Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Who is he, really?
I am reading the indictment document released this week by attorney Jack Smith. I’m only 14 pages into it and the detailed account of events leading up to January 6, 2021, are hair-raising, in my opinion. I have only begun to read about all the attempts to force those with any connection to ballot counting or election monitoring to ignore the law and the truth. So much information about 45’s efforts to stay in power has been broadcast that I thought for sure the indictment would just be a summary of what we’ve already learned. A lot of it is. But there is enough new information to fill 45 pages. The extent to which 45 and his minions went to try and hold on to power is unbelievable.
So far this week I’ve read Heather Cox Richardson’s letters, an article that quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and an opinion piece by David Brooks of the New York Times. All three writers spell out the danger that is pressing down on our Democracy, as 45 pleads “Not Guilty” over and over again. To me the most astonishing thing is that if 45 is convicted on these charges, he can still run for President and take over the Oval Office again if he wins the election. Apparently the Constitution does not have many requirements for seeking this office other than being age 35. So an indicted Federal felon can run, can win, and can be our President. I’m sure the authors of the Constitution never imagined that this scenario would ever take place, but here we are.
I heard a woman on the radio ask, “Why would anyone want someone guilty of so many crimes to be President?”. I’m with her in my inability to understand how so many people can believe all the conspiracy theories that paint 45 as an innocent victim of the “left’s” efforts to disempower him. Then I realize that as strongly as I feel that 45 is guilty, there are millions of people out there who think this is all a witch hunt. And there’s not much of a chance that either camp will convert the other. (I know – he’s innocent until proven guilty.)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany and he was eventually executed by the Nazi’s for his opposition to the regime. The article quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer uses harsh language to characterize supporters of obvious evil as “stupid”. I don’t use that word to describe MAGA people as much as I soften it to say they are unwilling to be educated. But Dietrich Bonhoeffer was writing in Germany in the 1930’s and 1940’s as the Nazi’s rose to power and millions of Germans signed on in support. He was baffled by how easily people choose evil. This is what he said:
“Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed — in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.”
Then I read an opinion piece by David Brooks in the New York Times. The piece is entitled, “What if we’re the bad guys here?”. He is writing about people like me, who have had every privilege there is to have, and have made my way fairly successfully through life. My kind of person probably believes as I do, that 45 is a dangerous and twisted individual who wants to be King. But the people who support him might feel like this:
“ It’s easy to understand why people in less-educated classes would conclude that they are under economic, political, cultural and moral assault — and why they’ve rallied around Trump as their best warrior against the educated class. He understood that it’s not the entrepreneurs who seem most threatening to workers; it’s the professional class. Trump understood that there was great demand for a leader who would stick his thumb in our eyes on a daily basis and reject the whole epistemic regime that we rode in on.
If distrustful populism is your basic worldview, the Trump indictments seem like just another skirmish in the class war between the professionals and the workers, another assault by a bunch of coastal lawyers who want to take down the man who most aggressively stands up to them. Of course, the indictments don’t cause Trump supporters to abandon him. They cause them to become more fiercely loyal. That’s the polling story of the last six months.”
This is what’s trending in my head this morning.