While staying in Arizona this year we wanted to find a television news show that was not as partisan as most of the US stations. Back home we watch CBC’s The National.  Somehow we happened on public broadcastings Newshour and were happy we did.  It appeared to us to reasonable news coverage.

David Brooks a New York opinion columnist whom I read regularly, was interviewed on PBS NewsHour and said, “Shamelessness is contagious.” This of course is what we have seen a lot of this year. In particular, the legions of Republicans who have supported Donald Trump’s lies about a stolen election. He has been making these lies without any evidence whatsoever. None! Astonishingly, republicans have fallen in line even though he gave no credible evidence whatsoever about his claims. In fact, his own Attorney General Bill Barr who had continuously supported Trump throughout his tenure, could not support this lie. As he told the House Select committee investigating what happened on January 6 2021, “it was all bullshit” Notwithstanding, that many Republican political leaders have acquiesced in supporting Trump’s lies. This is a great example, of the contagion of shamelessness.

I am sorry to report that this contagion has caught on fiercely in the United States.

This is uniquely egregious because democracy needs the trust of the electors or it will not stand. Trump’s lies undermine this essential foundation of democracy and Republican leaders and Republicans in general have been falling in line. That is how a country declines–i.e. when the courages of its leaders collapses and the people are left bereft.

No wonder I am on the grand finale tour.