Pre-packaged Lies

It’s becoming impossible to know where to start, as Trump and Congressional Republicans, having nothing legitimate with which to attract voters, are increasingly turning to lying to defend the indefensible. Unequal justice when it comes to Trump and Trumpists vs President Joe Biden and Democrats, for example. Last week, RNC chair Ronna Romney McDaniel stated, unblinking, on national tv, that Hillary Clinton had never been investigated. (cf: “How stupid do you think we are,” below.)

Not to be left in dissembling’s dust, Mike Pence attested, on Meet The Press, that no BLM rioters were arrested during the George Floyd protests. They were, of course. Around three hundred, as a matter of what’s commonly known as fact. Amusingly, had they not been, it’d have been on Trump’s DOJ, not “deep-state commies.”

Then there’s the whole “weaponization of government” thing, pushed by every hat-ringed Republican and those in Congress. The same people screeching about President Joe Biden’s imaginary weaponization cheered when Trump promised he’d appoint a special counsel to go after the Bidens. Former Chief of Staff General James Mattis says he repeatedly had to discourage Trump from ordering the DOJ, FBI, and IRS to target his enemies. But he still did. Often successfully.

And Jim Jordan is promising to investigate universities whose professors are researching the hows, whys, and whats of the spread of disinformation, without which Trumpism is empty-handed. If that’s not weaponizing, what is?

Those lies compare to Trump’s about the election and everything else as a runny nose to Niagara Falls. Predicated on the same understanding, though, they’re identical: they’ve sucked in the suckers so effectively that they’ll get no pushback. Even as their legislative work is limited to pre-failed articles of impeachment against truth-telling Democrats. And censuring them.

Predictably, there’s outrage over Hunter Biden's plea deal. How unfair, right? Well, first of all, the US Attorney conducting the investigation was appointed by Trump, was kept on by Merrick Garland, rather than fired, as Trump did to several USAs investigating him. Second, plea deals are far more common than trials, whatever the crime. They’re admissions of guilt, carrying penalties. It also implies, contra countless cunning Congressional contentions, that that’s all the “there” there is. Like, so far, the iffy insinuations of President Joe Biden taking bribes.

Would a Trump-picked attorney have given Hunter, as Kevin McCarthy called it, “a sweetheart deal”? If so, whose “deep state” is it? By comparison, Trump’s pal Roger Stone defrauded the government of two million dollars in taxes; the DOJ treated it as a civil claim. Merrick Garland was, in fact, unusually hard on Hunter Biden. 

But it’s a model for Trump and those saying President Joe Biden should pardon him to save America the anguish of a trial: Cop a plea. Accept responsibility, get off lightly. If, as Trumpists believe, he loves America (he doesn’t), there’s something he could do for it: take a bit of gentlemanly jail time, accept home detention for five years or so, and agree never again to run for any office. No trial, no need to embarrass himself with under-oath testimony, like he did under no oath with Bret Baier. No on-demand riots, no supporters going to prison. A mitzvah for America. He won’t, of course.

There’s too much MAGA lying, rigging elections, keeping people ignorant through book-banning and abrogation of speech, plus bankrolling phony third-party candidates to compress into a weekly column. To the attempt, there’s a yin and a yang. On the one hand, preaching to the choir; on the other, exhorting people as impervious to factual information as a brick wall to the wind.

Last week a man canvassing for a political candidate rang my doorbell. After we exchanged names, he said, OMG, I love your column! Then, in a once and never event, he asked for a selfie. Well, I thought, maybe it’s worth it, after all. Till the next day, when I received a typically Trumpic email, responding to last week’s column: eschewing the opportunity to address, much less refute the content; dismissing my references without reading them, with a question that answered itself: “CNN, HuffPost, NY Times....how dumb do you think we are?”

Per usual for such critics, he went on to repeat whole-swallowed Foxisms, such as “sexual deviance being promoted by schools.” Inferring that, like Trumpists everywhere, he hadn’t read the indictment or the Presidential Records Act, which were central to the column, I offered to respond further (by then, there’d been two exchanges) only if he read them and explained why the indictment was insignificant and how the PRA confirmed Trump’s claims about his right to the documents he stole. Still waiting.  

Which is why it’s getting harder to see value in these writings. The enlightened know, the blinded will never see. It’s micturating in the mistral. I feel a reassessive break coming on.