Anybody who knows me knows I’m a huge fan of HBO’s The Wire, often ranked among the greatest TV shows ever. On the surface, it’s a story about cops and drug dealers, but at its core, it’s about institutions — how they operate, how they perpetuate, and how people get swept up by forces larger than themselves.
The Wire is filled with dialogue that explains institutions. Case in point: Slim Charles, one of its many iconic characters, delivers one of the most insightful quotes: “If we go to war on a lie, then we fight on that lie.” Considering today’s political climate, the line was brilliant and prescient.
For years, Donald Trump has repeated false claims about the 2020 election — claims rejected by courts, election officials, and members of his own administration. But the danger isn’t simply the falsehood. It’s that entire institutions are pressured to behave as if they’re true. When leaders organize rallies, raise money, punish dissenters, and justify new policies based on a known lie, they pull everyone into Slim Charles’ trap.
A democracy can survive losing an election. What it cannot survive is being forced to defend fiction as fact. Once that happens, loyalty replaces evidence, and entrenchment replaces accountability. You don’t argue your way out of a lie you’ve already committed to. You enforce it.
That’s what Slim Charles understood. War built on falsehood doesn’t stay contained. It corrodes judgment, demands more lies to sustain the first one, and eventually destroys trust in the systems meant to resolve conflict without violence.
The lesson isn’t about entertainment. It’s about power. When leaders insist we fight on a lie, the real danger is forgetting that truth was ever an option at all.
I’m Joseph Flynn, and that is my perspective, now please, go watch The Wire.
