Mendacities, Mendacities

Ah or Ach!

It is two years on now and there is not a shred of evidence of election fraud, except perhaps in the perverted and obsessive minds of Trump and his horde as they continue to attempt to overturn the election results. On the contrary, there is a great deal of evidence concerning Trump’s treasonous advocacy of illegal and unconstitutional machinations in his effort to assume and maintain power. And, in fact, if we look at primary results we find his success in holding sway over the Republican Party, though certainly not the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln. I cannot understand what is meant when the papers refer to Trump’s hold on the party: what is it that his followers believe that they advocate when they listen to his bluster. What exactly do these followers believe Trump had done that could warrant their loyalty; what could he possibly promise to do should he become President again. The horror, the horror! Here is my concern: on the one hand despite a total lack of evidence of election fraud espoused by Trump and other of his “loyal” disciples, and despite, on the other hand, the existence of a considerable amount of evidence of the illegalities in which he and his sycophants engaged not only in their attempt to maintain their hold on power but in their attempts to govern, there are still government members of Congress and other government officials. And there are yet too many millions of adherents who unbelievably continue to espouse allegiance to the lie that the election was stolen. On what bases can they maintain their beliefs?

            I am considering how damn stupid these followers must be to refuse to accept what over the past two years has been proven in investigative studies, in court cases, and  common sense (!) to be fact: Joe Biden was duly elected President of the United States by seven million popular votes and 306 electoral votes and Donald Trump lost the election by 7 million popular votes and 74 electoral votes. What are these people all clinging to at this late date?

            One easy answer is that Trump and his mob-horde (that includes Senators and Representatives and other government wannabees as well as regular US citizens) continue to espouse a racist, sexist, homophobic agenda that only a reactionary regime could accomplish. They would return to a moment in history when white males controlled almost everything, or even everything, or so they believed. Trump supporters are not conservatives, let it be known, they are reactionaries. They would abandon all the progress made incrementally and often too slowly in realizing the ideals by which the founders organized the government in the US Constitution, flawed as that document even was as originally conceived and written. Over the years there have been corrections and even sometimes improvements to the document, perhaps in the form of amendments, laws, and edicts that were intended to maintain and solidify the more perfect union and to integrate socially marginal groups that had been excluded from the mainstream society. Though the Press refers to them too often as “conservatives,” albeit on the Right, author Mark Lilla has challenged that designation. He has argued rather that “Conservatives have always seen society as a kind of inheritance we receive and are responsible for; we have obligations toward those who came before and to those who will come after, and these obligations take priority over [individual] rights.” Those inheritances, argue the conservatives, will be passed on “implicitly” through slow changes in custom and tradition and not through explicit political action. What one is paid to keep in safety, or from harm, decay or loss is the nation governed by a Constitution that has organized a separation of powers. But the reactionaries of the Republican Party would tear down everything that the nation strives to become so that it can be wholly rebuilt in their fascistic image.

Trump’s lies and actions supported by the Republican party has sundered civil society apart and threatened to unravel the fragile threads that have woven the fabric of United States society together since the Revolution in 1776. Trump and his Republican legislative, judicial and civil horde have little interest in the Constitution except as it hinders their grasp and retention of power. Trump and his horde has shown little interest in society, or for that matter, little interest in the well-being of individuals. Make America Great Again? When exactly would that have been? During the days of slavery, of the massacre of Native Americans? Of imperialistic conquests? Of aiding and abetting dictatorships? No, Trump and his minions care only about themselves, acquiring and maintaining their hold on power. His obsequious followers sit on his coattails in the hopes that they will carry them to increased and absolute control over the government, the judicial system and the military. In their own quest for self-serving power, they would follow the supreme egotist who really  cares little for them except as they mirror his image for him.

And I continue to wonder why so many with absolutely no evidence to the contrary almost religiously adhere and desperately cling to his lies. I have come to believe that a few almost reputable Republican members of Congress as well as a significant number of ongoing Trump supporters continue to deny what reality continues to assert because they do not want to believe that they are people who can be lied to. They continue to believe the lies so that they can maintain their own self-image and think well of themselves. They would not be known as gullible people to whom one can lie and deceive.

I have spent my entire life in education and am frightened by the willed ignorances of so many.