Don’t trust your lying eyes — trust Maxine Waters. She talked to some people.

Lady Macbeth understood politics. Her advice was chillingly simple: “Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t.” Appear harmless. Conceal the dagger. Say one thing, mean another. Democrat politicians in Los Angeles have followed that script — not to serve truth, but to manage appearances. Their goal is not persuasion but manipulation: Craft a narrative, distract the public, appeal to empathy, and most of all, get you to surrender your ability to think for yourself. Once that’s done, they can do as they please — with your property, your freedom, and your country.

A radical leftist party that tells us not to think for ourselves or believe what we see, but instead blindly accept its cultural Marxist narrative about how the United States is evil.

But every so often, one of them slips. Not on purpose, of course. Truth is a dangerous thing for such people, and when it leaks out, it’s an accident. Still, when it happens, it’s a gift — an unfiltered glimpse into the worldview and strategy they typically hide behind layers of euphemism and doublespeak.

Such a moment happened with Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) when she uttered the now-immortal words: “Don’t believe what you see.” She meant it. And it tells you everything you need to know about the mind of the modern social justice politician.

Let’s set the scene. Fires rage across Los Angeles. A man stands triumphantly on a car, waving a Mexican flag, while other cars burn around him. The air is thick with smoke and shattered glass. You don’t need a Ph.D. in criminal justice to conclude that this isn’t a peaceful gathering of concerned citizens asking to debate policy.

And yet, speaking in the midst of smoldering chaos, Waters and her fellow Democrat officials — Governor Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass — chant the same refrain: There’s nothing to see here.

Waters, attempting to rewrite reality in real time, gave us this gem:

Even those who were out of step with what we are advocating — peaceful protest — did not create any violence. Nobody was shot. Nobody was killed. ... I was on the street, I know ... talking to people about what happened. ... Don’t just rely on what you’ve been told or the few incidents that you saw.

In a single breath, she accomplishes several feats of logical acrobatics. First, she insists there was no violence — while conceding at the very outset that some number of demonstrators were “out of step.” That means, by definition, violent people were doing violent things. Second, she defines “non-violent” as “no one got shot or killed.” By that standard, you can flip police cars, punch officers, loot stores, and set city blocks ablaze — and it’s all perfectly peaceful. As long as no bullets fly and no one dies, the left gives it a moral stamp of non-violent approval.

But here’s the true heart of the message: Don’t believe your eyes.

She admits there were “a few incidents,” and yes, you may have seen video evidence. But don’t trust it. Trust her. Forget your senses. Forget what you saw, what your neighbors saw, what your newsfeed overflowed with for hours. Instead, cling to the narrative. Believe her and the people she talked to.

And this is not an isolated slip. It is the modus operandi of the modern left. Doublespeak is the official dialect of the progressive ruling class. Every statement is a contradiction wrapped in a euphemism, dipped in good intentions, and served with moral superiority.

Yes, that’s a man in a dress with poorly applied lipstick, but he’s a woman. Don’t believe your eyes or what biology says.

Yes, Democrat-run cities are poorer, filled with homeless encampments, and more dangerous — but that’s called standing with the oppressed, not a failure of governance.

Yes, working hard, being on time, studying math, and avoiding vice used to be good advice, but now it’s structural racism.

Yes, universities are teaching young adults to hate their neighbors and live in a permanent state of envy, but it’s all in the name of social justice.

Yes, they committed crimes, but it is the policeman’s fault for showing up and catching them.

Again and again, the left presents a world turned upside down and demands that you call it progress.

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We should not be surprised. Scripture warns us of those who call good evil and evil good. The leftist narrative demands this kind of reversal — because it cannot survive reality. If you believe your eyes, the spell is broken. If you see the results of their policies, the revolution begins to look like a disaster.

And here’s the part they never account for: the darkness in their own hearts. They promise to build a better society, a just society, but their foundation is not virtue or repentance — it is envy, resentment, and the lust for control. They want to help others, but they can’t even help themselves. They promise Marxist utopias but live in a darkened heart.

Where conservatives ask the government to fulfill its constitutional duty — especially to “ensure domestic tranquility” and “provide for the common defense” — leftists ask the government to make their lives feel better. All of their anger at life and frustration over unfulfilled hopes gets externalized as someone else’s fault. It’s projected onto the United States as the oppressor, the colonizing empire. That Mexico sold California to the United States — after briefly owning it for about 20 years, and all over 150 years ago — is somehow the explanation for why life in Southern California isn’t what they hoped for in 2025. And if it isn’t the United States, then it’s “whiteness” or “heteronormativity.”

They read Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” not as satire, but as a policy guide.

The riots play this out right in front of us: people lashing out at the system, not because they’ve thought carefully about justice, but because they’ve never learned to take responsibility for their lives. Their suffering must always be someone else’s fault — usually a neighbor who worked harder, obeyed the law, or believed in God. Democrat officials appeal to pity for people who are facing hardships and blame the United States, while not once mentioning the life choices made by people.

Meanwhile, Karen Bass tells us, “Everything is fine” — right before instituting an 8 p.m. curfew downtown. Maxine Waters tells us, “Don’t believe what you see,” even as she stands amid the wreckage.

So no, I don’t believe what they say. I believe what I see. And what I see is this: a radical leftist party that tells us not to think for ourselves or believe what we see, but instead blindly accept its cultural Marxist narrative about how the United States is evil. I refuse.