In times of trouble the crème rises to the top…such as
the insights and creativity, from such people as Lucian K. Truscott.
I just read his Substack post:
“This is Our Rosa Parks Moment.”
Truscott writes:
“Politics is not the
only mechanism by which democracy works.”
“Democrats tried and failed to end the
Vietnam war in 1972 with their votes for George McGovern and lost. Richard
Nixon carried 49 of 50 states and won the popular vote by 18 million votes.
“The protesters at Fort Benning wanted the
war to end, but it didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen.
In 1973, the soldiers were brought home,
and two years after that, the war ended because we lost it and pulled out of
Vietnam militarily for good. It was unrestrained power and idiocy that
started the war in Vietnam. It wasn’t the power of
the vote in our democracy that ended that war.
It was the hundreds of thousands of
protesters just like those at Fort Benning who did it.”
Peter Greaves commented on Truscott’s post. The
president-elect was only elected by 32% of those eligible to vote. He was
allowed to be elected by 38% of eligible voters who chose not to cast a ballot.
He does not have a mandate.
Nine days before Election Day, Donald Trump
delivered his closing argument at a Madison Square Garden rally that drew comparisons to a 1939
pro-Nazi rally in the same arena and characterized by similar anti-democratic
themes: demonization of immigrants and political enemies, invocation of
strongman leadership, threats of violent retribution, denunciations of the
press.
Enough Americans bought it to elect him.
We must conclude that most voters want
what Trump is offering.
Or it could be that they have been gaslighted into believing his lies.
I know people are angry and want to strike out—we’ve
been stirred up for the last nine years—people are on tenterhooks. Don’t you
know, folks, it was planned that way?
From Paul Rosenberg:
“Like the conman in the original film “Gaslight,”
Trump spun elaborate fictions, claiming that Obama had come out of nowhere,
demanding to see his college transcripts and inventing a team of investigators
sent to Hawaii (who did not exist). That got the anti-Obama base fired up,
while presenting a pseudo-serious facade to the broader public. This is how he
gaslights routinely in politics, rarely engaging directly with the right-wing
mythologies he taps into, but freely improvising his own fantasy
extensions.
In this election, Trump relied on five key
themes of gaslighting in various different ways, all of them adding up to an
overarching sixth theme: Democrats are the real threat to American democracy,
and Donald Trump is its savior.
“It is the upside-down logic used in
abusive relationships.
“Gaslighters may lie all the time, but
when the chips are down, they gaslight.”
For example, “The hate you saw was really love, and if
you can’t see that, you’re the hateful one.”
(Google— “How Donald Trump Gaslit America,” by Paul
Rosenberg.)
Wow, that President elect isn’t stupid, he is devious.
Or, could it be that the idea that a woman of color
could possibly become President is so repugnant to many that they would elect a
rapist, misogynist, amoral man who cannot even take pleasure in winning but
must still rail at the Democrats?
Doesn’t he know that an athletic event (since he likes
fighting so much—as displayed on the Joe Rogan show) has two sides?
(The fighting they were so enamored with is extreme
fighting where they kick to break their opponent’s legs, and sometimes the
fighters carry a razor blade to cut themselves to make their injuries seem worse.)
If you win, you celebrate, but you do not want to annihilate
your opponent, they were there so you could win.
Didn’t your coach teach you anything about sportsmanship?
The country elected a man by a democratic voting
system—even Latino men whom he has threatened to deport voted for him. I’m
boggled.
I’m ashamed. When hate opens the door it gives other
haters permission to be their worst. Some far-right men have taunted social
media women, “Your body, my choice.”
That tells me the abortion ban is not about saving
babies. (Nobody wants to kill a baby.) It’s about sticking it to women. It’s
about control.
I always wondered when I saw how maligned an unwed
mother was, how she was hidden, set off, made ashamed, and ridiculed.
Sometimes, the man just ran off. Then, after the baby was born, “Oh, how cute
it is.” Now, it is a person. While it was in the woman, it was a shameful
sexual act, a biological blight that made the woman swell up and commit to the
act of pushing what feels like a watermelon out of her body. And let’s make
sure she did it, and hopefully in pain. (Evidenced by some nuns who facilitated
childbirth.) The Bible said a woman was unclean after giving birth and had to
spend a certain number of days to cleanse.
Back to the question I posed in an earlier blog—and it
is not why Harris lost. Why did Trump win?
“Trump’s voters turned out because they
believed him when he stood up there at his rallies and claimed that he would
fix all their problems, whatever they were. For them, it was what passed
for leadership, so they followed him. He won’t fix things, he doesn’t
even know what their problems are, and he doesn’t care. But that doesn’t
matter right now.
“What matters for us is that the time for
complaining is over. Here is how my father told me to get over
myself:
“Buck up. There are things to figure
out and work to do. We have the tools; we’re smart; we can do it.”
—Lucian K Truscott
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
“Before he (the President elect) enters on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:– I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Fourteenth amendment: Section 3