If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it , people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic, and military consequences of the lie... the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. Joseph Goebbels
Today marks one month until the inauguration of a new president, and the beginning of a new era. But between now and then we still have to deal with the lies and posturing of the old president. Trump is braying like the jackass he is, still promising that he will overturn the results of the election. Still claiming the election was stolen from him and he is the rightful winner and deserves another term as president. The saddest part of all, is he has convinced sixty million people that what he is saying is true.
Sixty million people! It boggles the mind. But the Trump administration is ending just the way it began; with lies. He proclaimed that he had a bigger crowd at his inauguration than his predecessor, Barack Obama, though photographs by the Park Service showed far fewer people were in attendance. Thus, began a barrage of daily lies, exaggerations, blatant misinformation, and alternative facts. Now four years later, the total of those lies is a staggering 200,247.
But if you asked those who voted for Trump, all 74,111,400+ of them, you will get an argument that it is just the liberal 'fake news' trying to make Trump look bad. How did 74-million people not see the results of four years of mismanagement, mishandling, misdirection, maladministration, and mayhem. The revolving door of White House aides, and inept Cabinet Heads, who then penned tell-all books detailing the dumpster-fire that was the West Wing. They couldn't all be disgruntled employees.
And now in an article in The London Times comes word that in an oval office meeting on Friday, there was a proposal to activate the military, declare Marshall Law, and seize the voting machines in the four largest states that voted for Biden though they had voted for Trump in 2016. The idea was put forth by no less than Michael Flynn, whom Trump had pardoned last month, and Sidney Powell, an attorney so out of touch with reality that Rudy Julianne dismissed her from his team.
Trump is toying with the idea of making Ms. Powell lead attorney in his bid to overturn the election, and he wants her to get security clearance. The idea so preposterous that Mark Meadows, chief of staff, argued vociferously against it. The meeting ended in a shouting match, with saner heads prevailing. But how long can we count on being delivered from the edge of doom by the so called 'adults in the room'?
Trump is getting further away from reality the closer his eviction from the White house gets. His supporters are calling for a mass rally at the Capitol on January 6th, the day that Congress counts the votes from the Electoral college, with Trumps blessing . One can only surmise what will that will devolve into.
Trump is still supported by fanatical Republicans who are banking on using that support to bolster their election chances in 2022. And as long as these outliers continue beating this dead horse, the longer Trump will continue with his fantasies. The fear of those close to Trump is that he is beginning to believe his own lies, he has become detached from reality, and that is dangerous. Not just for our country, but for the world in general.
This man holds the code to the nuclear arsenal, one wonder if the military would refuse a direct order from their Commander-in Chief. More than one foreign county is wondering the same thing, and not under their breath anymore, but aloud in their parliaments. The reputation of the United States is diminishing by the day, except in countries such as China and Russia, who are gleefully making the best of this circus, in their newspapers. How demeaning to be laughed at by our avowed enemies, and mocked by our allies.
All the while, when this is going on, we are in the grip of a pandemic and the life-saving vaccines which have been given the green light are being held up because of a total screw-up by the government. States are being shorted delivery amounts, the manufacturer is complaining of a backlog of shipments from its factories, as precious doses are unclaimed at the warehouses.
Then comes news of a massive cyberattack on several government agencies, the scope of which will take years to unravel. What information was taken and to whom was it given may never be known. Those in the know say it has Russia's fingerprints all over it. But Trump says it was China; it's always China - China, China, China. Trump also denies that the break-in was anything to worry about, just a little computer problem. And he knows better than anyone because he was briefed on the affair.
Trump is our very own Nero, totally distracted while our problems keep mounting, thousands of people are dying on a daily basis - as many everyday as were killed on 9/11. Trump takes credit for the development of the vaccine, yet he won't take it for himself. He does nothing to correct the SNAFU in the delivery of the vaccine, he is too busy plotting his revenge on those people he feels deserted him. To those Republicans who dared to admit that he lost the election, he vows retribution.
The cure for all this is for the public and the press to cut him off from the attention he craves. When a two-year old throws a tantrum, reasoning does not work, but walking away does. Without an audience, Trump will be preaching only to the believers, but even they will tire of his tantrums, and soon will walk away. One cannot sustain that level of outrage for very long, eventually the furor will subside and Trump will be just another false prophet, relegated to the dustbin of history.
But someone else will take his place. We must be constantly on guard, now that we know the results of such sycophancy and unchecked devotion from the fringe element. We must defend our democracy or we stand to lose it, we came so close to disaster this time.
Those whom the gods wish to destroy; they first make mad. Nothing has proved this point clearer than the rise of Donald J. Trump.
I'm just sayin'
