The Bulwark: “The Big Lie is starting to unravel. One of Trump’s disinformation stars, Sidney Powell, is backing down. But while we’re considering the matter of truth and lies, let’s recall when conservatives cared about truth (or seemed to). In the 1990s, Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchú was a phenomenon. Of Mayan descent, she offered harrowing testimony about the conduct of the Guatemalan military during that country’s civil war. Her 1983 as-told-to memoir, I Rigoberta Menchú, was a sensation. When it came to light that Menchú had distorted key aspects of her autobiography, right and left responded very differently… Liberals tended to excuse Menchú, on the grounds that her story revealed a ‘larger truth.’ ‘Whether her book is true or not, I don’t care,’ said Marjorie Agosin, head of the Spanish department at Wellesley College. ‘We should teach our students about the brutality of the Guatemalan military and the U.S. financing of it.’ Conservatives were appalled that Menchú’s Nobel Prize was not rescinded, and galled that some liberals defended Menchú’s invocation of ‘my truth.’ There was no ‘my truth’ or ‘your truth’ they countered. There was only the truth. And when you depart from the truth, you are lying.”

“The Menchú story comes to mind because this week we’ve witnessed further evidence of just how corrupted the right has become. The assault on truth is Donald Trump’s most damaging legacy. For now, our best, and possibly only remaining check on flagrant lying is the tort system. (Disbarment is an available penalty for lawyers who severely transgress ethical norms, but it is rarely invoked.) It’s not good for Dominion and Smartmatic that allies of the president grossly defamed them, but it may turn out to be good for the country that they are availing themselves of legal remedies.”