It is one year until the 2024 election. Lord help us.

There needs to be a Truth in Political Advertising law – just as there are Truth in Advertising, defamation and fraud laws that don’t violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.

You would think that vile antisemitic tropes in mailers targeting Jewish candidates would invite backlash, especially in Long Island, or that a campaign of baseless claims of corruption or fabricating an opponent’s record (or one’s own) instead of lauding one’s accomplishments, record, or background, would be disqualifying.  We could hope that the sense of shame would be enough of a deterrent. But as we have seen in the past decade, there is no such thing as shame anymore and negative attacks are disgustingly effective.

That famous adage, “Never underestimate the voter” to be able to discern truth, evaluate a candidate’s character and make a wise choice, has long been replaced by “Never underestimate the stupidity of the American voter.”

It’s all the more important because voters have proved to be lazy, gullible and easily manipulated. They are barraged by propaganda, misinformation, disinformation and agitprop from social media now dominated by billionaires with their own political agendas. The effectiveness can be seen in polls which show Biden and Democrats are actually falling behind Trump and the White Christo Fascist MAGA Republicans among young voters (so much for student debt relief, gun violence prevention, women’s reproductive rights, climate action, job and wage growth) and Blacks and Hispanics (so much for protecting workers’ rights, voting rights, civil rights, and doing their damnedest to get fair, humane immigration reform). The polls revealed Biden is trailing Trump in five swing states that voted for the president in 2020.

(Pollsters should include a question: “Where do you primarily get your news?” for a better assessment of the results.)

Trump, who is on trial for fraud, for stealing national secrets, for mounting a coup and an insurrection, has made lying – and the Big Lie – his main weapon – in fact, using the exact language and charges leveled against him, turning them around against his opponents.

Trump now routinely calls Biden “the most corrupt president in history” (as if we are supposed to get confused about who is the most corrupt president in history, the first to be impeached twice, to be indicted four times, facing 91 counts, the first to have fomented a deadly insurrection and attempted coup while in office). More recently during speeches in which he claims Biden has dementia, Trump rambles, slurs his words and seems to forget we already fought WWII, Obama is not his opponent, Orban is the autocrat of Hungary, not Turkey, and Hungary does not share a border with Russia.

But this has become a tactic that Republican candidates down the line have been using: attacking Democrats as “corrupt”– without basis. It follows the tactic Republicans have been using for decades but raised to high art by Trump of accusing opponents of the very crimes he (they) commit (including election rigging, voter fraud, campaign finance abuses).

In this case, Republicans were desperate to somehow remove or diminish being tainted by the actual crooks, liars, fraudsters and thieves they coddle – George Santos and Donald Trump. It’s why Trump refers to President Biden as “Crooked Joe” just as he had called Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary” (and anybody else who goes against him). It’s why the House Republicans are turning themselves into corkscrews trying to impeach Biden without looking utterly ridiculous.

And it all circles back to the legalized corruption of campaign finance laws –  thanks to the 2010 Citizens United decision by the radical extremist rightwing Supreme Court majority, ruling cash is speech – which in practical terms means “money talks.”

This is not a sideshow but rather political deception is at the center of whether we can actually have free and fair elections that depend on an educated electorate casting their ballot.

With the emergence of Artificial Intelligence on top of social media (TikTok, Elon Musk’s X, Truth Social and the many platforms dedicated to insurrection and destroying our democratic institutions), the ease of producing and disseminating political disinformation, only will make the electoral system that much more vulnerable, unstable and turn the world upside down, inside out, like Alice tumbling down a rabbit hole into Wonderland.

In this topsy-turvy world, it isn’t Trump who is corrupt, it is Biden; it isn’t Trump’s Justice Department or Attorney General Bill Barr, the Cabinet or insurrectionist Republican Congress members who weaponized the federal government to keep power, it is Biden’s administration; and it isn’t Trump, who is already setting up his Second Administration with loyalists and sycophants whose sole agenda will be to prosecute and persecute his enemies (including President Biden).

Trump’s adherents are planning to effectuate his Project 2025 agenda of installing a Putin/Orban/Erdogan-style dictatorship rather than doing anything for the nation like expanding health care, addressing climate change, reducing gun violence, or making society fairer or more productive. That’s Biden’s agenda, but in Trump’s retelling that’s taking away your freedom.

“The truth means nothing to Trump if it stands in the way of getting and exercising power,” writes People for the American Way in an email to supporters. “He has made it clear that if he gets the chance, he will use his power as head of the executive branch to turn the federal government into a weapon for personal revenge against anyone he doesn’t believe is sufficiently loyal to him.

“Trump and his supporters continue to pump out election-related conspiracy theories that undermine trust in democracy and foster support for political violence,” the progressive advocacy organization said.

The Biden administration has recognized the threat Artificial Intelligence poses and has begun to issue policy and rules which may or may not temper the abuse in political campaigns.

But more needs to be done to rein in deceptive political advertising and marketing, just as there is Truth in Advertising law to protect consumers.

Actually, the Biden administration has just introduced rules to curb deceptive advertising and marketing to protect Medicare recipients from being taken advantage of by Medicare Advantage brokers, “so that can make better choices”.

There should be similar rules to protect voters. Indeed, the ramifications are even more impactful, including whether there is affordable, accessible healthcare, sensible gun violence prevention, climate action, voting rights, civil rights and women’s rights.