Fact-Free
During the first Trump impeachment, and the second, House Republicans strongly opposed subpoenaing any witness who might tell the world some of the more egregious things that Trump had done and said as President. During the Senate trials, Mitch McConnell used his position to ensure that no witnesses were called, no incriminating evidence was presented, lest the truth rear its ugly head. Who would have ever thought it would come to this in ‘Our Nation of Laws’,?
Why this great fear of the very truth that we were told would set us free. Seems the truth got in the way of ideology. These days, nearly one-half of Americans, the whole of the Republican Party, have gone on a fact-free diet. Not low-fact, nor no-fact; fact-free. What would a totally fact-free America look like?
From the NYT, an interactive map showing vaccination rates down to the individual county level. And, here, From NBC is an interactive map showing 2020 elections results down to the county level. Pick any county in any red state and compare the unvaccinated rate (unvaccinated rate = 100 – vaccinated rate) with the percent of those in the county who voted for Trump (no statistical training needed).
Why the almost direct correlation between those who voted for Trump and those who didn’t get a COVID vaccination? Is it that those least likely to have been vaccinated live in the more remote rural counties that are more likely to lack access to healthcare? Is it because most of the red states are also bible belt states? Is it just a coincidence that most of the folks in these counties just happened to be anti-vaxxers who liked Donald Trump? Is it that they didn’t get the jab because they thought that Trump wouldn’t want them to? Or, it it because Trump knew they were ignorant and appealed to this ignorance? It certainly wasn’t that they didn’t get the shot because of the science, the facts. All the science, all the facts, said get your shot. Some of these folks have been fact-free for years. Trump seemed to know this, for a fact. He called facts ‘fake news’.
When Senator McConnell goes into the room where Senators come and go, when he talks of judges and justices, he talks of conservative values. Why no one knows. Er ist ohne! May never have had. The very term has been milked dry. What conservatives? Where? What values? Does he mean the value of suppressing the vote? Of keeping wages at starvation levels as a means of motivating people to work for next nothing? Of stuffing the courts with ‘originalists’ representing the Federalist Society, and a very few others? With justices that just make it up like Sam Alito just did in his opinion for the majority in Brnovich? In her dissent, Kagan addresses the facts and the law. Alito and his conservatives colleagues, like Scalia before them, followed their ideology to a decision. Facts are so inconvenient. Damn the facts, damn the people, damn the Nation, full speed ahead. What need facts when one has ideology? What does reality have to do with anything when one has an ideology?
What of ideology? Of those who would govern the Nation, make decisions, on the basis of ideology with little or no regard for reality? For the facts? Of those who put ideology before we the people? Facts are an anathema to ideologies. Ideologies work well enough until the facts show that they don’t. A few small facts can destroy the most well-funded of ideologies. Well funded? Yes, immer well funded.
It is via ideologies that the powerful control the masses. Get them to believe and they will ignore the facts, reality. Belief is easier than thinking. Train robbing is dangerous, tie hacking’s too hard.
From the Know-Nothings of the mid-19th to the No-Facts, Fact-Free, of the late-20th, and on to Trump, McConnell, Cruz, Hawley, Blackburn, … .
So they put the poor below.
They were the first to have to go.
It was sad when that great ship went down.
Ken,
I appreciate your analysis and poignant essay on the matter of demagoguery, but I also have to warn you about the continued use of the T noun and the media coverage that has been non-stop since 2015.
We are now 6 year into T, and almost one year post T and yet the media has now slowly been migrating back to a T life field. You are embracing that narrative, and in doing so are creating a resurgence of the monster you hate.
Please, please take into consideration that maybe the best thing is to let dead dogs stay buried. Pet cemetery was only a book. Let’s not get fixated on making it a reality.
Mea culpa. I forgot.
No, no this is great. I am just saying that per my research the more talk about the issue the more the issue becomes common media fodder and then converted into polling.
Couldn’t agree more. I had taken to referring to the recently disposed. In conversation, tonight, I had lamented on CNN giving the recently disposed to much attention and how well the Facebook and Twitter cancelling was working.
The T word this month is Tokyo. Even without spectators the athletes will be worth talking about.
Notoriously, the House used as the “killing” of Officer Sicknick in documents presenting their case to the Senate. I am not surprised that the Senator Shumer has not reprimanded the Speaker over doing this, as it was essentially a public relations exercise. Still when the prosecution has no integrity issues of using even the death of human without doing any work at all to understand the actual circumstances it seems ridiculously stupid to complain that McConnell did not want to hear much about maybe Trump’s phone call with McCarthy, which was both clearly never a public statement that might incite anyone other than Kevin, nor was at a time that even makes sense compared with the House’s charges. The House did not do anything like a thorough job with what is a truly critical duty of theirs. Yes, maybe they thought they did not have the time to do so, but exactly how does that make it any less shoddy? Raskin ought to resign or be expelled for the Sicknick item….it was gross and inexcusable.
I think this guy may be nuts
Ken:
You have not caught me on a roll when I get pissed. You reach a certain point when being nice no longer works and it is time to lay it on-the-line. It has not “quite” happened here at AB. It has always been, when someone says something stupid, being nice, if they say something stupider still be nice, if they say something about mom?
“Well, is it true or are they just trying to provoke?” Just a little “Roadhouse” philosophy. It is a battle of little minds who have nothing left to say if you take their ability to provoke from them.
Don’t react.