Not happy with American Election

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Epidemics/Pandemics, racism, Trump

 

People asked me if I was happy about the elections results of 2020, The answer is obvious—of course I was. But am I satisfied? Not by a long shot!

In the 2020 presidential election of 2020 approximately 73 million Americans voted for Donald Trump after seeing him on television and reading about him every single day. No person in the history of the world has become more famous or well known. Trump can bask in that thought. That is what narcissists  and demagogues do.

No American can say they were deceived about who Trump was. Trump cannot hold back because he always thinks he can sell us on his narrative. That is what he did his whole life as a real estate developer. Every American knew exactly who they were voting for. And who did they vote for? This is not a pretty picture.

 

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew had lied to them about the severity of Covid-19 pandemic because he did not want to alarm them. So he lied instead, thus lulling them into a false sense of security so they failed to take precautions to protect themselves, their loved ones, and the communities in which they lived.

 

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew was a white nationalist who refused to renounce white supremacy and instead asked the Proud boys to ‘Stand back and stand by” a call that they accepted as an endorsement.

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew voted for president who mocked handicapped people.

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they who they knew thought that because he was a star he could freely grope any woman he met.

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew  tried to pressure a foreign country (the Ukraine) to do him a personal favor of investing one of his political opponents by withholding funds that had been approved by Congress and which the Ukraine needed to protect itself from Russia.

Approximately 74 million Americans voted for a president they knew claimed that as president he could do whatever he wanted fo nothing he did was illegal.

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew abandoned long time American allies (the Kurds) who were under attack by the Turks, thus forcing them to turn to Russia for protection, proving that “these colors run” contrary to American propaganda.

What does this say about America?   That is the real question.

 

Thank goodness for the Courts

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Death of Truth, Trump

I don’t always say this, but thank goodness for the courts. They are not perfect. Far from it in fact. They don’t always find the truth. Especially when they become slaves to precedents. They make mistakes. Sometimes big ones. But at least they tend to follow the evidence. Not weak speculation or windy lawyers. Lawyers must present evidence and rational argument. Not speculation or disinformation. The public might, but courts won’t buy that.

This is exactly what the United States needs now in this time of deep peril brought on by a shameful aspiring autocrat who can’t bear the thought of losing and is willing to defile the most sacred of their institutions.

As we all know by now, the Trump administration is trying to hold on to power with remarkable tenacity and a phalanx of lawyers. Maybe you want to contribute to their cause. They are accepting donations.

Since months before the election Trump was readying his supporters in case he lost the election, by claiming entirely without evidence that the election would be the most corrupt and fraudulent in history. As soon as the counting was nearing completion the Trump campaign sent those lawyers out to challenge the votes in states where they claimed the Democrats had “stolen the election.”

One interesting case occurred in Pennsylvania a state that is critically important to the Trump campaign. They alleged massive voter fraud. At least that is what they said in public. The Trump campaign has already been caught saying that in public, but then making much milder claims in court. The problem with milder claims is that they won’t be enough to overturn the election even if they are proven in court.

This was at the time the 29th lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign that was recently dismissed or withdrawn. Since then 5 more have been dismissed and none has succeeded as far as I can tell. The only good thing about those lawsuits is that a lot of lawyers got gainful employment.

That  particular lawsuit tried to invalidate millions of Pennsylvania mail-in votes. The federal court judge, U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann, a registered Republican, threw the case out of court because the argument of the Trump campaign just did not hold up water. This was the case in which 2 prior law firms withdrew from the case causing former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani to take over at the last minute. He tried to argue that Pennsylvania should be prevented from certifying the election because some municipalities allowed some mail-in ballots to be cured because they had technical errors or glitches which they argued meant all the ballots in Pennsylvania should be thrown out.

The judge made very clear what he thought of the legal argument of the Trump team of lawyers:

 

“One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome plaintiff’s lawyers would come to court formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption. That has not happened. Instead this court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations.”

 

The Washington Post described the judge’s opinion this way:

“Trump’s attorneys had haphazardly stitched this allegation together ‘like Frankenstein’s Monster’ in an attempt to avoid unfavorable legal precedent.”

The arguments were not nearly enough for the judge to disenfranchise nearly 7 million voters in the State of Pennsylvania. 34 Trump campaign lawsuits have now been dismissed in various U.S. courts.

It has been very difficult for people to get at the truth amid the blizzard of claims of corruption and fraud by the Trump campaign and it is nice to see a court not swayed by empty rhetoric.

There is still hope for American democracy when the courts seek the truth. It’s enough to make an old recovering lawyer proud. Sometimes the law is an ass as Charles Dickens said, but sometimes it does good.

 

Election Sabotage Campaign

Death of Democracy, Death of Truth, Trump

 

During the recent US election campaign, Trump’s attack on democracy continued unabated. During the campaign  he targeted the US postal service. In view of the fact that the pandemic was making mail-in voting much more attractive than it has ever been before, Trump’s minions were intent on emasculating the post office. Trump actually admitted, the more people that vote the worse it is for Republicans. This is one thing he says I agree with. It is interesting how open Trump is about what otherwise might be called a conspiracy. Just like he admitted to reporter Bob Woodward that he was not telling the truth to the American public about the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic.

As David Smith has reported in the Guardian, (what I consider to be an independent and reliable source of news)

“Trump recently admitted that he was blocking money sought by Democrats for the postal service so he could stop people voting by mail.”

Yet, Trump reduced the postal service when the postal service was more urgently needed than ever before. The reason was obvious. He wanted to help Republicans. He was not worried about voter fraud. He is quite comfortable with fraud.

Trump repeatedly claimed that mail-in voting is inevitably fraudulent. While he is an expert on fraud, he ignored all the evidence and offered none in return except for a few anecdotes. As Smith reported,

“His allergic reaction to mail-in voting is based on the false premise that it is riddled with fraud, an assertion debunked by numerous fact checkers and academic studies. Five states – Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah – already carry out elections almost entirely by mail.”

Trump’s reaction was also likely based on the fact that most mail-in-ballots would come from Democrats since they were taking the Covid-19 pandemic seriously and had less confidence than Republicans that they would be safe at the polls unlike the Republicans. As Smith pointed out before the election,

“Democrats claim that the president’s true motive is to disenfranchise millions of their voters; surveys show significantly more Republicans than Democrats say they would feel safe showing up to vote in person.”

Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist based in Columbia, South Carolina, was even more blunt, “This is an attempt to do election interference 2.0. This time it’s done by this administration and not a foreign adversary. Not only is Trump trying to undermine the integrity of the election, he’s trying to strike fear and chaos into our election.” All of his actions after the election reinforce this view.

After Democrats cried foul amid general support for their complaints, the postmaster general Louis DeJoy, said he would cancel the proposed cuts until after the election. That was clearly the right thing to do. But the earlier actions have undermined confidence in the election process.

According to Seawright this “election sabotage campaign” and  has demonstrated that Republicans belong to “the party of voter suppression.” The Democrats of course for many years properly earned that label too for their decades long policy of voter suppression of African Americans in the south after the Civil War. Those policies were always supported by the Republicans however. Both parties gave strong support for the suppression of African-American voting rights.

Seawright knew from experience what Trump’s position is intended to do. As he said,

“I’m black and so all of my life, including my sharecropper grandparents’ lives, they have been trying to do everything they can to limit our participation in the election process. This just elevates my concern going into this election. The playbook is pretty much the same.

It’s just different players implementing the strategy, and the strategy has been recalibrated this time as vote by mail. Keep in mind we’re still in the middle of a pandemic where showing up to vote in person could mean life or death for some people. But black people have put their lives on the line to vote before and, if we keep going down this road, I think we are willing and able to do it again because this election is just that important.”

 

In August of 2020 the American Senate issued a bipartisan report that revealed the massive extent to which the Trump campaign cooperated with the Russians during the 2016 election.  They did not call it collusion. It said that Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager worked closely with a “Russian intelligence officer,” Konstantin Kilimnik. The Senate report also warned that Russians were already working on interfering again in the recent 2020 election to get their man Trump re-elected. While that is disturbing, even though few Republican leaders acknowledge it, presumably because they are willing to take any support they can get from any and all sources, no matter how besmirched, there is an even more egregious disrupter of the election.

As Smith commented in the Guardian,

“But such threats currently appear less fundamental than that posed by a president gone rogue – a man who this week welcomed the support of believers in a baseless righting conspiracy theory that holds the world is run by a shadowy cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles.”

Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, asked: “Who needs Vladimir Putin when we have Donald Trump? If you were Vladimir Putin and you wanted to disrupt this election, what would you do? You’d spread disinformation. You’d make people doubt the legitimacy of the vote. You’d peddle conspiracy theories and you might want to mess with mail-in voting. That’s all happening without him. Our president is doing that.”

More and more are joining in these fears. As Smith reported,

Before the election, Sykes, founder and editor-at-large of the Bulwark website, warned of a “very ugly” post-election period.

“It’s very clear that Trump will use every lever of governmental power to stay in office. There’ll be many mail-in votes and the mail-in votes will be very different than the same-day votes.What he will do – and it will be very much on brand for Donald Trump – is declare victory on election night and then, as the mail-in votes are counted, he will insist that that they are not legitimate, that the election is being stolen from him, and I think that has the potential to create massive doubt and chaos.”

 

Trump has today again made it clear that he still disputes the election even though he is now consenting to his administration cooperating with the incoming Biden administration to allow transition. But this issue is not over, particularly when over 80% of Republicans believe the Democrats stole the election.

There is no doubt we live in interesting times—perhaps much too interesting.

Truth may be dead but faith is alive and well.

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Death of Truth, Trump

 

In 2020 Trump switched the emphasis in his campaign from telling Americans that they should feat the Mexican rapists at the border to a message of black anarchists and Antifa left wing radicals in American cities. In each the real message was “America needs a strong man and I Donald Trump can save you.” This is a strategy of authoritarian leaders forever. It is the default strategy. As amazing as it sounds that is an attractive message to millions of people. More than  70 million American voters bought it.

This was the message of white nationalism or white supremacy in 2020. It may not have won the presidential election for Trump but it is still a powerful message.

 

It does not matter in the world of resentment and lies. These go together like love and marriage. Or as my good friend says, like pee and porcelain. All of his was enabled by a prolonged attack on truth and it allowed Trump to spew out outrageous lies on election night with complete impunity.

 

I listened to two very engaging thinkers on Amanpour and Co recently. One of them was Jason Stanley the author of How Fascism Works: the Politics of US vs. Them.

Stanley pointed out for weeks before the election Trump was tweeting about voter fraud and things like that to discredit the election before it even happened, so that if he lost Americans would believe the election was “corrupt” or a “fraud” or a “hoax.” Then sure enough Trump pulled out this card on the evening of the election (well really the morning after). Trump did not take the high road that Al Gore did after the final Supreme Court decision when he lost to George Bush. For the good of the country Gore said he would let it be and support President elect Bush. Trump never takes the high road. It is not in his nature.

Trump asserted, as always without any evidence, “I have won the election. I got more legal votes than Joe Biden.” Stanley pointed out,

“This is typical authoritarian behavior. Trump had been warning the world for a couple of months before the election that it would be “rigged” or “corrupt” or “fraudulent” so no one should be surprised. Secondly it shows remarkable long term planning. Months ago the president announced an attack on the post office. He claimed there was “voter fraud” when there wasn’t. The Covid denialism he spread made his voters more likely to appear on the same day as the election to cast their vote. So we always knew he would have a lead among same day in-person voters. So this has been the strategy all along, to declare victory that night before the votes were all in so he could later announce the others were fraudulent. It was a clear strategy to undermine the election process. This is exactly what he did repeatedly leading up to the November 4th election day.”

 

Clearly some voters bought this narrative. Many of us saw this rabid Trump supporter the day after the election in Nevada try to interrupt an TV interviewer talking to a poll worker who was explaining how thorough they were in counting all the legal votes and discarding the illegal ones. The Trump fan kept shrieking to the cameraman, “Joe Biden and evil crime family are trying to steal the election.” The fan was livid, but like his hero, offered no evidence only shrieks. But the interesting thing is that the leader of “his side” saw it before it happened. A month before the election he “knew” it would be fraudulent. So of course the fan believed it. As did many other Trump fans.

Since the election the streets of American cities have seen a number of “rallies” by Trump supporters demonstrating their undying faith in Trump. Like any good faith, it is strong in the absence of evidence. That is what faith is all about.

Truth may be dead but faith is alive and well.

But can they live long without each other?

Don’t Blame but Criticize

Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, Evangelical Christianity

 

A local Mennonite Pastor in Steinbach, Kyle Penner, whose views deserve respect, recently wrote an article in the Winnipeg Free Press after all the negative press our community has been receiving as a result of the actions of some of the more conservative members of our community. Not all I must point out. Some conservative Christians were interviewed and demonstrated their scepticism about the accepted science about the coronavirus. In a free society everyone is entitled to give his or her opinion. But that doesn’t means they are exempt from criticism. Nor should they be. Even on matters affected by religion. Penner was upset because people were blaming the conservative Christians online in a non-Christian spirit.

Penner’s opening paragraph struck home:

“We are dying here. So please, everyone who has suddenly got it in for Steinbach: get off your high horse and lead with compassion instead of smugness.”

I must admit that opened a wound. I have probably been guilty of smugness in relation to these conservative Christians. My bad. But does that end the matter?

I want to be compassionate. I feel for the people who have become ill. I feel for the their families and loved ones. I feel for the people who might feel guilty about perhaps being the spreader of the coronavirus. I feel particularly sympathetic and grateful to the health care workers who have been working tirelessly to protect us. And that is exactly why I believe the conservative Christians deserve to be criticized. Not drawn and quartered, but firmly and clearly criticized.

It is precisely the conservative Christians and others like them who have been denying the Covid science often in favor of dangerous disinformation about the coronavirus. They have refused to wear masks or maintain social distancing. They have not been respecting our health care workers. The words and actions of these Covid deniers have been causing irreparable harm to others in the name of dubious claims from the Internet which they have been given an unseemly religious or constitutional gloss. They have lulled others into a false sense of security. They have helped to erode truth. They claim they have the religious freedom to gather and decide whether or not they will wear masks, thus endangering the lives of others.

They have contributed to the terrible heaping on of extra work on our health care system and it’s professionals  and with it extra risks of serious harm, and they have been doing that in the name of God. By their reckless actions they have created serious health risks to thousands of other people young and old and particularly the most vulnerable members of our society. Those actions do not deserve acquiescence; they deserve criticism. That criticism should be delivered with compassion and kindness, but it must be delivered firmly. These people with their misguided views are a serious public health hazard. Their misinformation should be challenged or we are also contributing to that danger.

I don’t want to be a part of any mob laying blame for the pandemic on the conservative Christians. I believe their influence thankfully is not great. But it not non-existent either.

Mr. Penner says be kind and compassionate. I agree completely. That’s why we can’t let the conservative Christians off the hook on this one. Criticism is deserved.

Theological Devotion to Untruth

Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics

 

A while back I started blogging about truth. I really had no idea where this would go. After all I was just meandering. I had no idea how every day something crazy happens that I could blog about. Every day!

A friend pointed out a story going viral online as a result of a very frustrated nurse from South Dakota posting about her experience in an emergency room. What does that have to do with truth? A lot!

It seems impossible but sometimes reality just seems impossible. Especially in a pandemic. That’s what happens when people have a theological devotion to untruth.  By that I mean a belief so strong no one could be convinced out of it. For example no Christian or no Muslim can be convinced that their beliefs are wrong.

According to Kathryn Krawczyk of Yahoo News,

“South Dakota has the highest COVID-19 mortality rate of almost anywhere in the world — only North Dakota and the entire countries of Belgium and the Czech Republic rank higher. Without a mask mandate and with low rates of mask wearing, the Dakotas have seen coronavirus cases spike over the past few months.

 

No wonder the nursing staff is run ragged in the hospitals. But it is not just the overwhelming work that gets to them. It’s the denial of reality that overpowers. Remember that South Dakota was the site of 2 big Trump rallies earlier in the year that some have labelled 2 super spreader events, at Sturgis and Mount Rushmore South Dakota about an hour apart. Those events may have resulted in as many as 250,000 Covid cases being spread around the country all in the name of paying obeisance to Donald Trump. The people wanted to rally with their leader, Trump, and would not consider the possibility that such events were unsafe even though experts said they would be. Often Trump supporters don’t support experts.

Recently the frustrated tweets from that South Dakota emergency room nurse, Jodi Doering, went viral. This is one case where that is exactly what should happen. She was upset because every day she has another case of a patient who “a magical answer” rather than the truth. They prefer magic to truth.

Doering  described what she called “a horror show that never ends.” She was talking about patients that were coming to the hospital in deadly denial. People did not believe they were suffering from Covid-19 even though they came to an “overrun hospital,” they were “gasping for air”, with all the symptoms, and after having tested positive for Covid-19, yet believed—firmly believed, that they did not have Covid. They refused to believe what the medical staff told them, namely, that they were suffering from Covid-19. They need so much oxygen there is no other rational explanation but these patients did not accept that.

Instead, as Doering said,

“They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that ‘stuff’ because they don’t have COVID because it’s not real. Yes. This really happens.” When told to connect one last time with their absent families by zoom, the patients continue to deny their status. It just can’t be. The patients are “filled with rage and hatred.”

As Krawczyk reported, “some COVID-19 patients spend their last moments refusing to call family and friends because they’re convinced they’re going to be fine, Doering said. “Their last dying words are, ‘This can’t be happening. It’s not real.'”

Even as they are dying in their hospital beds they can’t face reality. Instead they continue to believe their fantasies instead. Some even seem to prefer thinking they have lung cancer. Their entire identity is tied up with the belief that Covid-19 just is not real.

The price for abandoning truth can be extremely high. And someone has to pay it.

 

 “Freedom fighters” Spread Falsehood As Steinbach’s Hospital Fills Up

Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, Freedom

 

This is what the Winnipeg Free Press recently said about my home town:

“As Manitoba recorded a record high COVID-19 death toll Saturday, nearly 200 people gathered in violation of public-health orders to protest lockdown measures, mask wearing and vaccines.”

Will they next protest the fact that they can’t drive 90 km per hour in a school zone? Is that what freedom is all about? What if my religion says I should be able to drive any speed I want?

Reeve Lewis Weiss said he does not trust the information being distributed by public-health officials and news media and that they have a right to refuse to wear masks, presumably no matter how many lives he endangers. He believes that if he does not feel sick he can’t transmit the disease to others and therefore poses no danger to them. This of course is contrary to accepted scientific evidence, but he does not seem bothered by that.

Weiss acknowledged people are dying and said he supports health-care workers, but he downplayed the seriousness of the virus and said he and others who attended the recent protest rally in Steinbach believe they can’t trust the information being distributed by public-health officials and news media, and that they have a right not to wear masks. Weiss also said, “It isn’t a good time to have to hold a rally when people are dying around us. But what you don’t realize, or many people don’t realize, people are always dying around us.”

Yes people are always dying but our hospital to my knowledge has never reached capacity before. A local nurse at our local hospital compared the situation there  to war time where the patients just keep coming. She warned us that health-care workers there have also reached capacity and can’t sustain their efforts much longer. Some people trying to get in to the local hospital had to be triaged in their cars in the parking lot, because there was no room in the hospital.

Meanwhile many of the other protesters referred to themselves as “freedom fighters.” As if having to wear a mask when in public is equivalent to people living under oppressive regimes like Syria. Is there any equivalence here?

Added to the toxic mix is of course religion. We live in the Bible belt and that is to be expected. It is part of the reason the media likes to keep an eye on us here. I am not saying all local religious people are the same as the protesters. But when I heard that one of the protesters yelled “Go home to the devil, you!” as provincial officials left the rally, I knew we were in trouble. These were government officials doing their best to ensure that the hospital could accept more patients if needed. Working to save lives in other words. The protesters treated them like Nazis.

Yet as this was going on “rally-goers listened to Christian music piped through loudspeakers affixed on a flatbed trailer and cheered as several speakers — including retired chiropractor Gerry Bohemier — decried shutting down churches and schools, imposing restrictive lockdown measures and mandating masks. They held signs with slogans such as “love over fear,” “honk for freedom” and “the media is the virus.”

To which I say: Honk if you love truth.

Conspiracy in Southern Manitoba

Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, religion

 

Hundreds of Manitoba gathered in Steinbach recently to protest the imposition of government restrictions on their personal freedom in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is interesting that they chose Steinbach, because at the time it had the highest per capita rate of active Covid-19 cases in all of Canada. At the same time our hospital was completely filled. Basically people brought to the hospital could not be taken in because there was no room for them until someone died. Some patients were sent  to a major hospital in Winnipeg. Others  had to helicoptered to Brandon a city about 3 &1/2 hours by car.

Yet, in violation of Manitoba Heath orders, a large crowd gathered at Steinbach’s A.D. Penner Park and most of them, by a wide majority, did not wear masks nor maintain social distance from each other. As a result some of them were ticketed for violating provincial health orders. Meanwhile loudspeakers played hymns and Christian songs, proving once again that you don’t need science or health orders if you are on the side of the angels and can read conspiracy theories on the Internet. The event was covered by national media.

Here is what CTV News reported one of those in attendance saying,

“Each person here in this country is so incredibly important, and I have nothing but compassion for everybody here, regardless of what side you are on, regardless of your beliefs,” said Kayla, one of the attendees at the rally.

“What we’re seeing here is people gathering from all different races, nationalities, backgrounds, careers and they all just want one thing, and that is freedom.”

 

For some reason the protesters believe being required to wear a mask so that other people are protected is a horrendous infringement on their freedom. Why do they not oppose the law that prevents them from driving 90km in a School zone? Don’t they have a God-given right to drive any speed they want? How about the law that prevents them from walking into other people’s homes and stealing their money? How about the law that requires food to be checked for safety before it is sold to the public? These are all laws that prevent us from doing whatever we want. No one in Canada has the right to do whatever they want.

Some of the protesters heaped abuse on Health officials trying to enforce health orders. Some suggested the officials go to the devil. Conservative Christians were photographed holding up signs demanding religious freedom.

Lewis Weiss the Reeve from the nearby Rural Municipality of Labroquerie made another comment that demonstrated he has learned about conspiracies  when he commented,

“It seems very strange that our loved ones are being allowed to die when there are medicines available that very quickly and easily can cure this.”

 Clearly, he is another political leader who is closely tethered to conspiracy theories rather than science or just plain truth. I guess we are just as good at this as our American neighbours.