CSotD: Coffee Break’s Over
Skip to comments
The Big Story, of course, is Donald Trump’s decision to quit dodging, denying and lying about his affection for and loyalty to Vladimir Putin.
At least it should be. But Steve Bannon had a good point: If you flood the zone with sh*t, people get distracted, running from this scandal to that one, never quite resolving any of them and becoming so used to outrage that outrage ceases to, well, outrage anyone anymore.
It’s hard to believe that we have a president willing to climb into bed with Putin, but, then, it was impossible to believe that Trump was valedictorian of his college class, given that we saw the program from Wharton’s commencement and he was listed only as a graduate, without any honors, much less top honors.
And it was impossible to believe he had huge crowds at his first inauguration, because we could see the photos.
Kellyanne Conway’s prattle about “alternative facts” was clear, blatant nonsense, yet plenty of people were willing to believe.
It seemed unpatriotic not to.
The White Queen bragged to Alice that she could believe a half dozen impossible things before breakfast, and we used to laugh at her. But perhaps she was right, perhaps all it takes is was practice and willpower, because here we are, with Vladimir Putin comfortably tilting back in his chair and putting his feet up on the White House.
How did we get here?
Voluntarily.
“No question about it,” Senator McConnell declared. But then he thought it over and apparently decided that he saw nothing and that it probably never happened at all.
Now we’re investigating Cassidy Hutchinson for having told us what she saw and heard that day, because if we believe none of it happened, we must protect the public’s right not to know.
Part of the assault on truth is currently being revealed: The recent Ukrainian attacks on Russian data centers undermined an enormous army of bots, and Xitter has suddenly become far more balanced without the constant stream of hateful auto-generated trollery.
For now, hate must be posted by real people, and apparently there aren’t so many bigots, racists and fascists out there as it had seemed.
Let’s be practical: There has always been a gap between campaign promises and the realities that follow. Sometimes a candidate gets into office and finds unexpected barriers. Sometimes external events make it impossible to carry out a policy proposal. We should expect shortcomings, no matter who wins an election.
But promises of live executions — even if they are later withdrawn — set an atmosphere that can’t be dismissed as normal political slippage.
Especially when we demonstrate an inability to carry out executions competently. It becomes more than fair to ask what the Constitution means by “cruel and unusual punishments” when we have repeated, ghastly failures to put people to death, and when much of the world has ended the practice anyway.
Whether or not you feel it’s “cruel,” it is becoming statistically “unusual,” and our efforts shock much of the world.”
Nor are botched executions the only way in which we cause the world to look upon us unfavorably. When authorities are sent to search the home of a member of Congress, Jonathan Brown cites a comparison to other governments who have used police to stifle dissenting politicians.
It’s hardly flattering.
But Benson dismisses any notion of “innocent until proven guilty” and declares that there is evidence and that we always knew that a Somali-born Congresswoman was not just disloyal but had already somehow broken the law.
We don’t know which law, though it seems there was an error on some paperwork her father filed some 30 years ago, and it has to be true or we wouldn’t have searched her house, and the statute of limitations doesn’t apply because if it did, none of this would have happened.
The fact that the FBI searched her house means she is guilty.
If you embrace “alternative facts” to fit your worldview, you might agree that poor Katie Zacharia had huge shoes to fill, that Karoline Leavitt had set a pace for honest, professional reportage that it’s almost impossible for anyone else to match.
And that Noah had kangaroos and polar bears in his ark.
Some levels of belief require that you believe absolutely everything, so that there are those who must believe the world was created in six days because they can’t disbelieve anything in the Bible without rejecting everything.
True Believers judge politicians the same way: All bad or all good. If I like a politician, he can do no wrong. If I don’t, then any flaw, no matter how slight, is entirely disqualifying.
But here’s what you must believe for democracy to work: Somewhere between the True Believers of the right and the True Believers of the left there is a reasonable majority of people who value facts and who will listen and make choices out of logic rather than out of loyalty.
It sometimes seems easier to believe in Noah’s kangaroos.
Still, the world is losing faith in us. America First is becoming America Alone.
That’s not just a feeling. It’s not politics. It’s the results of polling, as well as the result of looking at falling tourism numbers.
“When Pew Research asked people across 36 countries this spring if they trusted various world leaders to do the right thing, Trump was trusted least — less than Putin, Xi Jinping, and Netanyahu. Gallup found that world opinion of the United States has fallen to its lowest point in 20 years.”
Even in the places where we are still seen more favorably than unfavorably, approval is fading and negatives increasing.
I doubt that leaving Ukraine to the tender mercies of the invading Russians would improve the world’s opinion of us.
How can we rebound? It will take more than a rejection of Trump in the midterm elections. Regardless of any “Blue Wave,” he will still be in power and will be able to veto reform.
But it needs to start there, and if that first step fails, it will be our fault, not his.
Keep the faith. And keep on keepin’ on.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
Comments