Donald Trump’s legacy of lies and death
For the second day in a row, 9/11-magnitude numbers of Americans are needlessly dying. As of this writing, in the last 24 hours, 2,964 Americans have died from COVID-19, bringing the two day total to 5,853.
So desensitized have Trump apologists become that they continue to clutch their pearls and weep that the election was stolen from Donald Trump, without so much as a passing acknowledgement of this real and provable human tragedy. It is an object lesson on how thoroughly common sense can disappear from a nation composed of citizens deprived, through decades of indoctrination in ignorance, of their capacity to think.
To be sure, not all members of the Republican Party have lost their minds. Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, for example, recently told Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto, “It’s definitely not our finest moment. We continue to get pieces of misinformation flowing in almost by the hour from folks seeing something on Facebook or Twitter and it takes ten seconds to debunk. And really I think the troubling part to me, Neil, is that so much of this is flying in just under the premise of not rooting out fraud but to simply try to flip an election.”
We know Lt. Governor Duncan’s analysis is correct because if there had been a single scintilla of actual fraud it would have been brought up in court by now. Duncan continues, “We’re four weeks into this and we have not seen — the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the investigators have not seen — any signs of systemic or organized fraud.”
But none of the Trump lawyers, like Rudy Giuliani, nor former Trump Lawyers, like Sidney Powell, were willing to risk their legal careers by alleging fraud in front of a judge. Had there been any evidence of fraud they would have said so, but even they know there is none. But don’t take my word for it, permit me to quote Mr. Giuliani directly. When speaking to a Pennsylvania judge, Rudy actually said, “This is not a fraud case.”
One trait common among conspiracy theorists is their unwillingness, as Lt. Governor Duncan points out, to spend the requisite ten seconds on Google checking it out. I have near the capacity for Facebook friends, and as such I used to get almost weekly messages saying that the “28th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits Congress from creating laws that apply to U.S. citizens but not to them, and vice-versa.” Unfortunately, there is no 28th Amendment to the Constitution and there is no movement to create one with that specific language. When I pointed this out to them I frequently received abuse or stony silence. Not once did they rebroadcast their message with a correction.
Someone other than Winston Churchill said words to the effect that a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to pull its boots on. The common human trait to believe a lie (including the lie that Churchill ever said such a thing) is much stronger than the impulse to check that lie out. It’s a lot more fun to believe something juicy than it is to engage in the boring and often disappointing task of finding out whether it’s true or not.
If you don’t believe me, see for yourself. Next time you do battle with a conspiracy theorist ask them to Google one (and only one) single contention they make. Watch them squirm. They hate doing it. Because on some level even they know that what they really want to do is to read more bias-confirming articles and listen to more conspiracy theory broadcasts and watch more YouTube videos confirming them in what they want to believe. Actually checking facts is simply too hard. An important maxim to keep in mind is this: ignorance is, above all, lazy.
Donald Trump is an ignorant and lazy spreader of shameless conspiracies. Unfortunately he is also an influential one. The good news is we only have to endure him for another six weeks or so. The bad news is people are dying, and a president who has abrogated his oath of office is in charge.
The Constitution requires a president to do only two things. First, he must “faithfully execute the office of president of the United States.” Not play golf, not skip security briefings, not rage-tweet messages that put American lives in danger, not watch TV, no, the Constitution requires him to do his job. To faithfully execute the office of president.
Second, the Constitution requires the president to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Not look for loopholes, not break the law, not tell 25,000 lies, not block subpoenas and suborn perjury, but to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Very soon now we will remember what we have almost forgotten: what it is like once again to have a president who does his job.
In the meantime Americans are dying by the thousands every day of a deadly disease in unprecedented numbers. In the time it has taken you to read this article approximately five Americans have died of Covid-19. Let’s not forget them either. 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.