"You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."
George W. Bush
I find it amusing (horrific but amusing) that President Donald Trump has always sought to live by this famous Bush quote. The fact that it's a George W. quote makes me feel as if The Donald was paying attention to how the Bush family did things and decided to dial that style to 11 for his Trumpian base.
Well, today many of those people who have been fooled all of the time for the last four years assembled in the nation's capital city. Once assembled, they attacked the Capitol building. Who didn't see this coming?
I certainly did. I scheduled nothing so I could watch the potential firestorm.
If there hadn't been bloodshed and injuries, today would have been comical. I give Putin credit for however heavy his thumb has been on the U.S. political scale. Trump has done as much damage to the United States as humanly possible. The Giuliani, Don Junior, and Prez speeches today lit the fire for the Capitol assault.
This fooling some of the people all of the time started with the Trumpian predictions regarding COVID-19. When scientists said one thing and Trump continually proclaimed something else, the Trumpians bought into the Trump narrative. We went from "It's 15, soon to be zero" to hydroxy touting to continual estimates of covid deaths that were off by factors of 10 or more.
The Trumpsters bought it all. As 2020 unfolded, we were treated to Q-Anon conspiracies, Fauci conspiracies, Bill Gates conspiracies. Wild stuff, with any believer qualifying for a psych ward. The Trumpsters bought it. Eventually, we got to an election that Trump, despite losing by more than seven million votes, sold to his troops as rigged. After losing quickly in 60 courtrooms, the election conspiracists retreated to the word "allegation" as a motivation and psychological fixation.
Now, as has been mentioned by the national media, had 30,000 blacks or Muslims descended on D.C. today and behaved like the Trumpsters, the responses and language used today would have been very, very different.
Once people commit to nonsense over objective reality, once they buy into what they prefer to believe rather than factual evidence, they can be steered anywhere. We're looking at 50 million Americans on mental and emotional leashes. Today in D.C. was not the culmination, but the beginning. I strongly suspect this gets worse before it gets better. Maybe tomorrow.
What do I recommend? Well, the only way to rid a nation of 50 million lemmings with automatic weapons is to find a really big cliff.
Bob Dietz
January 6, 2021
