Fighting the madness
Those of you who recall your high school American history class will remember the stern cautionary tale your teacher probably drew from the The Alien and Sedition Acts. The Alien and Sedition Acts were a set of four draconian laws, enacted in 1798 and signed into law by John Adams. They applied restrictions to immigration and speech in the United States. Those acts were wildly unpopular at the time.
One of the acts that is still in effect to this day, The Alien Enemies Act, was used in the execution of perhaps the most shameful instance of injustice the American government has ever inflicted on its own citizens. It was used to round up, arrest and imprison Japanese Americans during World War II.
Donald Trump wants to dust off and redeploy the The Alien Enemies Act, this time against Hispanic Americans and others he has darkly termed “the enemy within.” In his recent interview with Kamala Harris, Fox News host Bret Baier attempted to downplay this ugly fact by playing a heavily redacted clip of Trump speaking with Maria Bartiromo and disavowing his “enemy within” quote. Harris refused to be gaslighted.
“That clip was not what he has been saying about the ‘enemy within’ that he has repeated when he’s speaking about the American people,” Harris responded. “That’s not what you just showed.” It was a defining moment in the interview, an attempt at a “gotcha” moment on Harris that blew up spectacularly in Baier’s face.
But one thing that the mainstream media has largely missed in all this, was Baier’s disingenuous attempt to force Harris into disparaging a large portion of the American people, the portion voting for Donald Trump. Baier was hoping to trap her into another “gotcha,” a “basket of deplorables” moment, if you will. “If he’s as bad as you say,” Baier asked, “that half of this country is now supporting this person who could be the 47th president of the United States, why is that happening?” I think I can answer that.
It’s happening, in a large part, thanks to Fox News itself. It’s happening because Fox News has created an entire industry out of lying about Trump, and they just finished paying a civil judgement of seven hundred and eighty-seven million dollars on that account.
It’s happening, in a large part, thanks to the mainstream media, who continue to insist on “sanewashing” every idiotic utterance of this despotic madman because secretly, deep down in a place they can scarcely admit to themselves, they want Trump to win. Trump has been their business for the last nine years, and business is good.
It’s happening, in a large part, thanks to social media, where every moron and Dunning Kruger Effect specimen on the planet has suddenly been given a platform that can potentially reach hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of people. It’s happening because critical thinking isn’t taught in schools. It’s happening because conspiracy theories have become the default position of every crackpot on earth, and those crackpots are now legion.
Today we have so many low-information, deeply prejudiced and ignorant voters for the same reason we have so many obese people. Because an entire industry of slick conmen are getting rich because of it. With so much power arrayed against them it’s a wonder that only half the country has fallen for Trump’s bullshit.
One way to help rollback some of this madness is to defeat Trump in November. So let’s do just that, shall we? And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.