There's a general rule that once a baseless claim is made, getting people to disbelieve in it is nearly impossible.
This is a pattern the Trump regime has used over and over, from "they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats" to COVID conspiracies to "the libruls are comin' for your guns" to "queer people are all pedophiles" to the endless parade of migrant caravans that conveniently never seem to arrive. None of them had any factual basis; instead, they appealed to fear and bigotry, reinforced by the perpetual tape-loop of Fox and Newsmax and hate-mongers like Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Loomer.
What always strikes me, though, is that you don't even need to hook into those basic human emotions to get the ball rolling, and once it is rolling, it's damn near impossible to stop. What you're claiming doesn't even need to make sense. All it takes is a single sensational claim at the right time, and it can persist for years.
Centuries, even. Take, for example, the claim that a cave was discovered in 1909 in the Grand Canyon that contained Egyptian artifacts.
The whole thing got started with a front-page story in the Arizona Gazette on 5 April 1909, stating that an immense cave complex was being investigated by a team from the Smithsonian Institution, led by archaeologists G. E. Kincaid and S. A. Jordan. The cave, the article said, contained "rows of dozens of male mummies," copper and bronze tools, "granaries," and statues with "Buddhist imagery." This, the article said, provided conclusive proof that Egypt and the American southwest were historically linked.
But none of that mattered. The situation only got worse when geologist Clarence Dutton was in charge of mapping and naming features of the Grand Canyon, and came up with "Isis Temple" and "Horus Temple" (as well as the Brahma and Vishnu Schists and the Zoroaster Pluton, since we're throwing all the eastern religions together for some reason). Dutton's choices had zero to do with the Arizona Gazette article -- they were, he said, from a desire to "draw from global mythologies" in naming the features -- but of course, all this did was add fuel to the fire.
So, okay. We have a hoax from 1909. What is remarkable is...
... it's still going.
Park rangers, archaeologists, and geologists are still routinely asked about the "Kincaid cave" and if there's a place where tourists can see all the "Egyptian artifacts" that were found in the Grand Canyon. There are YouTube videos about it -- not as an example of a ridiculous hoax, but of a coverup by the Smithsonian. (This is often paired with the other thing the Smithsonian is supposedly covering up, which is the discovery of the skeletons of giant humanoids in North America, allegedly the remains of the biblical "giants among men," about which I wrote a few years ago.)
What strikes me about all this is how easy it is to promote misinformation, and that it's nearly impossible to eradicate it once it's out there. Hell, it doesn't even have to be plausible. It's astonishing that even back in 1909, when our knowledge of history, archaeology, and science wasn't as robust, anyone could fall for this. But combine two things with a lot of cachet -- the Grand Canyon and ancient Egypt -- then throw in the added interest of a massive coverup by the scientists, and you have a hoax that has persisted for well over a hundred years.
Which is why it's so absolutely critical to demand the truth right from the outset -- especially in realms where it matters way more than some strange story about ancient Egyptians in Arizona. Because once people believe a lie, getting them to let it go is remarkably difficult.
And I swear, the first journalist with the guts to say to Karoline Leavitt, Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth, or Donald Trump himself -- on a live mic in front of an audience -- "What you just said was a bald-faced lie," should be an immediate contender for the Pulitzer Prize.
