This is nothing short of terrifying. A new ABC/Washington Post poll is out. Unsurprisingly, coronavirus is the fault line that the country is split along. Also unsurprising, but nevertheless chilling, is the fact that a large portion of this country is deluded into thinking that things are just fine, with respect to coronavirus. And those people are voting for Donald Trump.
What this boils down to is half the country is running on truth and half on disinformation — or maybe not half and half, but a substantial amount of people are totally in the dark, willfully in the dark, and are casting ballots from that position. That is why I used the word terrifying.
This is way beyond a partisan difference of opinion. This is a basic disagreement about what’s real vs. what’s not. We have never seen that before in this country. Many comparisons have been made between Trump and Nixon, but back in the Watergate era, there was not one news network claiming that the Watergate break-in never happened, or if it did, that it was engineered by a Democratic billionaire with nefarious motives. You get the idea.
I do not pretend to know what happened in this country, to make a large percentage of people prefer conspiracy theory and tabloid-level infotainment over basic facts, but the only reason Trump got elected in the first place is because that’s where we are. A great many people believed his fire hose of falsehood in 2016. Donald Trump has been waging a war on truth his entire life. He sold his freak show act to a large enough percentage of the American people, and that, coupled with Russian bots and a devastatingly effective 25-year-long disinformation campaign on Hillary Clinton, put him where he is. Some Trump voters have come to their senses, hopefully a majority. Maybe that’s too hopeful.
This graph is disturbing because it corroborates the fact that the United States is a shockingly dumbed down and uninformed country. We may have been a great nation at one point — hell, we were the first nation to send men to the moon. History will record that America was an exceptional country in its prime. History will also record the erosion of the educational system, the pernicious effect of television upon attention span and critical thinking skills, and how right-wing media like Fox News came to pollute the airways with partisanship mislabeled as news.
The graph is also shocking because the facts are so plainly out there. Even if a person would totally distrust all American media to report the truth, fine, go to the Toronto Star or the Guardian, or any number of other credible outlets all over the world. The facts are plain that we have the highest death toll from COVID-19 of any nation in the world. How even one sane person could think that this situation is “somewhat under control” or “completely under control” is beyond comprehension.
Donald Trump lives in a Tower of Babel constructed of lies. Every day he layers on yet more. Yet despite the obviousness of that fact, here’s another graph that appeared in a recent CBS poll.
This strikes me as apocalyptic. I can only pray that the better angels of our nature prevail and that, despite the attempted sabotage of the post office, Trump is resoundingly defeated in 78 days. My God, how did we get this stupid?
As I see it, those polls only show who’s going to be too crippled or buried to be much of a political force by November, grist for the manmade third of COVID 19 we’ve been hearing about. My fear of humans will never dwarf my fear and respect for the disease that they leave themselves open to.
I suppose that’s one way to look at it. I am just horrified that the rest of the world is dealing with this issue more effectively, including India, for God’s sake. Despite the horrendous jammed living conditions and the filth, they have fewer dead than we do. I cannot overstate how appalled I am by this entire situation, and the fact that anybody could think it’s okay.
Oh, I understand and approve of your horror. Consigning this many Americans to their doom is unconscionable for all the reasons you just cited. That said, I have to admit that I’m beginning to agree with my mother’s rather Darwinist view of COVID 19. The aware people have a better chance of survival than the unaware…not a guarantee, mind, but it helps to know the threat is coming and from where.
In. 1633 Galileo saw a moon rotating around Jupiter thereby proving Copernicus’ theory that we rotated around the sun. How does the Catholic church go with a LIE when they proclaim that God is Truth? How do they then work to get the murderers (nazis) out of Europe after murdering 11 million people? How do u murder native American children & hand out medals of honor for running them down & crushing their skulls. I have a thousand examples. When you bulid a world on greed, violence, & lies, how can any of us really be shocked we are where we are. VOTE EARLY NO MATTER WHAT.
It’s distressing. No doubt about it. However, I don’t see Trump himself as the underlying cause but instead maintain it’s basic human nature. Accepting Trump’s candidacy or what he’s done in office is the inciting incident so to speak but something inherent in human nature makes people susceptible to someone like Trump. Whether it’s MAGA goobers who really believed all the populist stuff and “draining the swamp” or the more coldly transaction beliefs of those who held their noses under the firm belief he’d give them their tax cuts, or their RWNJ judges & Justices (or both) but wouldn’t do any of the rest of the damage he’s done to our country and ruin our standing in the world the end result is people got suckered. The carnival barker lured them into the tent, even those who had reservations. Or the sleazy used-car salesman in the garish plaid jacket made an offer on a shiny car that they just couldn’t pass up. Or whatever analogy you want to use.
Here’s the thing though. Human nature is such that we really, and I mean REALLY don’t like to admit we made a big mistake, even when that mistake came with at least some benefits. Getting conned is really embarrassing. There’s not a one of us who hasn’t been duped on something significant at some point or points in our life. No one. But the bigger the goof-up on our part, the more we are inclined (unless we work very hard to accept we messed up) to rationalize it to ourselves and even more so to others. Examples in life abound. The aforementioned used car that turned out to be a lemon or, in the case of someone with bad credit a loan that will cripple them financially comes to mind. Yet, even to family and friends who know the truth people will refuse to admit they got suckered and made a bad deal on the car!
Or how about this? Dating and falling for someone others warned you about? Or even part of you had some reservations about? Then that person you fell in love with or were in the process of falling in love with shows their darker side. They cheat. Or are abusive – and while women are by far the greatest victims of abuse men too are sometimes subjected to psychological and in some cases even physical abuse. How many of us have, before it was too late and our finances were ruined, or the beatings left life altering injuries or worse broken away and through tears asked the person(s) who got them through “how could I have been so stupid?” Think about how common “only” being cheated on is, and tragically how often abuse takes place. And as I said, and especially with philanderers friends warned us or people we know. Or told us someone was crazy and they turned out to be. Hell, I wish I had a hundred bucks for every woman I’ve been acquaintances with who even knew a guy had a history of cheating but was SURE that with her, he was past all that – the worst part for me getting the plaintative question “why can’t I find a guy like you?” but I’m getting a bit distracted now.
The point is that people make bad decisions and even get outright conned countless times every single day. As I said earlier it’s typical of human nature that the bigger we screw up, the more we tend to refuse to want to admit it even to ourselves much less to others. And, if we haven’t done so ourselves every one of us knows someone who rather than admit they screwed up doubles or triples down on the mistake!
I have little doubt that while there are twenty million or so who bought Trump’s shtick hook, line and sinker still believe in him with every fiber of their being, and that the only problem is Democrats and RINO’s and the mythical “deep state” and so on. Even more made that hold their nose transactional choice because they wanted their goddamned tax cuts and judges, with healthy dose of deregulation tossed in and believed, or at least hoped he wouldn’t do any damage to everything else. Despite all evidence to the contrary, even as he’s laid waste to every institution and “norm” he’s come across and is in fact accelerating in such stuff human nature prevents them from admitting he not only has not but never really had the ability to become “Presidential.” So they too are doubling down rather than admit their small-minded selfishness has cost so many others so much. Worse, for some there isn’t even any guilt. If they had plenty to begin with and become an American oligarch or one of an oligarch’s “court” there’s always the “I got mine so fuck off” mentality. But still they don’t believe, not REALLY that we will become a third world nation and lose our seat at the table of free world nations that lead the world.
We are quite literally fighting common, everyday human nature in trying to get people to accept the reality of what has happened with the rise of Trump to political power.
And one last time – the bigger the mistake, the more loathe people are to admit it. Especially when they can look around and see so many others just like them who bought into the same con.
I suspect that if they’d also been asked where they got their news, the Trumpistas would report Fox and the RWNJ sources.
Because you cannot trust the MSM, doncha know? These same idiots trust Hannity, et al. Also “the media” is their kneejerk excuse, even when the link is C-span.
And for that mistake in judgment, they will pay for it with their health, grief over lost loved ones or lives.
pj, no doubt! Or no news at all. Or just what “someone” told them or they heard at the grocery store/bar/church social.
Two ‘competing’ narratives.
1.Truth, reality, and facts
2.Lies, spin, and make believe.
But sure, let’s hear ‘both sides’.
Next up after Trump is dragged out of the oval office.
Q.
You haven’t seen bat shit crazy yet.
Yes we have. There’s just more to come.
I can’t find this last poll on 538’s national general election polls. Biden is ahead in all and it runs from 4% on some C poll a week or so ago to 17%.
Leaving a polling average of eight points ahead overall. While that’s good, maybe we should make it better.
This is very true. I see it all the time. You have trump bootlickers falling all over themselves to get their message out. The problem is that you don’t have as much on the other side giving rebuttals. I know it would get tiresome to keep trying to get these morons to see the truth but they need to keep at it. As time goes along trump himself is bragging about his accomplishments. He just admitted to a federal crime. You have an opportunity to make a play against him. And you will have Barr when he tries to block him. See how they like a grand jury being convened over their crimes.
The minute he loses and it becomes obvious how badly is the minute most of the tongue bath ends.
I’m not sure what the “who do you expect to win” poll is about. If it’s just a general survey of voters, this doesn’t surprise me because people on the left are inveterate doomsayers and often depart from reality on things like this because they’re afraid to believe what is plain to see.