A Light Touch with Reality

 

I know I have been ranting about truth. But I am not finished. I started long before the election day in the US. What perfect timing. A good friend said, when we were discussing this issue, “Americans have a light touch with reality.” Very true. Not that Canadians are any different. Canadians are just Americans on valium. I will get to them soon, but have been absorbed by the craziness to our south. And I don’t want anyone to think that the craziness will change no matter who is elected down south. The results are not yet officially in as I post.

Lately  Trump has been spewing out claims of voter fraud entirely without evidence.  Though his claims have a motive. A sinister motive. More on that later too. Trump  lives in an evidence free world. But his followers don’t care. Their devotion is enduring. That is what is important.

The reason things won’t change fast is that what is clear from the election for president in the US is that about 70 million Americans still support Trump. That is more than the votes he garnered in 2016. I strongly suspect that almost everyone who voted for him in 2016 also voted for him in 2020. And this was after we saw what he did for 4 years in plain view. Everyone could see that he was an incorrigible liar. Some called him a pathological liar. Others called him a bullshitter. That refers to someone who does not care about whether a statement is true or not. That is someone who is not even embarrassed when caught in a lie. Trump is obviously that. And 70 million Americans are willing to overlook that and vote for him!

This is the point I have been trying to make in my clumsy way. How can so many people be indifferent to truth? And not just Americans either. Plenty of Canadians still support Trump too.

I think it is time for all of us—Americans and Canadians—to take a hard look at ourselves. This look might not be very comfortable. Do any of us want to admit that we don’t care about truth?

When a society is infected with a disdain for truth it is ready to collapse. Is that where we are at? Has this pandemic we are facing without much truth found a hapless victim? We’ll have to wait and see.

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