It’s election season, and the poorly-fabricated false memes are spreading. Be on the lookout, because they are definitely planning to lie to you.

This one’s almost believable unless you think it through: It’s a fake version of the Republican “Commitment To America” that has absolutely nothing in common with their actual platform, or for that matter their policies.

In this one and those like it, the talking points include a plan to cut off Medicare to people above 90, to tax veteran’s benefits, to end Social Security, and so on. They begin with the somewhat-reasonable target of eliminating “double-dipping” — people that collect more than one check; even Andrew Yang’s UBI plan does this, so it’s far from a Republican-only concept. But from there, the claims become outrageous.

If you think about it for even a moment, you’ll remember that the majority of Republican voters are older. If they don’t collect Social Security now, they will soon. Thus, the very concept of Republicans eliminating, or even severely reducing, these payments is ludicrously unlikely; they’d alienate their own voter base. And taxing veteran’s benefits? Again, this is only hurting themselves. They’d as soon pass a hefty tax on guns and ammunition, or big trucks and S.U.V.s.

A reasonable Republican spending cut plan would be focused on welfare benefits, social assistance programs, and other things that target non-Republicans. However, the actual “Commitment To America” plan does none of this. In fact, some of the items are right out of this year’s Democratic talking points, which is a bit surprising, to be honest. (You can find it here.)

Bottom line: There’s a lot of propaganda out there, and a lot of people who don’t mind spreading lies if it benefits their chosen team. If what you’re reading matches your prejudices — it’s probably a lie.

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