Well Played Republicans!

 For the last two years, Republicans have been bloviating at anyone with a microphone that if Joe Biden was elected President, he would immediately open the borders to immigrants. Of course right-wing broadcasters had been gleefully repeating these lies as if they were gospel.

Did they think that desperate people huddling in countries south of the United States had no access to radio or television? Maybe they were unaware that there were refugees who could understand the English language.

No, the Republican leadership was perfectly aware of what they were doing. Their plan worked out very well too! No sooner was President Biden sworn in were the borders overwhelmed with refugees who had been impatiently waiting in Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras and other countries. Some had been waiting for years in places as far away as Brazil and Chile. They had listened. They were absolutely positive that they would be welcomed into the USA by the new Democratic government of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. After all, they had been assured that they would not only be welcomed, but be assured that they will be given money, health care, and schooling for their kids! The Republicans had been broadcasting exactly that for years.

Why on earth would they think that the Republican politicians would have lied to them?

While I am a firm believer in the First Amendment, there needs to be consequences for any so-called "news" outlet for knowingly repeating what are obvious and easily debunked falsehoods. We cannot be misled about the contents of a can of beans, or the horsepower of a new car, why can Fox News make claims about the intentions of a political party that are totally divorced from reality? As an aside, here's a small article from 2019 listing some of the blatant lies from that time.

For that matter, why are politicians allowed to blatantly lie with complete impunity? I realize that lying seems to be a time-honored and expected province of political types, but why is it allowed to continue? We eventually passed laws that put the sellers of snake oil remedies out of business, why can we not do likewise with those who would put our very country at risk by distancing themselves from the truth?