Ben Carson cites fake Stalin quote, the crowd goes wild

Presidential candidate Ben Carson, famous for insisting that he really did try to gut stab a classmate when he was 14, closed the Republican debate on Saturday with a fake quote from Joseph Stalin. "Joseph Stalin said if you want to bring America down you have to undermine three things -- our spiritual life, our patriotism, and our morality," said Carson.

Stalin never said it. From Gideon Resnick of The Daily Beast:

Any quick Google search of the quote's origins would lead Carson to discover that the line comes from an image that was passed around on Facebook and in the chain emails grandparents send around to family members.

"America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within," the fake quote goes.

When it comes to fake quotes about patriotism and religion, I prefer the one Sinclair Lewis didn't say: "When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."