Ever since he was ceremoniously dumped from Twitter and Facebook for telling lies that would make Herodotus blanch, Le Grande Orange (sorry, Rusty), aka former President Donald J. Trump, has been popping out the sort of emails through his Save America PAC that should reserve for him a soft bed in the psych ward at Belleview.
This week provided us with a doozy. Mr. Trump doubled down, no, tripled down, no millioned down on his claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him and the republic is on the verge of collapse because of this outrage.
“There is massive and unconditional evidence that the election was shattered with fraud and irregularities at a level that our Country has never seen before,’’ Trump raged. “Much of it is already public, and a great deal more is coming out in the very near future. Every time you read a statement that there is ‘no evidence of election fraud,’ about the 2020 election scam, just attribute that statement to a crooked and collusive media (they work closely together with the Radical Left Democrats) that will do anything to hide the real facts of this election fiasco.”
The NKyTribune’s Washington columnist Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.comNow, in honor of the late Ron Popeil, permit me to say, “Wait, there’s more!” And it should be read while imagining the former president flushed as red as a rose, eyes bulging and sweat pouring down like a waterfall. After citing “irrefutable evidence from numerous states,” our boy goes on to blast the Department of Justice, insisting it, “should be looking at the people who rigged the election, not the Patriots of our Country who are seeking to find how our Nation was defrauded.”
The “Patriots of our Country,” of course, are, in Trump’s addled view, the dopes who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a lunatic effort to reverse the election results establishing that Democrat Joe Biden was the next president of these United States. Many, if not most, of the insurrectionists thought they were doing Orangeman’s bidding and, as a result, several individuals died, including at least one law enforcement officer.
Nero infamously fiddled as Rome burned. Trump watched television while his supporters laid waste to the heart of democracy.
Here’s the thing: Trump doesn’t believe a bloody word that spews from his maw. Neither do the Republican leaders who fall into line like supplicants. It’s all a scheme to not only motivate Trumpist voters to head to the polls in 2022 and 2024, but provide cover for GOP-controlled state legislatures to adopt phony-baloney election reforms aimed at keeping the wrong people (read black and brown folks) from heading to the polls where they might upset the party’s apple cart.
Trump never produces the “irrefutable evidence” he constantly cites because it doesn’t exist. Every claim he has ever made that the election was rigged and that he actually won “by a lot’’ has, in fact, been refuted. The courts will hear none of his nonsense and disputed tallies have been checked time and time again.
There’s nothing there. Zip Nada. Yet Trump continues to press the fairy tale. This is called The Big Lie.
Here’s what a fellow named Goebbels said about The Big Lie, and, believe you me, this dude knew what he was talking about:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Trump, during his time in office, from Election Day Nov. 3, 2020, to Biden’s inauguration, Jan. 20, 2021, used the powers of the state to tell The Big Lie over and over again. He continued once he left office and Republican state legislators and governors have picked up the cudgel, pushing malicious election reforms to assure what happened to Trump never happens again.
Of course the only thing that happened to Trump is he lost, and rightfully so. But as a result of those lies, and the utilization of those lies by GOP-controlled states, millions have been duped into believing The Big Lie.
Neither Trump nor his Republican sycophants believe The Big Lie. When they push it they are, well, lying. But the game they’re playing – and that’s what it is, a game – achieves several goals. It fires up the Trump true believers, thus assuring they will head to the polls in 2022 and 2024, and it provides an opportunity for legislatures to, if you’ll excuse the expression, rig the election.
The whole rigmarole also serves to distract attention away from any Biden administration goals or achievements as Trumpster continue to maintain he is not a legitimate president.
Then there are the foot soldiers who view Trump as the messiah and will follow him into hell, or Washington DC as the case may be. A certain percentage of those folks know his Orange Eminence is selling garbage but they’re happy to play along hoping to somehow get him re-instated at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or, in the alternative, set the stage for the grand comeback of our hero three years hence.
But a lot of Trump followers actually have come to not only believe but embrace The Big Lie. These are the folks who have faith that the Orangeman will lead them out of the wilderness, part the Red Sea and return America to days of yore, when men were men and women were glad of it.
Both sides of this coin – the go-along-for-the-ride crowd and the true believers – are there for the same reason. The late, great newspaper columnist Mike Royko used to assert that the Chicago City Council should adopt the motto, “Ubi Est Mea,’’ Latin for “Where’s mine?” Same for these folks.
For years now, the federal government, particularly in Democratic administrations, has tried to raise the water level for all boats, trying to even the playing field for women, African-Americans, Latinos, gays and folks of various ethnic, racial and sexual stripe.
A substantial percentage of the White vote, which constitutes Trump’s base – he received 57 percent of the white male vote and 53 percent of the White female vote, according to Pew Research – believe they are not only being left out but their once unchallenged influence on the affairs of state are waning. The White patriarchy, which essentially ruled the nation since its founding, is being challenged on various fronts and power sharing to them has never been an attractive notion.
Trump speaks to that. When he says junk like, “A small group of people, with absolutely crazy ideas and policies, is forcing these changes to destroy our culture and heritage” or warning we’re in danger of losing our country, he’s not talking to some poor Black woman in Philadelphia who can never catch a break. He’s addressing those who have a vested interest in retaining the White patriarchy and they are unwilling to give it up.
In almost 50 years of covering politics (Egads) I can identify one thing I’ve learned for sure: People believe what they want to believe. Facts, statistics, inside info, none of it matters. These people believe in Trump and they continue to believe in him, despite all the lies, the deceit, the chicanery, because they want to.
Yes, they’re being conned. But in a way they want to be conned. They want to believe in Trump because he speaks to their White privilege way of life.
It was W.C. Fields who said, “You can’t cheat an honest man.”
And that, folks, like the hokey-pokey, is what it’s all about.
Thanks Bill. Truth told clearly. Watch carefully as Trumpsters say he’ll be reinstated soon. Watch carefully.