Henke 2022cc

The “Earliest Known Audience” Rule is Unreliable and We Saw It Forming after the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

Kevin R. Henke

September 15, 2022

In Henke (2022b), I concluded the following about Mr. Lundahl’s efforts to demonstrate that Genesis 3 with its Talking Snake was history:

“Lundahl (2022a) claims that “Genesis 3 is a piece of history.” Yet, in none of these seven essays (Lundahl 2022a-g) does he ever present any evidence for this claim.”

In response, Lundahl (2022m) continues to invoke his useless proclamation that the “earliest known audience” is “evidence” of the history of Genesis 3:

“My evidence being, and I think I may have already stated it, "taken so by earliest known audience" and this meaning transmitted as history rather than fiction, miraulous [sic, spelling!!] recovery of lost history, prophecy, reconstructed.”

Now, as I explained in Henke (2022b; 2022bh), his “earliest known audience” scam is worthless in identifying what is history because people frequently lie or misinterpret events, and the number of other gullible people that believe these lies and misinterpretations can grow considerably over time (e.g., the St. Philomena myth in Henke 2022es). The lies can be exceptionally effective if they deal with the remote past or remote locations. These phenomena are seen in religions, political movements, and urban myths all the time. It’s seen in Islam, Putin’s propaganda about the war in Ukraine and also from the lies that President Donald Trump and his followers promote and spread about the 2020 Presidential election.

After President Trump lost the 2020 election, he and a small group of his staff, including Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, claimed that the Democrats had cheated and that President Trump had actually won the election. They claimed that voting machines had been rigged, that dead people had voted, that votes for President Biden had been counted more than once, and that fake ballots had been cast from suitcases underneath polling tables in Atlanta, Georgia. The US Attorney General under the Trump administration, Bill Barr, thoroughly investigated all of these accusations. Barr concluded that none of the stories were true, also here and here. Even after being informed by Barr and state officials, including many Republicans, that he had lost the election and that the accusations of voter fraud were untrue, Trump continued to deliberately lie and claim that he had won.

Now, here in the US we don’t directly elect the President of the US. We have an electoral college. Each candidate for US President has a slate of electors representing him/her in each state. The people vote for the slate of electors that represent the candidate that they want to become President. In December, the winning electors go to the state capitals and are supposed to vote for the Presidential candidate that they represent (in most cases, they are “faithful” and do so). Those electoral votes are then sent to Washington DC. The Vice President of the US (Mike Pence under Trump) then supervised the counting of the electoral votes and announced the results of the 2020 Presidential election on January 6, 2021.

Before January 6, 2021, President Trump coerced Vice President Mike Pence to either reject the electoral votes and declare Trump the winner or claim that there were “irregularities” in the electoral votes and that the votes had to be sent back to the states of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and possibly others for “reevaluation.” Numerous lawyers, including Eric Herschmann, informed the President and/or Trump lawyer John Eastman that what they wanted Vice President Pence to do was unconstitutional and illegal. Also here. They spent many hours with President Trump and his other staff members explaining the law in great detail and why Vice President Pence could not disrupt the counting of the electoral votes on January 6. President Trump, Rudy Giuliani and a few others refused to listen and continued to claim that Pence could reject electoral votes and that President Trump had actually won the 2020 election. Vice President Pence, fortunately, refused to comply with Trump’s demands. A large group of Trump supporters blindly believed Trump’s lies and they stormed the US Capitol on January 6 to stop the electoral count. Fortunately, they failed to subvert the U.S. Constitution. Although I don't like Biden, the count eventually proceeded as required by law and President Biden was elected.

Now, the lies about the 2020 Presidential election are quite detailed and look plausible on the surface. Former President Trump and his followers continue to preach these lies. The lies have not gone away, but they have already become part of other right-wing conspiracies about how communists, socialists, Antifa, satanists and others are conspiring through election fraud, brainwashing university students, the media, etc. to destroy the Christian foundation of the US. This movement is growing as the US becomes more polarized and divided in terms of religion, culture and politics.

Surveys here and here indicate that about 33% of the American adult population believe President Trump’s lies and that the Democrats stole the 2020 election. According to the 2020 census there are 258 million adult Americans. In other words, about 86 million Americans believe the lie that Trump actually won the 2020 election. That’s more than the 72 million Roman Catholics in the US. So, this is not an insignificant Right-wing group. It’s true that a majority of American adults (66% or so) either correctly accept the results of the 2020 election or are undecided about what happened. However, contrary to what Mr. Lundahl might believe, it’s not the simple majority that is most often the “earliest known audience.” The simple majority may be totally apathetic about the issue or totally ignorant about why the lies are wrong. Very few people have read the Barr and other reports and would be able to win a debate with many of the enthusiastic Trump supporters that have memorized and totally believe the details of Trump’s deceptive talking points. In contrast to the “silent majority”, many of Trump’s supporters believe the lies and are more than willing to promote them and debate their uninformed opponents. The “earliest known audience” is most often the dominant group that really believes the lies and are wholeheartedly and most vocally committed to them. Over time, they can eloquently promote the lies to the ignorant and apathetic majority. Before the development of the internet, they would suppress their opponents’ objections and try to control the narrative or what would become the “historical record.” The spreading of the lies is further enhanced by any endorsement from influential political and religious leaders, such as TV evangelists.

So, what is going to happen? Trump and his supporters will continue to spread their lies. The lies will merge with other Right-wing propaganda and Right-wingers will widely promoted this disinformation in their churches, among relatives and friends, in various organizations, and to their children and grandchildren. The right-wingers would never want themselves or others to forget about the “gross injustice” of the 2020 election and how it was part of a grand left-wing conspiracy to destroy the US. Meanwhile, most Americans aren’t going to read the Barr report or inform themselves and others on what really happened. If they get into a debate with a Trump supporter, they would likely lose and might even be persuaded to believe the lies. In the long run, the very loud and vocal Trump supporters are going to have far more influence than the largely ignorant or undecided majority of Americans. Although we have access to information on the Internet that refutes Trump’s lies, there are also plenty of Right-wing websites that continue to spread the lies and counteract the facts. The Trump followers are vocal and confident of their beliefs. The majority of Americans are either ignorant, don’t know or don’t care. This is a fertile environment for Trump supporters to become the “earliest known audience” for the 2020 election. This is how disinformation spreads. The lies associated with the 2020 Presidential election and its likely enduring legacy are yet another example of how the “earliest known audience” can be wrong and unreliable.

In another example, Putin is successful waging a disinformation campaign on the war in Ukraine among the “earliest known Russian audience.” His lies are winning and it’s likely that in 100 or more years, a majority of Russians will view Putin as a hero, especially if Russia wins this war. Perhaps, the Russian Orthodox Church will even declare Putin to be a saint. So, Hypothesis #3 on the Talking Snake story has great merit. Lies and misinterpretations can spread, convinced a lot of people and quickly be labelled as “historical fact.” These current events clearly indicate that Mr. Lundahl’s “earliest known audience” is a totally unreliable determinant for what is history and what is a lie.