How does a lie evolve into truth?
The lie begins as a whisper, clearly false, easily dismissed.
But the whisper does not disappear.
The whisper becomes an echo.
The second or third time, the lie still sounds wrong, but uncertainty creeps in.
With further repetition, the lie dulls into discomfort.
Eventually, the lie appears in casual conversation, half-joking, perhaps, shared under the guise of “just raising questions.”
Truth no longer matters. Familiarity takes its place.
Soon, the lie is no longer questioned.
The lie becomes accepted.
The lie is adopted as a reluctant truth.
And if the lie attaches to personal identity, the lie transforms into a source of pride.
The lie is branded as personal belief.
At that stage, the lie is no longer something repeated, it becomes something defended.
Eventually, the lie is rationalized as a long-held truth, reinforced by the vague belief that believing the lie is somehow for the best.
The Psychology Behind the Echo
This is not just political theory, it’s psychology.
Psychologists refer to this as the Illusory Truth Effect.
The Illusory Truth Effect is the natural human tendency to mistake repetition for truth.
When a message is heard frequently, especially during times of stress, fatigue, or fear, the message begins to feel accurate, even without evidence.
This is not a personal failure.
This is how the human brain seeks familiarity and safety.
Unfortunately, this pattern is no longer occurring by accident.
Modern communication systems are engineered to feed repetition, not for truth, but for influence and profit.
From Talking Points to Identity Markers
Complex problems are reduced to slogans.
Slogans become signals.
And signals become boundaries.
“The election was stolen.”
“Real patriots know the truth.”
“History is being erased.”
“Our country is being taken away.”
These phrases are not debates.
These phrases are identity markers.
Once repeated enough, the original purpose of a slogan, whether persuasive or informative, is lost.
The slogan becomes a badge, a code, a banner under which teams form and walls are built.
When the Echo Becomes the Cage
Repetition provides comfort.
The repeated lie begins to feel safe, even reassuring, like a familiar fight song or family saying.
But over time, comfort becomes confinement.
Inside the echo:
Doubt feels dangerous.
Curiosity feels disloyal.
Questioning feels like betrayal.
At this stage, repetition does not simply inform belief, repetition replaces thought altogether.
Only the repeated gets believed.
Only the believed gets defended.
And anything outside the echo is rejected, not because it is false, but because it is unfamiliar.
A Wyoming Echo: 2024’s Local Confusion
Wyoming experienced this pattern firsthand.
In 2024, no credible evidence of election fraud was found across the state.
Clerks from every county, Republican and Democrat, reported secure, verified results.
Processes were transparent. Outcomes were certified.
Yet doubts spread.
Not because of something seen.
But because of something heard, repeated, amplified, echoed across distant platforms.
The lie was not born in Wyoming.
The lie was not based on Wyoming facts.
The lie was projected into Wyoming to create confusion, fracture trust, and weaken civic bonds.
And for some, the lie worked.
Reflection: The Echo Meets Reality
Sometimes repetition feels like reality.
Even when everything in the heart says otherwise.
During the 2024 election, the narrative that “illegals” were the central threat of our time was repeated so often that it began to wear on my certainty. I started to wonder, am I missing something? Could the threat be real? Story after story of violence, of economic harm, of crisis, were broadcast and amplified until the volume alone made doubt feel like discernment.
But I didn’t shift completely. I resisted, not because I was immune, but because I’ve had conversations. I’ve seen the faces.
Two Cuban men, trying to survive, once rode in my car to a check-cashing center on East A Street here in Casper. I asked why they came. They said plainly: “There is no future in Cuba.” The Castro regime had stripped them of the ability to feed their families. But from Casper, they could send money back home. That’s what brought them here. Not crime. Not manipulation. Not conquest. Just survival.
And yet, the repetition nearly worked.
Identity is sticky. Once a label is embraced, it tends to harden. This was tested during a visit with my sister at the Bighorn County Fair.
The topic? Chloe Cole, a girl who once identified as transgender and later regretted medical procedures she underwent as a minor. My sister described Chloe as a confused 13-year-old who had been “mutilated.” I agreed with that word. It is mutilation. But to me, the blame doesn’t fall on the child. It’s a failure of parenting. A failure of medicine. A moral failure across the board.
Our disagreement didn’t come from hatred. It came from love, but different kinds of love. Hers, for protecting children from influence. Mine, for protecting them from a culture that confuses affirmation with care.
What I wanted wasn’t a fight. It was a conversation.
But conversation requires shared ground, and repetition has a way of burning that ground out from under us.
When it comes to immigration, “echo” isn’t even the right word anymore.
What we’re dealing with now is more like saturation.
Words like “illegals” aren’t spoken to describe, they’re repeated to dehumanize.
A family member once told a story about someone who crossed the border and sought care for a terminal illness, allegedly costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. The question posed was: Can we afford to care for every sick person who makes it here?
I reversed the question:
Can we afford not to care for every sick and injured person we encounter in our communities?
This is not a question of economics.
This is a question of our shared humanity.
And for moral clarity, I return to the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Beyond the Surface: The Good Samaritan as Moral Reckoning
The parable is often misread as a gentle reminder to be kind.
It is not gentle.
It is a direct, revolutionary assault on religious pride, social hierarchy, and tribal loyalty.
Jesus tells the story in response to a legal expert who asks, “Who is my neighbor?”
The expected answer would have aligned with tradition, your people, your kind, your tribe.
Instead, Jesus chooses the Samaritan as the hero, a cultural and religious outsider, despised by the very people listening to the story. The priest and the Levite, respected religious leaders, walk past the beaten man to protect ritual purity.
The Samaritan, the “other”, stops, helps, and gives.
In that moment, Jesus redefines neighbor as anyone in need, regardless of social status, ethnicity, belief, or origin.
The parable teaches:
Compassion is the test of righteousness.
Law, tradition, and religious title are meaningless without action.
Inaction is sin.
The person we were taught to distrust may be more moral than those we were taught to revere.
It is not just a story about helping others.
It is a warning: religion without mercy is failure.
Citizenship without compassion is cruelty.
Breaking the Echo
The echo does not collapse on its own.
The echo must be broken deliberately.
1. Ask the Origin.
Where did the message begin? Who gains from the repetition? What does silence allow?
2. Replace Echo with Dialogue.
Repetition can be disrupted with real voices, across kitchen tables, across fence lines, across generations.
3. Take Ownership.
If a phrase gets repeated without being understood, pause. If something has been heard so many times it feels true, investigate.
Truth is not afraid of scrutiny. But the lie depends on avoiding it.
4. Reclaim Moral Imagination.
Ask: Who is my neighbor?
And if that answer leaves someone out, someone undocumented, someone different, someone outside the “acceptable” circle, it is not Jesus speaking.
Repetition shapes belief. Compassion reveals truth. Only one leads to freedom.
Coming Next: Episode 4 – Finding the Fault Lines
“Division doesn’t start by creating something new. Division begins by finding an old crack, and hammering in a wedge.”
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