Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Wednesday, June 22, 2022

GUEST POST BY DAVE MILLER

Thanks to Dave Miller for his post.

I'll be away for a few days, but I'll check in to post your comments.

Shaw Kenawe




So here we are. 

Middle of summer, over a year and a half after the 2020 elections and we are still litigating, arguing and fighting over the results. 

 God, if you are there, help us! 

Soon after the election, supporters of Former President Trump sprung into action. Not content with a one and done president, they cobbled together a virtual cornucopia of fabulist accusations, all based on Trump’s campaign protestations that the only way he could lose was through fraud. 


 And out crazy they did. 

Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, Rudy Giuliani and a side order of My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell all worked together to serve up one outrageous idea after another, even as they were all dutifully swatted away by the courts, elected officials and more. So crazy were some of the claims that two of Trump’s lawyers, Powell and Giuliani were forced to admit in court that “no reasonable person” would believe Trump’s accusations and that the Trump Campaign was “not alleging fraud.” 

Here are the facts: 

• The Trump campaign brought more than 60 lawsuits alleging fraud, before judges appointed by Presidents Bush, Obama, and even Trump himself. Every one of those cases was dismissed for lack of evidence, standing, or failure to properly follow filing guidelines or deadlines. 

• Every single Secretary of State in the US, the people responsible for overseeing our elections, certified the elections were free, fair and devoid of fraud. 

Every Governor of the US, Republican and Democrat alike, signified that the elections were free, fair, and devoid of fraud and approved the electors chosen from their states. 

• Recount after official recount conducted by states and in some cases, GOP leaning organizations, all concluded there was not widespread fraud at a level to have changed the elections. 

• The Trump Administration itself judged the 2020 elections to be the most secure in American history

The manager of the Trump Campaign, his Attorney General, Trump’s daughter, his son-in-law, his lawyers and more all testified, under penalty of perjury that President Trump lost the election fair and square and that there was no fraud in the 2020 elections. 

 And yet, as if we are in some sort of whack-a-mole wormhole, after each accusation gets proven to be false, Trump’s defenders raise another false claim. 

David Klepper of the Associated Press summed it all up in a recent article: 

 “One by one, several of Donald Trump’s former top advisers have told a special House committee investigating his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection that they didn’t believe his lies about the 2020 election, and that the former president knew he lost to Joe Biden.
 
But instead of convincing Trump’s most stalwart supporters, testimony from former attorney general Bill Barr and Trump’s daughter Ivanka about the election and the attack on the U.S. Capitol is prompting many of them [his supporters] to simply reassert their views that the former president was correct in his false claim of victory.” 

 Klepper’s reporting shows that in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Trump supporters are not changing their minds about the alleged fraud at the heart of Trump’s election claims and the January 6 riots at the US Capitol. Rather, they are doubling down. 

What we are seeing is not the reasoned debate of worthy adversaries, but something more ominous, more dangerous. It is a willing decision to dismiss contrary evidence in the service of achieving one’s own political goals. 

It is in short, that moment in “Network” when Newscaster Howard Beale shouts “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” 

Or as one blogger put it: 

“They [liberals and progressives] just want the Impeachment that they never got and Trump off their radar once and for all. To that I, and the 30% of the nation that support Trump say, FU!” 

And it is in those two quotes and Klepper’s reporting that we see where America is. 

There is a certain segment of people here in America who are incredibly angry. So angry that they don’t care about niceties, decorum or even evidence. They essentially want some primal scream therapy even as they justify the use of violence to achieve their political goals. 

But there’s more. They are tired of being neglected, mocked and dismissed. By Washington insiders, Hollywood elites, the cultural left, the ivory tower intellectuals and even progressive bloggers. 

Mostly rural voters, and living across the US heartland, they are seeing their communities hollowed out, their schools underfunded, shrinking health care options and a continuing drug epidemic among young people who see no opportunities for a prosperous future. 

They are aging, worried and don’t feel as if anyone is listening to their concerns. In many cases, they are correct. And so, in some “I’m giving the status quo the finger” they voted for Donald Trump. Because while he was rude, crude, immoral and sometimes even an oaf, he gave voice to their concerns. 

It mattered not so much what he did or accomplished while in office. What mattered is that America heard their voices, their complaints and their worries. 

Through President Trump. 

Is there a path forward, a path once again available to us toward a “more perfect union”? 

Perhaps so, but the solution won’t be found in policies, politics or even electoral majorities. Instead, the solutions we are looking for will only be found when Americans of all stripes choose to sit down together and not just listen, but hear the other. Hear the person with a different point of view and try to understand where they are coming from. And then applying these two simple truths from those of us who live and work cross culturally everyday of our lives:

 “It’s not wrong, it’s just different.” 

 Or, to put it another way: 

"Don’t equate bad results with bad motives.” 

The great majority of those with whom most disagree are not bent on destroying America. They are not the enemy. They are not America haters. They may have different ideas on how we lean into that more perfect union, but that does not make them bad people. 

And so if we want to move forward, we’ve got listen and then seek common ground and look for solutions together. Left and right, conservative and progressive, Democrat and Republican. Without the demonization so prevalent in today’s America. 

I’m confident that many in America want this. But I am also well aware that as many others have written, both sides must take some strides to the other because just like in a marriage, someone has to go first. 

As difficult as it may be, for the good of the country, that ball is in the court of those on the conservative side. Because without a doubt, it is conservatives who have downplayed the evidence, the significance of and mostly supported the violent storming of the Capitol of the United States of America on January 6. 

 What say you?

Dave Miller

21 comments:

Ray Cranston said...

From the Captain of the Mother Ship"

"The AZ Speaker of the House, Rusty Bowers, got teary-eyed, called on his integrity, his Christian faith, and love of this country in relating how he wouldn’t comply with Trump when he asked him to do things he felt were unethical and maybe illegal. He was a mess, very emotional, VERY heart wrenching testimony. I don’t mean to suggest he isn’t ethical, I don’t know.

There were more stories but …….along the same lines."


She's not sure Bowers, who supported and voted for tRump, and who is a man of deep Christian faith, is "ethical." She's sure of everyone's motives but her own. Bowers swore to uphold the LAW in his oath to the Contitution and he refused to comply with tRump's illegal push to decertify the AZ votes. But she's not sure he's ethical.

She's one of the reasons this country is a mess. She and her pals refuse to acknowledge any blame on tRump's side.

they're not alone, there's millions of these people who are too in love with tRump to see his corrupt ways and him destroying the country.


I read the bowels of the blogsphere so you don't have to.

Shaw Kenawe said...

I read that, Ray.

And this:


"The Left’s constant attack on our conservative values, will truly be the winner in this."

That was the funniest line I read. "our conservative values???"

They're defending a thrice married guy who cheated on his first wife with his second wife, and cheated on his second wife with his third, and had sex with a porn star and playboy bunny while married to his 3rd wife while she gave birth to his 5th child.

Trump had to pay a $25 million fine for his fake Trump U., he cannot run a charitable foundation ever again because he stole from his own, he said the men and women who fought on D-Day were suckers and losers, and he called the White House "a dump." The list is endless. I didn't even mention the 60 thousand+ lies -- there IS a Commandment against that and adultery, and stealing -- Trump's done all three, and more, but according to the quote above, he's the guardian of their "conservative values."

Nice values they got there! LOL!

Trump's values are the values of the folks on the Mother Ship and they're whining about losing?

OMG! How utterly blind and foolish they are!

Anonymous said...

Shaw, you forgot that Trump wished a pedophile, Maxwell, "I wish her well," when she was jailed for procuring children for sex for her boyfriend Epstein.

Dave Dubya said...

Conservative Republican “values”.

1/6 Committee witness Bowers: “I do not want to be a winner by cheating.”

Bowers also said he’d, “vote for Trump again”.

What he means is, “I do not want to be a winner by cheating, but I’ll gladly vote for a cheater”.

This is who, and what, they really are. Authoritarians without conscience.

Les Carpenter said...

And so if we want to move forward, we’ve got listen and then seek common ground and look for solutions together. Left and right, conservative and progressive, Democrat and Republican. Without the demonization so prevalent in today’s America.

Until dualism is eradicated from our lives, specifically for the purpose of this post political/politics, the common ground on which compromise resulting in forward progress will remain extremely difficult if not impossible to achieve. The waters have been so poisoned over so many years only a sea change of attitudes will accomplish the results we all know should be possible.

At some level folks the truth is we ALL bear some responsibility. Going back years. We've acquired much information but we've certainly failed to gain much knowledge and wisdom. For had we acquired wisdom we would not be in the place we've found ourselves for years.

PS: I'm not talking about scientific knowledge or wisdom BTW.

Mike said...

"whack-a-mole wormhole"
Very good description.

Jerry said...

Since all evidence points to a Republican win in the mid-terms the ball will certainly be in the Republicans court. Republican majority will be another nail in the Democrats coffin.

skudrunner said...

Rev, Great detailed post. I do question why with all that is going on with the country and the world you would devote so much time composing an article like that. Never mind kids are getting murdered, inflation is causing tremendous hardship on the middle class and poor, millions are entering the country illegally bringing with the human trafficking and drugs, there is a shortage of many essential items causing hardships, we are begging a stated evil regime to supply oil to us when we have the resources to produce within this country. We have caused deaths and destruction to people of Afghanistan by having no plan and we were late supplying goods to the Ukraine killing thousands.

Nope it is trump and nothing but trump and to hell with anything else. Is it because the left has nothing positive to say about what they have done except, we hate trump.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Skud , you appear to have no understanding whatsoever of how serious Trump’s assault on our Constitution was. I’m not going to list the crimes he committed, because you apparently don’t care about what he did.

None of your complaints above mean a damn thing if a POTUS, Democrat or GOP, breaks the law and gets away with it.

If we let Trump get away with his crimes, we become a nation of men, not laws. And folks with your attitude will have allowed it.

I guarantee if it were a Democratic POTUS who tried to steal an election and have his VP killed, you’d be a tad bit more upset, but since this was a member of your tribe, you label our outrage at what Trump tried to do as “we hate trump.”

I label people who ignore what trump and his thugs tried to do as “ we hate America.”

Les Carpenter said...

skud and most cons fall back... nothing to see in my backyard so look over there.

"Over there" meaning of course everywhere but the tRumpublican party. Because for them, apparently party loyalty and conspiracy interests are what's important. Not the integrity and preservation of our (up to now) democratic republic.

One should never give up. But giving up and discarding the GOP to the trash heap just seems the most intelligent thing to do following the tRump wrecking ball sedition attempts and his insurrection (coup attempt) on 01/06/2021.

We continue to suffer fools.

Grey One talks sass said...

Dave, good thoughts and even better, excellent questions. What say I?

Well, since you ask... :)

First - Shaw, I hope your time away is for all the best reasons. I confess to living vicariously through your adventures. I mean, milking goats implies baby goats which implies nonstop cuteness overloads!!!! Thank you for six degrees of mental bliss.

Second - Dave asked what will bring us together to the table and my first thought is for everyone to sit at the table we would all have to agree that everyone at the table deserves a seat. It is what the Constitution was supposed to guarantee - equal rights for all citizens. I know I'm not willing to sit down with a group of people who as recently as last week called for my execution for the crime of existing. Not sure how to cross that divide, and honestly I'm not sure I'm the one who needs to do the crossing.

See - I believe a person has the right to their faith and ideals, even if I find them to be abhorrent. What I also believe is no one has the right to codify their beliefs into law.

There is no way to eliminate some humans idea that skin color equals worth or that sexual identity is grounds for discrimination. Until We The People reboot our Constitution so it matches current values and removes embedded prejudices We will continue to make the same mistakes. And of course I have ideas of how to "Make Things Better". It is, after all, what I do - take issues/challenges/problems and rotate them around until a solution meeting my personal goal of For the Good of All and May it Harm None clicks into place. Not going to list all of the ideas here, I've provided glimpses into how I think in previous comments. The whole plan is chapter worthy and thereby too long for this post.

Three minute elevator speech is this - each citizen must have the same rights as every other citizen. No one's religion may be used as a moral litmus test. Citizens may own weapons as long as they are part of a well regulated militia, meaning governmental oversite. Healthcare, food, and housing are rights. We The People need to remove money from our political arena. Community Service opportunities need to be expanded. And, and.... lots more.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Grey One talks sass

I was away to attend my only granddaughter's h.s. graduation. And if you'll allow a grandmother some bragging, she graduated with honors and a special Coach's Award for her work with coaching younger students in skiing. She'll be attending Clarkson College in upstate New York on an honors scholarship and ski for the varsity team. I had nothing to do with any of this. It's all her achievements and her parents' guidance. (Although I did help her on an IB paper on Shakespeare's "Othello.") That's it.

I wish you were in charge of this country. We'd be moving forward and making it a more perfect union.

I must say I'm dispirited after reading the SCOTUS's latest rulings. We're going backward, and the religionists on the Court have ruled according to their religion, IMO, in the Roe v Wade overturn.

Millions and millions of women will remember this come election day.

Les Carpenter said...

Yes, the women will remember. We hope.

My 40-year-old daughter texted me and said this... "I hate the current scotus and America is turning into a shithole nation".

Her sentiments are fully understandable.

skudrunner said...

Grey, Your elevator speech was spot on and sums up what should be the law. Te only addition I would make is Basic healthcare. Other than that it is rational and reasonable. The 2nd amendment doesn't protect the right to bear arms for hunting but to protect the citizens from the government. Instead of defunding the police which is a democrat mantra we need to defund congress.

Dave Dubya said...

"The 2nd amendment doesn't protect the right to bear arms for hunting but to protect the citizens from the government."

That's NOT what it says, Skud.

It's for defending a "free state", which implies defending the government of a free state.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Look what militias were actually used for.

1. Hunting escaped slaves.
2. Killing Native Americans.
3. Killing Union soldiers to preserve slavery.

Nowhere did the founders show intent to overthrow the federal government.

Your interpretation is the Confederate one, and it had NOTHING to do with the security of a free state. It was to protect and preserve slavery and kill the native population.

skudrunner said...

Dube, Necessary to the security of a free State, who is it that threatens the free state if not the federal government. Except for the federal government slavery has been outlawed. The native population was killed by the union army and slavery in the South was championed by the democrats at the time.

Dave Dubya said...

Skud,
You're not a history guy, are you?

The facts of militia history don't interest you, but you think you're an expert on the 2nd Amendment?

More facts:
The party name of "Democrats at the time" has nothing to do with the drafting of the 2nd Amendment.

The irony of militias is they were demanded by slave states, NOT "free states".

You could educate yourself on this, or be self-satisfied with your limited information and narrow view.

I suggest this U.C. DAVIS LAW REVIEW piece.

“The Hidden History of the Second Amendment”

And if you're not inclined to read it all, read these short sections.

D. Page 335: Slave Control
E. Page 337: The Militia
F. Page 344: The Richmond Convention

skudrunner said...

Dube, I will just rely on your expertise in all things law related especially when it comes to the 2nd amendment and slaves. Reading is another matter altogether. If you read what I posted you would not be confused by slavery in the south was championed by the democrats at the time. Where does that say anything about the 2nd amendment. I know you speak many languages so I assume you just got them confused.

Dave Dubya said...

Skud,
Splendid! You've chosen to ignore the facts and fall back to the tired and useless information about Southern Democrats.

This is the information that the radical Right loves to employ in insinuating nothing has changed in 150 years.

Surely in your view that means today's democrats are pro-slavery and pro militias.

Well, done.

Lesson learned.

Dave Dubya said...

I suppose Skud won't be able to find where the founders' wanted the 2nd Amendment just to overthrow the republic they fought to build.

No matter what you call them, the Southern racists screwed the country from the beginning with slavery, the Electoral College and the "militia Amendment".

And here we are.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Dave Dubya, skud's been pushing that meme for years about the Dems. He likes to do that because he thinks it puts all the blame for slavery, racism, etc. on the Dems. But he's wrong, of course. Yes. The South was ONCE, long ago, a solid Democratic region, but they flipped to the Republicans during the Civil Rights/Voting Rights era, and have been solidly GOP since.

One thing, however, skud never admits: Those folks who gave us the KKK, slavery, Jim Crow laws, etc., were ALWAYS southerners. Always the Confederate states. That's never changed. That's been consistent throughout our history. Political parties flip all the time, but the people who live in particular regions always are the same, culturally. The states that voted solidly for the twice-impeached, corrupt Donald Trump in the last election? The old Confederacy.

Some things never change.