the most powerful. Thus, a corrupt ruler’s delusions harden into doctrine. His lies become the law. Soon enough, those lies become the character of the nation itself (one reason I’ve blasted the current administration’s “trickle-down bigotry”).

For these reasons, I believe in my bones that Donald Trump’s power grab threatens our democracy and our ability to live honestly as a people. His claim of kingly privilege, his demand for absolute loyalty, and his campaign of endless deceit are putting us all in danger, whether you voted for him or not. And the time left to reverse this slide is dwindling.

Today is NO KINGS Day. Some remarkable patriots have built a nationwide movement to make it so. To them, I’m deeply grateful.

If you’re joining the protests and you haven’t made a sign yet, I’d like to suggest one. I wish I could claim it as my own warning, but it is not. The warning is carved into the long memory of human civilization as a foundational truth, written in blood and reason alike, and for which all I can contribute is a summarizing phrase:

WE DIE BY LIES.

That is, unless we resist them.

This was my conversation on MSNBC (below) where I hadn’t planned on getting philosophical, but I brought up this phrase anyway, given the Pentagon’s historic and unprecedented effort to eject nearly all major media outlets.

P.S. WHAT’S HAPPENING ON TREASON

Here’s what’s coming up.

1. TODAY / CNN - I’ll be on Abby Phillip’s CNN show Table for Five at 10am ET — tune in. We’ll be talking about today’s protests, unauthorized U.S. military strikes near Venezuela, the GOP leaked text scandal, and instability in the economy.

2. TODAY / NO KINGS Day Protests - I’ll be a part of rolling coverage with my friends

   Jim Acosta
   and
   Don Lemon
   .

3. Tues, Oct 21 - Trump’s “War on Terror” with journalist Ken Klippenstein - I genuinely can’t wait for this conversation. Ken has been relentless in drawing attention to Trump’s counterterrorism order, NSPM-7, which could prove to be the most significant executive order of the administration. You can join here.