George Orwell in 1984: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
Donald Trump, after we all saw with our eyes and heard with our ears the boos rain down on him at the Libertarian convention: “The reason I didn’t file paperwork for the Libertarian Nomination, which I would have absolutely gotten if I wanted it (as everyone could tell by the enthusiasm of the Crowd last night!), was the fact that, as the Republican Nominee, I am not allowed to have the Nomination of another Party.”
Donald Trump is an ignorant and stupid buffoon. But he does possess, welling up from some evolutionary corner of his reptilian brain, the autocratic instinct he shares with Putin, Xi, Maduro, the Iranian mullahs, and Kim Jong Un, that George Orwell described so perfectly.
And that is that if you lie brazenly and repeatedly about things large and small, that if confronted with facts disproving your lies, you don’t even attempt to counter those facts, you simply throw more lies into the marketplace, that eventually you will create a population so overwhelmed and cynical that they retreat into silence and you can get away with virtually anything.
They will see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears the evidence of your lies, they may blink for a moment in astonishment, but by then you have flooded their mind space with so many more lies that they simply will not react. Why react to a lie now vanishing in the rear-view mirror, when there are dozens more lies that need navigating on the road ahead?
Just a few examples from the past few days.
Trump, asked in an interview, “Do you support any restrictions on a person’s right to contraception?”
Trump: “We’re looking at that. I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly and I think it’s something that you’ll find interesting.” [Probably going to have that policy in two weeks.]
Trump, the very next day: “I HAVE NEVER, AND WILL NEVER ADVOCATE IMPOSING RESTRICTIONS ON BIRTH CONTROL, or other contraceptives. This is a Democrat fabricated lie, MISINFORMATION/DISINFORMATION, because they have nothing else to run on except FAILURE, POVERTY, AND DEATH. I DO NOT SUPPORT A BAN ON BIRTH CONTROL, AND NEITHER WILL THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!”
Set aside for a moment that his best defense would have been to admit he simply didn’t know what “contraception” meant, and so just threw out his usual bullshit. Focus instead on the directive to deny your eyes and ears. What you saw and heard me say is a Democratic lie.
And, because this is simply what we have learned to expect from a clown, we shrug and move on.
Donald Trump over and over again during his trial: “I will testify, absolutely. I’m testifying. I tell the truth, I mean, all I can do is tell the truth.” He said this over and over.
He did not testify. Deny your eyes and ears.
Trump the other day: “WOW! I just came out of the Biden Witch Hunt Trial in Manhattan, the ‘Icebox,’ and was shown Reports that Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE. NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY.”
Trump: “They were authorized to shoot me! You know they’re just itching to do the unthinkable. Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger.”
Set aside, again, questions such as, can he possibly be that stupid, and/or, can he possibly be willing, knowing how stupid such a charge is, to casually toss it into our charged political atmosphere, knowing how so many of his cult followers will perceive it. And then simply shrug and move on to the next ridiculous lie.
Instead, imagine for a moment if a prominent politician with a reputation of being a person of honor, integrity, commitment to truth, had made such a charge against the president of the United States.
Law enforcement, from the Secret Service to the FBI to local police, would have mobilized in swarms and virtually shut down access to the accuser and the accused. Political investigations would very quickly lead to impeachment proceedings. Multiple firings, resignations, imprisonments. The entire world would be on high alert under the expectation that American democracy was on the verge of collapse. News channels, from FOX to MSNBC, would have 24/7 coverage. Nothing else would be talked about.
Instead, the entire world greeted the news with a collective yawn. Not a single Secret Service man or woman checked their phones to see if they were being called in for emergency duty. No FBI agent scrambled to ensure his/her powder was dry. Even MTG quickly went back to rage tweeting against AOC and defending her “bleach blonde bad built body.”
Think about the implications. What this means about the past and possible future president of the United States and leader of the free world. He can make the most serious accusation imaginable, that the sitting president of the United States tried to kill him, his family, his Secret Service detail, and nobody pays him any mind whatsoever.
Nobody attaches any truth content to his words. We see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and have become so cynical, so detached, so used to his world of fantasy, that we simply go on about our day.
Perhaps that’s a good thing. Now. At this moment. But imagine a second term.
During Trump’s first term, rational people in government, other world leaders, could always count on their back-channel sources to give them the truth of the matter. Trump spouted off. Phones rang in the office of the Secretary of State, the Chief of Staff, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And these responsible human beings communicated to the rest of the world, “Don’t worry. We won’t let the moron do this or that which he’s threatening to do. Don’t take any action until you clear it with me.”
But what happens in a 2nd term?
Trump is making no secret that his next administration will be staffed with his clownish sycophants. There will be no “adults in the room.” Nobody to step into the corridor outside the Oval, as happened so often during term #1, and decide who will ignore the latest ridiculous, and often illegal, idea espoused by the Moron-in-Chief. Who will slow walk the dumb directive. Who will take the heat.
No. In a 2nd term, Trump will do everything in his power to turn the Justice Department and the military into tools for his revenge. The persecution of his perceived enemies. And when those phones ring, there will be only babbling fools to calm the nerves of the world.
Trump’s lies, his ridiculous attempts to bend reality to his bullshit, can be amusing now. The courts, the Justice Department, the military, the Democratic party, are holding the line for reality. For truth.
Come next January, if Trump wins in November, the corrosion of those institutions will begin. Perhaps “corrosion” is not the right word. “Assault” is likely closer to what we’ll see.
And the question, “Whither American democracy?” and “Whither the world without a strong American democracy?” will be the first questions asked. And answered.
And we will all be forced to deal with what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears. There will be no escaping it …