… to how reality is going to change in the next weeks and months now that Biden has won the election. Things that used to be true will suddenly be mocked as ridiculous. Things that used to be false will now be required of all reasonable people. Because true and false no longer mean what they used to mean.
23 thoughts on “Pay close attention …”
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LOL! Seems you’re describing the last 4 years. Hopefully, in 2021, we’ll no longer be through the looking glass and “truth” will actually mean truth again. We’ll see. 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CljsZ7lgbtw
We were living in the domain of alternative facts for a few years until the reality of Covid and the resulting economic decline brutally slapped us in the face. So of course things will have to change in our perspective on truth – at least for a while.
We have been under a barrage of lies and madness so long that when some attempt to be truthful, it’s become a life threatening activity. For instance, various election officials have received death threats for calling the election for Joe Biden. As well, one of Trump’s lawyers, during a public broadcast, suggested the former cyber security chief should be shot. Why? Because they all dared to speak “truth” about the election and defy the unproven allegations (a.k.a. lies) of Trump et. al.
As well, there is clearly something WRONG when people are dying in ICU but refuse to believe they have Covid because they think it’s a hoax When did it become acceptable for a President to publicly accuse his predecessor of committing a crime, without evidence (when his very own Department of Justice indicated there was absolutely no basis for such an accusation)? When did it become a “thing” for a group of Republican Congress members to “storm” a congressional hearing (led by their political opponents) with accusations that they were being kept out…when they actually had Republican representatives within the meeting. Guess they forgot to tell the public about that little detail. When did it become normal for citizens to chant “lock her up” when a political opponent hasn’t been charged or convicted of a crime? When did it become acceptable to chat “send her back” during a campaign rally relative to a sitting member of Congress that is a US citizen? When did it become necessary for the “Boy Scouts” to issue a formal apology after a presidential address at a jamboree? And that’s just the tip of the ice berg. Yet, there seems to be a common source for it all…I’ll give you one guess who.
America really needs to have a conversation about how such severely malignant and grotesquely irrational lies and madness held the nation in hostage for such a long time.
A few things are obvious to me.
1. Trump lies, exaggerates, belittles his opponents, acts like a schoolyard bully, and — if you take his words as read — emits a strange word salad that nevertheless manages to communicate quite well if you listen to what he means.
2. Trump was selected as a reaction against the left, which is as guilty or more of all of these things, except for the part about the word salad. Most spokesmen for the left can put a coherent sentence together (maybe not Nancy Pelosi), which serves to make them better liars.
3. Most conservatives I know admit 1 and 2.
4. Most liberals I know do not admit #2. Robin, William and to some degree (not nearly as much) Smitemouth also do not admit #2.
It is, quite honestly, remarkable to me. That the left and the press lie continually and unapologetically is one of the more obvious things in life.
You have to remember that Trump is president, which gives his obviously mendacious and malignant character, not to mention his unbridled buffoonery, thousands of times greater weight than liberal Joe Blow on Facebook. Most of all, however, it is extremely misleading thing to turn all this into a liberal vs. conservative thing. I have looked at some of the coverage against Trump and have noticed quite a few of your more honorable conservatives – most still attached to the old model of “Republican classic” – lay into Trump pretty hard while some of them have even endorsed Biden. I myself am not in a habit of tracking people in terms of political categories and really don’t care if some liberals get called out for being assholes. If the shoe fits, by all means make them wear it. But Trump is the worst I have seen when you take into account both the weight of his office, the severity of his malice and buffoonery – and lets not forget the sheer frequency of displays of such offensive and damaging behaviors! One must not lose focus of this rock-solid fact by attacking the so-called “left” en masse (most of whom are just Joe Blows).
You’re right that the president should be held to a higher standard — not only higher than Joe Blow on Facebook, but than media pundits on CNN etc. And you’re right that he breaks all bounds in his buffoonery.
What the left seems to miss in all this — and what I find particularly aggravating — is that they caused it. By supporting the constant, 24×7 lies from the media, they created an environment in which somebody like Trump was inevitable.
You can’t go poking the bear constantly for decades and expect the right to continually serve up George Bush and Mitt Romney. Sooner or later they’re going to send in G. Gordon Liddy. (Although Liddy is a far better and more precise speaker than Donald Trump.)
Well, it is not as though the GOP has been a bunch of sweet gentle lambs being attacked by the Big Bad Media and wolf-like Liberal Elite. We have seen wolves on both of these sides, but in the long run it hasn’t helped the GOP to call in the Biggest Baddest Wolf of them all. That ultimately discredits them. They simply need to keep getting a new Mitt Romney until one finally wins, as one eventually will. If you want to beat Mohammad Ali, you don’t send in a guy who kicks him in the testes and spits on him. That will just make it look like you can’t win by the rules.
We are currently f*cked because we don’t have a Walter Conkrite or Edward R. Murrow. Instead we have MSNBC and OANN. We have Twitter and now Parler. We don’t have a source of truth that both sides can have faith in.
So do I admit # 2? Briefly stated, I’d say it is wrong to compare one person holding the highest office with a vast ideological group.
Can you admit, without making a comparison, that many prominent liberals do it with few repercussions from their own adherents?
I am not really interested in criticizing liberals qua liberals, conservatives qua conservatives, or whatevers qua whatevers. In the case of Trump the problem is Trump.
Let me qualify that a bit. If something like QAnon enters into mainstream politics, I would be interested in dismissing their representatives qua QAnon member. That new Representative from Georgia is a case in point.
QUOTE: 4. Most liberals I know do not admit #2. Robin, William and to some degree (not nearly as much) Smitemouth also do not admit #2.
Can’t speak for anyone else, but pertaining to me, either you’ve been totally misreading my comments or you’re purposely mispresenting them. I’ll let you choose.
Then let’s give you the Pentamom challenge. “Can you admit, without making a comparison, that many prominent liberals do it [lie, exaggerate, belittle their opponents, act like a schoolyard bully] with few repercussions from their own adherents?”
First a bogus comparison is made between Trump (a definite individual) and an ideological group (the “left,” which is a highly flexible). Then, after the ludicrous and fallacious character of the comparison is pointed out, the challenge is posed to consider, WITHOUT COMPARISON, whether prominent liberals are ever treated by their adherents with kid gloves.
But the COMPARISON was the whole point of the discussion in the first place! And it’s been thrown out of court as not worthy of serious consideration. How can a rational person who finds Trump a horrible person and a horrible president make her case in this shifting sand of irrationality?
But William might have something further to say about that.
*the “left,” which is a highly flexible term
I can unequivocally agree that some prominent liberals do behave the way you described. Some don’t have repercussions but some do. Ask Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rod Blagojevich, Gary Hart, Anthony Weiner, Al Franken, Chaka Fattah, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Katie Hill, or John Conyers…just to name a few.
That said, my position has CONSISTENTLY been that liberals and conversations are playing the same game, just with different agendas. That’s why I think it’s silly to try to pretend that only one side is guilty of offenses. Both sides have their hand in the cookie jar and tend to only point out the issues of their political opponent.
CORRECTION: That said, my position has CONSISTENTLY been that liberals and conservatives are playing the same game, just with different agendas.
I suppose I can understand why some people would vote for Trump. I didn’t vote for Trump, but neither did I vote for Hillary. I withheld my vote for Hillary because if I, as a former DoD employee, had done what she had done, I would have lost my clearance and all employability. Before some fucking asshole talks about whether there was or wasn’t classified data on her mail server, just STFU. Ignore the classified data: she set up a private server to perform government business and bypassed government record keeping.
Back to orange bozo…I can understand why the Proud boys vote for him…he hates the browns and immigrants as much as they do. Some people like my parents watched the TV show and think he is a great businessman…don’t bother asking the folks who invested their pensions in the publicly traded DJT stock. Republicans would vote for him because he’s not a Democrat…even though he was.
But, seeing what’s happened in the last 4 years in the tyranny of the woke and the tolerant, I can see where if people identified Biden or Harris with the woke and tolerant, then they’d vote for tRump. I can understand the I’ll hold my nose and vote for him over the opposition, but I absolutely cannot understand the RAH, RAH TRUMP people. I remember people at my parish actually saying during inauguration weekend that, “Trump will never lie to us.” Really? I’d be shocked if he ever told the truth.
I too can understand why some vote for Trump. I understand why some support his policies. I’ve agreed with some. Yet, what’s ironic is his sycophantic supporters who cannot call out Trump when he does wrong or inappropriate things. They consistently make excuses for his misdeeds…even things they’ve condemned in their political opponents. It’s “right” for him, but “wrong” for others. They’ve even made up a fake syndrome (Trump Derangement) in an attempt to shield him from deserved criticism. Oddly, many of his misdeeds they project onto his political opponents or the media…making them the scapegoat….when it’s clear Trump was responsible.
Case in point, Trump has now called a devout Republican loyalist (Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger) “the enemy of the people”. So, they turn on him and he gets death threats for doing his job honestly. Yet, those who previously decried “mobs” on the left have largely remained quiet. As well, they don’t hold Trump responsible for such behavior. As far as they are concerned, now that Trump has identified him as a traitor, they’ve lumped in him in with the deep state, the left, media and all other “enemies” of Trump. Yet, if you raise this as an issue, these people would say that you’re just needlessly picking on Trump and defend his right to behave this way.
>Trump has now called a devout Republican loyalist (Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger) “the enemy of the people”
Yes, he turns on people who don’t support him the way he wants. It’s distasteful, and I wish he would tone it way down, but it’s not nearly as distasteful as the way the left turns on people, IMO. Trump is playing hardball in a hard game. The left turns on people for very strange reasons — e.g., to appease a bunch of woke morons.
Now who’s doing comparisons? 😉 Your comments almost read as a rationalization for why it’s okay for Trump to behave this way. Wrong is wrong…no matter which side is doing it. They both need to be called out when inappropriate behavior occurs.
Still, the Trump sycophants don’t seem to recognize that some of the things he’s doing is inappropriate. Even worse, they applaud his “playing hard ball” yet decry when the liberals do the same. So, if it’s wrong for the liberals, why is it right for Trump et. al.? What makes it worse is he is the POTUS and when he behaves inappropriately it not only denigrates the office but gives the impression that it’s legitimate behavior….after all the president is doing it…what’s the problem? What happened to the days when conservatives called political leaders on such things and character? Was it as the book suggests…”It Was All A Lie”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lc5ohLuUTc