Every morning I spend some time checking a short list of websites that give me an overview of what is happening around the world and especially in America. I long ago stopped looking at conservative sites because I couldn't find one that didn't lie and distort almost every story they published. I have spoken with some people who are true 'Foxians', who put their trust in Fox News and believe pretty much everything Fox spouts. In fact, they cannot get a handle on whether it's misinformation, gas-lighting, pure deception or whatever....because they are too conspiracy prone at this point to even accept that sites like Politifact and Snopes really are in the business of ferreting out the truth. A true 'Foxian' will tell you that there is a liberal plot behind them, so it's best just to stick to believing people like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, and the list goes on. They will never accept that these people make their living telling lies. Politifact, which is actually NOT a propaganda site like Fox, has found that Fox lies approximately EIGHT-SEVEN PERCENT of the time. Holy, Cow Batman!!!
So, I suppose, with people that dedicated to feeding on a diet of deception, that it should not comes as a surprise that suddenly one of the most inane and insane conspiracies is gaining traction: Q-Anon.
I am still amazed that anybody at all would subscribe to such stupidity, but, there must be something in the underlying psychological make-up of the people who embrace conspiracies, something twisted and perverse. One poor deluded idiot attacked the pizza parlor in Virginia where the Q-Anon conspiracy hatchers had said there was a ring of pedophiles operating out of the basement....a ring overseen, or at least participated in, by none other than Hillary Clinton herself.
Eeeegads! Really? And, now, with all the disruption, hardship and insanity surrounding the Covid pandemic....QAnon has begun to gain some real traction. Did people get bored? Did sitting around the house for three months, eating Ramen noodles, make them somehow more susceptible to idiocy?
But, on the brighter side: for the first time during this election cycle, I read an account of The Idiot's campaign and his antics around posting a video in which a bubba rides past shouting, "White Power!". And, he's of course claiming he knew noting about the Russians paying a bounty to Taliban for killing American soldiers. In assessing how the campaign is doing, the writer used the term 'free fall'. And, this death-plunge is hurtling towards receiving one of the most dismal drubbings in any presidential election in modern times. If I give myself the gift of positive thinking around this, it will be a loss on a legendary level....a good ol' fashioned 'trip to the woodshed'.
My reaction to reading this was one of initial elation, quickly followed by a self-imposed caveat that it's way too soon to be that optimistic. The Idiot and his minions will employ all the dirty tricks they can manage to lay their feverish brains on. Cheating and stealing elections is, by now, familiar ground to GOPs. They have done so well with it that there is no reason to believe they will suddenly have an epiphany and decide that it's immoral, just simply wrong, in a democracy for one political party to use spurious means to steal an election. Hey, what counts is where you have landed after the dust settles. Right? So, I tell myself to brace for the worst, because the GOPs will surely not disappoint.
But, there is that part of me that just cannot resist remaining hopeful. If the young Americans who risked their lives to march in protest over George Floyd's murder, will carry that anger and that fervor forward into the election, anything is possible. Yes, of course, it will be imperative that people all over the country pay attention, organize and do whatever is needed to ensure that people can vote. The GOPs will continue to throw every possible obstacle in the way of a large voter turn-out. They know that if inner-city voters have to stand out in the weather for hours and hours, that many will get discouraged and go home without voting. In the 'burbs, on the other hand, they want to make it as easy as possible for the largely white population to vote, because both of these scenarios will favor a heavily skewed vote towards the conservative candidates.
And, we haven't even mentioned all the other nefarious methods that have worked so well for the GOP, i.e. gerrymandering to manipulate the vote, voter roll purges, fewer polling places with more limited hours, voter I.D.s ....and one of the most evil tactics, poll watchers, assholes who hang out at the polls and try to monkey wrench by accusing voters of fraud, or just to intimidate.
This time, I do not believe that either the younger generation coming along, or the national community of people of color...all colors....will be ready to back down, to just go home and fail to be heard.
Nah. THIS TIME, they are going to be heard. I do believe you can allow a slight twinge of optimism around that.
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