When we think about the horrors that lie within Trump’s mind, this makes sense to most of us: Lying and cheating comes more naturally to him, and provides greater rewards, than any attempt at winning with intelligence and honesty.
Somehow, due to our faults as a society, we fell for it once, but it’s not going to happen twice.
When one looks at this apparently recent conversation in which Fox News interviews Donald Trump, it’s hard not to wonder what will ultimately become of the narrative of the stolen presidential election of 2020.
In the extremely unlikely event that Trump is re-elected in 2024, or in the almost certainty that he will be be defeated, there will remain tens of millions of Americans who believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, the 2020 election was rigged in favor of Biden.
Are there tapes showing “people stuffing ballot boxes?” No. Does that have any bearing on the beliefs of Trump supporters? Of course not.
I advise coming up to speed on high school math and science before making this investment.
Of course, these people prey upon ignorance, and there’s plenty of that to go around these days.
At left is Sebastian Gorka, media host and commentator currently affiliated with NewsMax TV, and former government official who served briefly in the Trump administration as a Deputy Assistant to the President. Here, he’s speaking to The Association of “Mature American Citizens,” i.e., Trump supporters:
In the United States, the presidential election is decided by what is known as the electoral college, which is:
the group of presidential electors required by the Constitution to form every four years for the sole purpose of voting for the president and vice president. Each state appoints electors under the methods described by its legislature, equal in number to its congressional delegation (representatives and senators) totaling 535 electors.
This has precisely one effect: providing voters in states with small populations a considerable advantage in terms of political power over those in states with large populations. For example, in Wyoming, one electoral vote derives from each group of 193,000 citizens. In California, that number is 741,000, meaning that Wyoming voters are 3.8 times more powerful than Californians in determining the outcome of these elections.
What makes this important are the factors that go into making small states small and big states big. What we see when we examine this is that big states tend to have higher levels of education, productivity, and affluence. Thus, the electoral college skews U.S. voting in favor of the relatively uneducated, poor, and uninformed.
Does that sound like a good idea to anyone who honestly wants this nation governed and directed by intelligence? Shown in the chart below at the annual revenues, in billions of dollars, of the Golden States largest corporations. There is a reason that Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. are headquartered in California and not in Wyoming; these decisions were not made by rolling dice or flipping coins.
There is a push to abolish the electoral college, and, needless to say, I support it.
When I was a little boy, I used to ask my parents questions that would help me understand the basics of living in America. I remember what they told me about electing the president of the United States, and the qualities most people looked for in the person who would ultimately come to occupy the highest office in the land.
Though I can’t remember anything more specific about the conversation, I definitely recall that “honesty” and “high moral character” were at the top of the list, and I went through my life believing this to be the case.
You can imagine my surprise and dismay when, half a century later, Donald Trump arrived on the political scene. I called my mother, and asked how it was possible that this man has any traction whatsoever with American voters.
She was almost as shocked as I was.
First, we can either reject this idea (at left) or accept it as truth. Since it comes from a fairly decent pedigree, Plato, let’s assume that it has some merit.
From there, we need to wonder what he meant by “others.” Our family members? Our countrymen? Those of our own skin color? Those following our particular political or religious system of beliefs?
It seems most likely that he was referring to all humankind, and that’s why ideas like “America First” seem so foreign to so many of us.
The question raised here is a good one.
There are those who foretell the so-called “sixth extinction,” citing the high probability of nuclear war and environmental collapse.
Of course, world fascism wouldn’t cause an extinction per se, but it would render life on this planet hellish indeed.
The best we can do is to a) expel Donald Trump from our political lives, b) support Ukraine against the illegal Russian invasion, c) invest in decarbonization of our energy and transportation sectors, and d) negotiate for international nuclear disarmament treaties.
As suggested in the photo at left, there seems to be a great deal of animosity on the part of gas-powered car/truck owners (vs. EV drivers), just like there is of meat-eaters (vs. vegans). Isn’t this a monumental waste of time?
The truth is that some people have compassion for animals, and some folks are concerned about environmental sustainability. If you don’t fit into either category, that’s completely fine, but it seems weird to be so aggressive.
There is no doubt that U.S. Democrats have issues with voter registration and turnout. Yet one has to think that this issue is shrinking in importance as the years go by.
Four years later, we are wrestling with the end of U.S. democracy, possibly handing over of our government to a criminal sociopath.
That doesn’t sound like a who-cares, let’s stay home moment in time.
