Please read that headline again. It is what is called in the common parlance "fake news". Never happened. And, yet, I think that very few Americans today who are following current events would doubt the headline because, after all, it's what has been suggested, implied, hinted at, and pushed without ever actually saying it out loud.
First, we have the "Russian hack". The media is referring to it as Russia's "hacking the election" as if Russians broke into our voting systems and changed the outcome. Never happened. What did? Well, in truth, we aren't quite sure. The accusation is that Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee and released compromising email exchanges. Of course, the release of these exchanges came through WikiLeaks, and WikiLeaks says that Russia didn't do it. So ...? Still, the pall of "Russian hacking" hangs over the election process.
Second, we have the whole "Trump's people talked to Russians" story. Apparently it is illegal, immoral, or ill-something to talk to Russians. This is sad, too, because I have spoken to Russians in the past few years so I suppose I'll have to give up my citizenship and retire to some sympathetic South American country somewhere so no one will find me. Silly, of course, but that's the sense of it somehow. And clearly and repeatedly implied in this story is the ongoing suggestion that Trump or his people engineered this fiasco, using Russia to "hack the election". (I find it ironic that so much of the media and, therefore, the unthinking imbibers of the media Kool-Aid think of Trump as dumber than a box of rocks ... yet wily enough to produce this amazing stunt.)
But, is any of this true? Well, of course it is, because, thirdly, we have the media's confident assertion that the FBI has dived headlong into a deep and thorough investigation of these allegations and, therefore, the allegations must be true. That's the American way, right? "If he's someone we don't like and the media says so, he's guilty until proven innocent."
Well, then, there you have it. The Left was right. Trump's presidency is illegitimate. So ... pull the plug and let's shut this baby down. The only correct thing to do is install Hillary as empress ...
... or ...
... the media is lying, the public is buying it, and this whole thing is just another "We hate Trump and will tear down our government and build it in our own image any way we can" thing.
I am a believer in the rights of Americans to their opinions. Even in their right to protest. The truth, however, is that when their protests block traffic or harm people not actually part of the issues, I suddenly stop caring about the issue they're protesting. Or when they start trotting out lies (like "We're not illegal; we're just undocumented"), I stop caring about their issue. Mind you, I've never been a Trump fan, but this repeated piling of problems without apparent proof or even cause is starting to make me stop caring about their issue. And I continue to wonder how long the media and the public would have put up with it if the story was reversed -- if Hillary was elected and the "we oppose Hillary" forces kept protesting, complaining, fighting, and throwing stuff against the wall to try to find something that sticks.
2 comments:
For those who opposed Trump, it seems to me, their reasons should logically lead to an expectation that he will do his own self in and as such there is no reason to throw stuff against the wall to see what sticks.
I voted for the guy, and cringe much of the time now, while being impressed that he's done much of what he said he'd do, with much of it being agreeable to me. Still, I wait for the other shoe to drop. The ACA replacement seems to be one such shoe right now. I'm wholly for repeal only, letting the market do its thing. The downsides of this, much of it I believe was planned, must be endured until the market "fixes" things.
I also dread Trump moving forward with his trade policies, as another example.
But most of the complaining about him is nonsensical stuff compelled by the mere fact that he's Donald Trump. For most of them, that's quite enough.
I've given up caring about their issues long before Trump entered office. Most of their positions are irrational and/or inconsistent. It also doesn't help that both sides tend to misrepresent the other's side. As an example, the Beauty and the Beast contraversy. We are accused of being homophobic because we're upset about the gay character added, and that we're worried that seeing that in a movie will somehow make us gay. Personally, I'm not opposed to a gay person being on a movie, so long it has a purpose. Adding a gay character for the sake of merely having a gay character is not a good reason for putting them in and advances neither the story nor their agenda. It merely sours what would most likely be a decent movie to a large part of the population, reducing the success of the movie.
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