"I'm tired of egotists. They're more interested in themselves than in me." (My favorite joke lately.) I've been keeping a file of quotes and jokes…
Living Past the Lies
Anxious about the election? Tired of being lied to? Concerned that our two-hundred-year-old democratic republics could abruptly end, delivered over to petty but fanatical moralists and the amoral rich? Hitler lost the battle, but are his types resurging to win the war?
I’m anxious but hopeful. I’m worn out by life, my career, and trying to be a decent citizen. I will end this essay with hope, but I must first admit the danger. You’ll note my leftist slant for much of this. But read on for my critique of “the left” as well.
Our Dangerous Plight
We are amidst a Shakespearean-level drama, a Marx Brothers type of comedy that could end in a Kierkegaardian tragedy. What will this moment in history do to the American story? Perhaps you’re like me, sick of the tension, worried about the state of our society, abhorred by the slimy characters, and tired of the lies.
Barbra Streisand sang it well in her song, probably to Trump:
How do you sleep when the world keeps turning?
All that we built has come undone
How do you sleep when the world is burning?
Everyone answers to someone
Hannah Arendt tried to warn us. Having escaped Hitler, she wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism about the fascist tactic of rampant lying leading to passive cynicism.
“Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow… instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.“ (my emphasis)
The Washington Post calculated that Donald Trump has told over 30,000 lies. It was ready to endorse Kamala Harris when ultrarich owner Jeff Bezos nixed it.
Misleading Media
Bezos’ sin of omission is worse than the media’s harking on the most ridiculous report: that most in the country say we are “going in the wrong direction.” What a worthless and misleading report! Wrong direction in which way? Stumbling into generations of needless overheating that could ruin our agriculture and economies? Propping up a new Hitler with a better hair-do? Promoting fear and hatred of darker people and those who vote differently? Attacking our schools and election workers? Shooting children with weapons of war?
If “the wrong direction” is every direction, what’s the point when it just leads to more cynicism? The media feeds on conflict. Algorithms exacerbate emotionalized conflict, augmenting any passionate point in any direction. Chaos magnifies the lies we too easily take as truths.
A survey of the world’s religions shows lying as a sin abhorred by all. Our culture’s Bible says the Lord hates “a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.” (Proverbs 6:19)
Yet, some seventy million voters are poised to elect a blatant, divisive liar blessed by supposed Christians. Despite his increasingly angry rants and “weaves” of incoherent but familiar slogans, they’re eager to inflict him on our society and planet. Perhaps he doesn’t want the job and seeks to go down in history as a martyr.
His “I took a bullet for democracy,” going on to claim God has other plans for him, is also a lie, twisting it as if Democrats aimed the gun, not a loner looney brandishing the sort of weapon Republicans insist we need if we’re to be safe.
Especially revealing are the 34 felony counts against him. Each is merely an accounting crime, pretending his payoff to Stormy Daniels was a business expense. The real offense was his hiding his low-life “affair” (it was far less than an affair) from the voting public. He hid his character from the country, then dismissed and negated half the country by claiming he wasn’t voted out by them.
Playing the victim while attacking others is a familiar political tactic. I call it “attacking with defensiveness.” Besides being miraculously saved by God from the Democrats who are after him, Trump warns of an invasion of utterly nefarious foreigners making our country a garbage pail. His rhetoric uses the opposite of a depressed person’s totalistic thinking like “I’ll never improve,” “it’s all for naught,” etc. Only his are totalistic attacks of fear and fighting: “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” He can’t admit that the multiple legal charges he faces come from his actions. Deny, deflect, and delay are his ploys.
A comedian at the Trump rally in Madison Square Garden joked that Puerto Rico is an island of garbage. It was a crude, insulting joke. Similarly, a weary President Biden referred to supporters of such insults as garbage. It was a mistake that he, unlike Trump, tried to apologize for. An angry reaction magnified his quip as if directed at all Trump supporters. How dare he say such a thing?
Former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger responded to the outrage:
“Let’s get something straight—Biden’s comment was wrong. As President, he should be cautious about divisive language. But let’s be honest about why this sudden indignation is nothing but hollow hypocrisy. The very people crying foul now are the same people who’ve spent the last eight years applauding every hateful insult Trump has thrown at his opponents. When Trump degrades people, they celebrate it as “telling it like it is.” But when Biden hits back, even mildly? “How dare he!” … Trump has consistently used language to tear down, belittle, and degrade. He doesn’t just disagree with opponents; he brands them as “vermin,” “animals,” “losers,” and “disgusting.” For years, Trump’s rhetoric has cut deeply into the nation’s fabric, pitting Americans against each other. Did anyone from his base raise their voice then? No. On the contrary, they’ve turned his degrading language into a rallying cry. They wear it like a badge of honor,”
Defensively, Trump argued back, embedding two mild insults into his reply. “Even though without question my supporters are far higher quality than Crooked Joe or Lyin’ Kamala,” Then he went on to imply he loves all Americans. “My response to Joe and Kamala is very simple: you can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans.”
“Love Americans?” To say nothing of his intent to divide families, deport millions, and sic the military on those who dare protest his ways. Love? He never refuted J.D. Vance’s fabricated lie that one type of peaceful immigrant was eating Americans’ dogs and cats.
Financing Lies
His barrage of attack ads to our mailboxes, email accounts, and texts are well-financed. Lying is well-funded, and it pays. He has lots of popular support, and following his conviction he raised $53M in small donations. But wait, here’s a list (taken from Purchasing Power by Susan Glasser on October 28, 2024, The New Yorker) of the big-money donors looking for tax breaks and positions in his potential administration: Elon Musk, $75M; Peter Thiel $15M (to J.D. Vance, positioned to be president once Trump’s dementia is more apparent); Nelson Peltz $10M (who once said Trump is a “terrible person”); Shaun Maguire $200K; Timothy Mellon $50M; Isaac Perlmutter $21M to a PAC and $25M to Trump; Yass Coin $70M (to conservative candidates); brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss $1M of BitCoin money to Trump; crypto magnate Howard Litnick $1M in 2017, $2.3M in 2020, $12.1M this year, and $5M to a Trump super PAC; $10M from the former head of the Small Business Administration; and $100M from Miriam Adelson.
Oh, yeah? Well, I gave $5 to Kamala and various races in Michigan, North Carolina, and a few other places! So, take that, you big-money bullies!
According to Open Secrets, Democrats have raised even more than Republicans, $5.2B to $3.3B, respectively. How much of each came from ordinary citizens instead of the mega-rich, I don’t know. I somehow got on the Republican money-raising texts, so I know they’re as relentless in asking for money as they are in insults and promises.
We’re the victims of secret big-money donors because of two lies inflicted on us by the stacked Supreme Court. (Remember when Mitch McConnel prevented Merrit Garland’s chance to be on the court, soon to be stuffed with three Trump nominees?) First, the Court claimed that corporations are “persons.” Then the Court declared such “persons” are entitled to “free speech” (meaning unlimited money) hidden from our view. What used to go to the parties now funds shadowy PACs and their limitless barrage of ads.
Divides that Conquer
Those ads dwell on and perpetuate resentment at the cost of living. Even though inflation was a worldwide response to the COVID-19 shutdown, not something President Biden could control, and even though the U.S. rate of reduction of that inflation is the best in the world, griping about the lack of money prevails in those ads. Missing from this is any mention of how behind-the-scenes manipulation of our government results in expensive increases to our insurance, medicine, food, and consumer items. Griping about taxes obscures these many other drains on our money.
Especially irksome to me is the rampant ignorance and anger about “taxes” to our paycheck. I used to wonder about that too, not knowing then that the bulk of such taxes was an investment to my own Social Security account. Plus, my employers were contributing an equal amount as I was paying – also not understood or appreciated. What I paid to help support old folks back then comes to me now that I’m one of them. Trump’s proposal to not pay taxes on such benefits is probably another way to defund and weaken our government. Few people realize that Social Security (ever the target of Republican resentment of our government caring for our people) is becoming Antisocial Insecurity in their plans.
Cynicism has us mistrusting and undermining the very aspects of government trying to care for us and our lands. Social Security, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education, etc., are all in danger of being utterly ruined because of amoral, sociopathic, greedy people who care about as much for all of us as they do for “shithole countries.”
What goes unexplained can then be belittled. The bulk of the tax I used to resent is coming to me in monthly revenue. Other taxes, like unemployment and workmen’s comp, help protect from mishaps. The agencies receiving my house tax are mostly schools and other aspects of a modern interdependent economy. Instead of appreciating such mechanisms, naysayers mock them as if they are the reason we’re disgruntled, ignoring all the other drains of our money.
Another contentious realm for arguments is abortion. Abortion has been a human option for eons. Missing from the discussion is the fact that God is the biggest abortionist. Most aborted pregnancies happen before women know they’re pregnant. Too bad for those mothers who miscarry in states where abortion is illegal; they can and do bleed out in a car outside the clinic where the doctors are afraid of being jailed for helping her.
Deliberate abortion is a moral issue. It ends what might live. I grant and respect the unease about such choices. But a nearly invisible fetus isn’t a “baby” or a “child.” The option to not continue with an unwanted pregnancy gets called the “freedom of choice,” when it’s more the “burden of choice.” How legislators can presume to reach into a woman’s body – preventing her from owning her body and self-cells, demanding she bear the pain and expense of delivery and then the responsibility and expense of raising a child – astonishes me. I wonder if all those who vote against abortion were required to help bear the expense, time, and responsibility of rearing a person for eighteen years would still vote against it. Moralists wag their fingers and call for harsh punishments without caring for the persons involved.
Difficult Divides
However, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the unease and dislike of the right to changes in”family values.” Dislike creepy J.D. Vance though I do (a lucky hedge fund manager and slick liar, potentially our next president), I side with some of his statements.
He should not be mocked for identifying grandmas as childcare providers. Such has been the case since the dawn of humans, and it should continue. Care for the youngins isn’t the only thing such women (or men) should do, but it is crucial for the larger family every child is a member of. And while it is true that women don’t have to be only wives and mothers, we should protect and praise those who are.
The left’s approach to families in recent decades (especially in the liberal UU circles I spent my adult life in) seems to relish identifying marginalized people who deserve to be respected and included. I have no problem with that. I have a problem with their being the only demographic being considered and celebrated.
My denomination was bold and proper to deliberately include homosexual people as part of “us.” There were far more such people yearning for inclusion than I knew. I’m glad they’re able to be themselves. I even appreciate the husband/husband and wife/wife form of “marriage” that has secured legal and cultural standing. But I part with my denomination when it claims to be “standing (or being) on the side of love” in such consideration as if any who favored the traditional understanding of marriage – as between a man and a woman in order to mark paternity and ensure justice for all involved – were against love. Rather, I see ample reason to honor the traditional marriage (even as I am glad modern same-sex couples now enjoy public and protected unions).
Would that my denomination tends to the standard family at least as much as they do to the unusual newer forms. Are the only people deserving praise and protection those coming out of a closet? Should teens, perenially uneasy about their bodies, be praised for ruining the sex they are, transitioning to the other side, one that will never work for reproduction? Tattoos are hard enough to remove later; what are the long-term consequences of the trans trend?
By insulting those who see reasons for the traditional definition of marriage, by supposing any who are uncomfortable with same-sex relations are homophobic (which spans from uneasy to murderous), and by dismissing the concerns of parents and others reluctant to join the fad of trans surgeries as “warring” on them – just excludes all who have such thoughts and values. “Gender Affirming Care” might also be called “Gender Dening Mutilation.” The Pride Parade might include also straights and nons. Resentment at the left’s “agenda” leads many on the right to fear and resent the presumptive conclusions being assumed and imposed. Instead, inclusive, respectful dialog on the emotional issues is needed for all involved.
Elon Musk, who I have admired for his big, bold technological feats, funds the right-wing takeover of our country, not just to avoid taxes in the society that supports him, but to object to the new sorts of values and people he is uneasy with. I regret the anti-social values and disruption he promotes, but I sympathize with his reactive frame of mind.
A lot of people are uneasy with lifestyle variations and trends; they aren’t all evil or the enemy. By mocking such people and their concerns, we’re ushering in reactionary fascists. There is a big difference between saying that trans persons have a right to their bodies and saying it is the right thing to do. Such uncomfortable topics deserve discussion, not denigration.
In Conclusion
My understanding of the perspectives of Vance and Musk doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with either one. I’ve always feared the takeover of our society and government by conservative and fascist types. I see them as the same sort of people who imposed the Inquisition, Witch Hunts, and Nazism. The presumptive ness of imposing a theology or ideology on others has been with us for centuries. The humanistic daring of those enthused by the Enlightenment led to our founders establishing a bumbling democracy that has increasingly worked for all involved. We stand at a testing point unparalleled in American history. Failing would be dismal; prevailing could be better than we have imagined so far.
I’ll close this ranty screed with something I sent to an appropriate technology website I have contributed to for over a decade, Cleantechnica. I responded to someone reminding readers of Hillary Clinton’s use of the word deplorable. Some were aghast she would say what many felt:
“Hillary also was derided for calling it “a vast right-wing conspiracy,” which, from the killing of JFK to the Heritage Foundation’s stuffing our courts to Musk and his overly wealthy ilk funding a takeover, appears to be exactly the case.
“How millions can ignore the intelligent objections in Zach’s list to adulate this vile and violent liar dismays me. They’re duped, “thinking” with the few repetitively fearful, hateful thoughts Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, and Fox News fed them over these divisive decades.
“They’ve gone from deplorable to despicable (regarded with disdain or deserving to be despised). They’re the enemies of an inclusive, loving America. Whenever they wave the flag in the perversion of pretend patriotism, they defile it.
“Yet, they’re of us, deserving the inclusive peace and prosperity Kamala will bring to all of us when Americans successfully overcome this embarrassing, dangerous time.”
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Dear readers, we’re better than this. My hope and prayer is that we live to see a future that rescues and revives our precious planet and all the good people who will live here.
During this riled episode in history, our contentious time, a comet synchronisticly named “Neowise” briefly passed by. It hadn’t been near for 6,800 years, and it won’t return for another 6,800 years. If we’re to be “newly wise” now, we could still have an Edenic planet to live with then, only better than we can now imagine.
Sigh…. I’m so tired of this story, so ready to move forward! You wrote, “Failing would be dismal; prevailing could be better than we have imagined so far.” — that is just what I was saying last night, that if he wins there will be dark times, in which our country, democracy, and economy will be destroyed (and the global economy along with it), but if she wins, I see so much Light, so much potential for things to actually get better (assuming dems win majorities in Congress, that is)…..
Thanks. We agree. Late at night, I churned with what else I might have said. If ever there was a blatant example of amoral, overly rich people using democracy on us, not with us, this is it. The new rainbomb flood in Spain following the one in Asheville, North Carolina, went unmentioned in the campaign. Wealthy fossil fuel corporations have driven such obvious needs from the conversation. Too politically riling and risky to consider, so they (which includes such players as Russia and Saudi Arabia) persist in ruining Earth’s formerly reliable weather. I couldn’t find the detailed report of how… Read more »
Darn link went to the wrong article. Here is the one I intended.
Hmm — “Screed,” indeed, but this is the most important writing I’ve seen from you in a while, in my opinion. I agree with you on many points, and I appreciate your opening dialogue on others. In some ways I hope for broader perspective. Yes to everything you’ve written about the threats to democracy, civil rights and sustainable human culture by the nationalistic, racist and misogynist, anti-rational, dominance-oriented rhetoric, attitudes and actions of “The Donald” Trump and his cult. (But no, our “bumbling democracy” has not “increasingly worked for all involved.” Many still suffer, and some more extremely than ever.)… Read more »
A well-put thoughtful reply, Jim-el. I agree our democracy isn’t fully inclusive yet, but it is more so now than originally. To me, voting is the least important and effective thing we do as citizens of a democracy. It’s minimal, not maximal. More important is living with integrity and freedom with each other, saying what we think, and trying to work the clumsy machinery we’ve got so far – which is doing way more than voting. I agree we’re “dominated by domination.” We’re prone to accept the big silverback boss. A golden hairdo and bully bravado convinces many. I agree… Read more »
Yes, wokeism is what cost Harris and the progressive Democrats! Most Americans do not embrace wokeism! But another factor is that the Democratic Party has become the war party. The military/industrial complex exerts tremendous influence on both the Democratic and Republican parties. But it seems that the Democratic Party has become especially impacted by the war industry. Hillary Clinton was a very hawkish and pro war Secretary of State and Hillary was very pro war as a presidential candidatein 2016. Biden and Harris have been very cozy with spending trillions of dollars for weapons and military assistance to Israel and… Read more »
I agree, Vernon, on both wokism and militarism. While I agree with much of the intent of the woke agenda, especially because it is a further advance of Enlightenment values and ideals, I wince at the inept pushiness that self-righteously alienates many Americans. Few like being told which causes to champion and what words to use while doing so. We send massive money to Israel, who then buys our bombs to ruin Gaza and haphazardly kill thousands of non-Jews stuck there, which stimulates our bomb and other weapon-making industries, thus propping up our economy. I like Cornel West, but voted… Read more »
Have we ever had a peace party? Peace seems elusive. It occasionally seeps into the world akin to the ocean waters during high tide. Coastal rivers reverse their flow, if only for an hour or so. The Democratic Party birthed the peace candidates Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern. Those were two genuine peace candidates! But it was the Republican Richard Nixon who actually ended the horrible war in Vietnam, a meaningless slaughter orchestrated by Democrat Lyndon Johnson. Democrat Jimmy Carter received a Nobel Peace Prize and Carter was instrumental in resolving tensions in the Middle East. But Carter was the… Read more »
Sadly, I agree with your dismal but needed summary, Vernon. The Deep State wages wars on our behalf without our beckoning or agreement. You missed one important sentence, though. After Reagan secured the release of the hostages in Iran he illegally shunted money to the Contras for their murderous rampage. It was called Contragate – as if merely a sort of Watergate. Also missing from this worldwide tension over nuclear weapons, shrieking that Iran might build one, is Israel controlling hundreds. Given their indifferent slaughter of innocents in Gaza, we might understand the concern of their neighboring countries. All war… Read more »