08-03-2021, 02:45 AM
Well, well, well. America got a political breather with the defeat of Donald Trump, if in a close election that could have gone the other way easily. Democrats kept the House and got a working, if the definitive bare majority, in the Senate with what were some surprising D wins of both Senate seats in Georgia. I'm going to say this about Jon Ossoff now: as the first Millennial in the US Senate he is one of the most obvious prospects to be President of the United States from his generation. Oh, he's Jewish? If we can vote for someone with a black African father as President we can vote for a Jew to be President.
Of course, on the very day in which Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won Senate seats from incumbent Republicans, Donald Trump's most fanatical supporters who accepted the indefensible claim that Donald Trump "really" won stormed the Capitol to prevent the counting of the Electoral votes with the aim of selecting a result of their choosing.
What President Donald Trump sought to do that day was what many dictators have done, nullifying an election that he has lost. We got a breather, but at the same time over 600,000 Americans have died of a respiratory virus that most of us thought just never showed up in an advanced industrial society. Over 600,000 people have ceased breathing because COVID-19 overpowers some of our most effective and desperate means of saving lives from shortness of breath. Most importantly, the vast majority of those deaths was preventable with appropriate behavior, like wearing masks, washing hands frequently, social distancing, and (finally) getting inoculated.
We had people with a hideous substitute for that, like reliance upon the Will of God to save people from the plague. We are seeing the consequences of such. Trump rallies have proved themselves super-spreader events, as have fundamentalist get-togethers. "Don't close our churches!", said some of the pastors... meanwhile, the Pope was telling people to not attend church services in person. One can get the Mass on EWTN easily. Most Protestant churches are able to have some televised services available to shut-ins such as the hospitalized...
Donald Trump still has followers. many still convinced that the 2020 election was a fraud. It wasn't. It was arguably the best-run election in American history, and Trump may have done better than expected.
We have problems -- novel problems -- best solved by doing again what we used to do better. We need to shore up our educational system to foster rational thought including a respect for objective science and an acceptance of verifiable history. We need again to become less vulnerable to demagogues. Donald Trump will not be the last, and the next one might be much slicker and be in a position in which to exploit political chaos and economic distress when both are far more severe than in 2016.
Of course, on the very day in which Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won Senate seats from incumbent Republicans, Donald Trump's most fanatical supporters who accepted the indefensible claim that Donald Trump "really" won stormed the Capitol to prevent the counting of the Electoral votes with the aim of selecting a result of their choosing.
What President Donald Trump sought to do that day was what many dictators have done, nullifying an election that he has lost. We got a breather, but at the same time over 600,000 Americans have died of a respiratory virus that most of us thought just never showed up in an advanced industrial society. Over 600,000 people have ceased breathing because COVID-19 overpowers some of our most effective and desperate means of saving lives from shortness of breath. Most importantly, the vast majority of those deaths was preventable with appropriate behavior, like wearing masks, washing hands frequently, social distancing, and (finally) getting inoculated.
We had people with a hideous substitute for that, like reliance upon the Will of God to save people from the plague. We are seeing the consequences of such. Trump rallies have proved themselves super-spreader events, as have fundamentalist get-togethers. "Don't close our churches!", said some of the pastors... meanwhile, the Pope was telling people to not attend church services in person. One can get the Mass on EWTN easily. Most Protestant churches are able to have some televised services available to shut-ins such as the hospitalized...
Donald Trump still has followers. many still convinced that the 2020 election was a fraud. It wasn't. It was arguably the best-run election in American history, and Trump may have done better than expected.
We have problems -- novel problems -- best solved by doing again what we used to do better. We need to shore up our educational system to foster rational thought including a respect for objective science and an acceptance of verifiable history. We need again to become less vulnerable to demagogues. Donald Trump will not be the last, and the next one might be much slicker and be in a position in which to exploit political chaos and economic distress when both are far more severe than in 2016.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.