Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Violence By Other Means

 

The promised indignant rampage of aggrieved MAGAs never did materialize, probably in part chastened by the real world sentences of the leaders of the 1/6 melee and with no clear goal available to them (stop Trump's arraignment today, and it only goes on another day...), so we never saw the American Carnage that marked the end of Trump's brutally stupid one-term reign. 

But what we did see was a brutal violence against truth--as in the above screen cap from Fox News, describing Biden as a "Wannabe Dictator" who had "his political rival arrested". Or, maybe, Biden is a president whose DOJ followed up on leads that Trump took documents that he had no business having, asked nicely to get them back, and then was lied to and had to issue a search warrant because they were after all, the property of the US Government, and not Mr. Trump's. Culminating in the selection of a Special Counsel once Trump announced he was running again for the office for which his one-term, twice impeached ass was manifestly unfit.

It has nothing to do with President Biden. Trump took the docs himself and is responsible for what he did with them--period. Trump choose to pretend he didn't still have docs when he did--he failed to turn over docs that were requested. He can pretend he thought they were his, but the law says no. The Presidential Records Act, which a lot of people think let Trump off, does no such thing--it reiterates that government documents created are the property of the US government and not the President. And Trump stopped being president January of 2021, no matter what fantasies his lil fanclub wants to entertain. This warping of reality is a form of violence. It is intended to create a false impression with the idea that people might act on that. Blame Biden for what, as anyone understanding the rule of law might understand, any AG might have charged Trump for. 

(This wasn't Biden or even his AG--but the result of an investigation by a Special Counsel, yet.)


But the lie that Biden had anything to do with Trump's predicament will persist because of the liars who support Trump. Like Nancy Mace:



Could she go lower than that? Yes! Why of course she could! She could support the bare rumor that tapes exist that incriminate Biden even though no one seems to know if the tape s exist or even are legitimate, and there's no proof money ever changed hands. And yet we have all the proof that the bunches and bunches of documents Trump had no business having were in his possession. Why lie for this guy, the former guy, the twice impeached one-term wonder?  I'm going to go with an entire lack of character, but you can seriously come up with your own inventive reason since she announced it's choose your own political misadventure week. 

And so on with JD Vance and Ted Cruz and a host of other lying shitbricks. They side with Trump, his abuse of power, and his misuse of intelligence product despite what that means: a short-term political advantage for themselves over possible long-term damage to our national security state. Same with the representatives who, for Trump's sake, pretend they want to defund the FBI and CIA. End counter-terrorism programs, and stop fighting organized crime? Like the cartels? 

It makes no sense. The Republican response to Trump's charges suggests an entire party unfit to govern because they would rather play partisan games. They don't even know how to take what he did literally and seriously. It is just political theater to them.

Their deliberate ignorance and lying is a form of violence against the truth, and against our ability to move forward and protect this nation. Trump's media supporters and political supporters are deeply suspect, displaying neither the conscience nor the character to protect our nation's secrets, and displaying trifling deflections and projections against the current administration in a childish fit of pique. 

Trying to destroy faith in our institutions, our leaders, our justice system, is in its own way, like a terrorist attack on our infrastructure, such as bridges etc. when it is based on calumny--on lies and suppositions that are not so. These people would never consider themselves terrorists, maybe at the most--opportunists. But what they are doing is so, so damaging. So wrong. 


2 comments:

Ten Bears said...

Operation Just Let Them Speak may not be working perfectly, but it's starting to work

Joseph Max said...

"If a fact is to be established by testimony, anonymous assertion is of no value; if a fact can be proved, by evidence to which the public has access, it is of no consequence (for the cause of truth) who produces it. A matter of opinion derives weight from the name which is attached to it; but a chain of reasoning based on facts is equally conclusive, whoever may be its author." — Charles Babbage

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