To the editor:

If you are certain that Donald Trump is a dangerous, unstable, racist, fascist, sexist, woman-abusing,  xenophobic, incompetent, con-artist and psychopath who is “in cahoots” with the Russian government, you have probably been conned by a “Big Lie.”

The “Big Lie” is a powerful and completely unscrupulous propaganda technique which was first identified by Adolf Hitler. It is based on the principle that people are more likely to believe a “colossal” lie than a small one, and is typically described as, “Make the lie big; make it simple; keep saying it; and eventually they will believe it.” Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, used this tactic very effectively to pave the way for the demonization, victimization and planned extermination of the Jews.   

In this year’s surreal presidential election the Clinton campaign is using a “Big Lie” strategy to destroy Donald Trump personally and politically, and the left-leaning national news media is piling on by knowingly disseminating dishonest campaign talking points as though they were “facts.”

Because the principal sources of news in our country are complicit in perpetuating the Clintonian “Big Lie,” voters who get most of their information from media sources like ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, or newspapers such as the Washington Post or the New York Times have been exposed mainly to a grotesquely distorted caricature of the Republican candidate.

For the most part, voters have not been informed that Trump’s ideas have been praised by many top-level economists, international policy experts, business and financial professionals, educators, religious leaders, and military people. Or that he was routinely hiring women and people of color strictly on merit, and giving them equal pay and promoting them to high-level positions long before most other businesses had been shamed into doing so. Or that Trump was the only one of the 19 primary election candidates to hire any African-Americans to top positions in his campaign. 

Trump has made it clear that he wants to control our borders because he wants our country to be safe and prosperous and wants the people who come here to “love our country and respect our ways” – period. He never said that all Muslims should be banned from the US, only that there should be a temporary ban on such immigration until “we figure out what is going on.” He never even implied that he thought Judge Gonzalez inferior in any way, but merely expressed concern that the judge might be biased against him because of the judge’s likely opposition to Trump’s support for “The Wall.” Contrary to what the public has been told, Trump never disrespected the sacrifice of the Khan family or their fallen son. He only defended himself against a series of scathing political insults hurled at him by Mr. Khan on national TV. 

The real Donald Trump has pledged himself to be our voice to clean up corruption at the top; put our country’s needs first; restore our national pride; get our economy growing; rebuild our military; put our health care system back on track; honor our commitments to veterans, seniors, families and inner city neighborhoods; respect freedom of religion; and keep us safe. Yet, voters have been taught to disbelieve his sincerity by the “Big Lie.”

It is tragic that so many voters may have been tricked by the liberal media they trusted into voting against their own interests. Every vote is too important to waste on a Big Lie.

~ Dr. Patricia Komorous, Tryon, N.C.