Looking Back Two Weeks

 Don't Ignore the Others

This is certainly no time to relax, but it is almost like that Dutch kid in the story putting his finger in a dike, an almost insurmountable task.  There are 70 million Trump voters that cannot be ignored. Many, in addition to not accepting the election's results, do not denounce violence either.  That is frightening.  Convicted felons like Roger Stone, with commuted sentences, are permitted to spout lies in downtown Delray Beach. 

Jefferson Saw it Coming 

Thomas Jefferson, less than a generation after the founding of our republic, wrote the following:  

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." That's why he was big on public education, founding the University of Virginia. Jefferson was a foe of ignorance.  Other Presidents (like Jackson and Trump) relish it. Such ignorance is a basic tenet of today's Republican party which still refuses to denounce Trump's lies. 

Rumsfeld Said So Ages Ago

Conservative icon Donald Rumsfeld once said that the absence of evidence is not evidence of its absence.  Trumpublicans apply that warped logic to their charges of election fraud.  “We have no proof of it but that doesn’t prove it didn’t happen,” they say. That's why these nut jobs are inconvincible, not willing to believe their ship is sinking, even as the water pours in up to their knees.  

And it is Crippling our Education System 

Few of the ignorant read the nation’s history, or much of anything else for that matter, and this applies to at least half of our population.  Kids in our schools are way behind their peers in schools in other nations.  Notice the names, usually indicating immigrant parents, of so many of those rising to the top in medicine, engineering and like professions.  That is no accident. Things will get better, but only after a long, long, period of their getting worse.  Like maybe, the Middle Ages?

What Can You Do? 

But getting down to doing something constructive today, every loyal American should email and call their Senators and Representative in Congress demanding that Trump follow presidential transition procedures now.  Delay endangers our national security.  In addition, those who believe in the Constitution as the law of the land must concentrate on the Democrats winning those two Senate seats in Georgia.  Donate money.  Sign up to make phone calls and write postal cards. 

That May Not Be Enough 

But even twin victories for Warnock and Ossoff there will not, I’m afraid, convince those who believe the moon is made of green cheese.  What makes them that way?  Why do they still pledge allegiance to a man who holds them in contempt and does nothing for them, except play the cheerleader, lie and massage their nationalistic egos.

WHY??  A Sad Story 

Here’s why.  They see Donald J. Trump as an outsider who upset the system.  In the eyes of half the nation’s population, the “system” has been screwing them for years, favoring minorities, immigrants, globalization, the United Nations and high falutin’ elitist ideas, including treaties which benefit the world, and world peace, but not specifically the United States.  But doing little for them. Like that BS about climate change! They take the Affordable Care Act, Social Security, public education and food and drug regulation as institutions favoring someone other than them.   Just more socialism where the government butts in where it has no business being. (But don’t take my parents’ Medicare away ... or mine if I'm old enough !)

For different reasons, that is the position Trump takes too!  He’s against what they’re against. A bull in the china shop! They can’t shake things up but he can, and that is why 70,000,000 voters see him as an outsider, just like them.  And he wears a red MAGA hat too, just like they do.  They belong to the same club… and its not Mar-a-Lago.  Fast food, television watching, Twitter, Facebook and no deep intellectual stuff, all are shared by them with Donald.  Country music but not folk music!  Nobody’s going to force him to wear a mask either; and he got sick and he got better fast!  See!  Donnie and me are right there together!  No mask for me!  

The Democrats Did Not Defeat Trump.  The Coronavirus Did.

I really don’t see how the Democrats can compete with this. Were it not for the Coronavirus, Trump would have won a second term!  Democrats lost seats in the House and thus far, only picked up one in the Senate.  Even Susan Collins won re-election.  We all expected more.

But the two Senate run-off races in Georgia offer you a start.  Participate in them!  Regardless of where you live.  Give America a cause for optimism.  Give democracy a cause for optimism.

JL

GRRRRRRRRRR!