Nurse the Hate: Developing Facts

I had to stop looking at the news.  It was literally driving me crazy.  We are living in a Post Truth World now, one that doesn’t appear to have a rule book.  I was able to somehow not concern myself with the President of the United States picking a fight with a cable TV reporter and a basketball player while enormous wild fires raged in California, Russians continued to mess with our elections, a pointless trade war escalates, and no clear plan exists on a needless Iran confrontation.  I was even willing to ignore threats he was making about shutting down the government if they didn’t agree to pay for the unnecessary border wall that he insisted Mexico was going to pay for during his entire campaign.  No, what finally got my attention was the Tweet about how that infamous Trump Tower meeting was designed to “get information on an opponent”.  Isn't that the exact opposite of what he has been saying for a year?

Now like I said, I’ve been in too deep on the news.  Despite the ever swirling story, I’ve been following it.  Our President is so clearly an incompetent buffoon, I have difficulty wrapping my head around the idea that any logical human being can look at him and think “Boy, he’s doing great!”.  Yet, they do.  More than I ever would have imagined.  The truth just doesn’t seem to matter any longer.  Rubes just can't seem to get enough. 

Trump presents himself to his zealots as the only real source of truth.  Don’t believe the media.  They are the enemy.  Yet, the bad news on that approach is the facts are right there in front of us.  To review, Trump said his campaign never met with Russians.  Then, when presented with evidence that a Trump Tower meeting could be proven, he said the topic of the meeting was adoptions.  This, clearly a lie, was quickly disproven with an email string his idiot son forwarded out into the world.  Trump said he didn’t know about any of it, which is also clearly a lie.  Trump then dictated Don Jr’s response about it being an innocent meeting, and later claimed he didn’t dictate it.  When it was proven that he did dictate it, he switched topic and said they were meeting about Russian intel all along and since they didn’t get anything useful, what’s the problem?  It is almost impossible to follow all the lies.

The incredible part is the general population is playing along, as if this isn’t outrageous behavior for our head of state.  Shit, this would be outrageous behavior for the head of an auto parts company much less the President of the United States.  Trump's lead attorney when asked about his conflicting previous statements about the meeting and subsequent cover-up attempt suggested that “over time, facts develop”.  Ummm… what?  This is an entirely new concept in truth, suggesting that facts are whatever you need them to be at that moment.  My entire understanding of facts is that they were rock solid and irrefutable.  This is no longer the case.  It is an exciting new updated idea to the “alternative facts” concept these people dragged out last year.

Trump has told an astounding 4000 lies as president.  The number he tells daily have increased to just under seven per day.  Like a Mad King, he is creating a separate reality not just for himself but for the lemmings that have latched onto this magic carpet ride.  The America he has created for his followers is one of dangerous brown people lurking to do harm at every corner.  The Deep State bogeymen hide in the shadows trying to bring him down for their own nefarious yet unclear reasons.  The alleged Witch Hunt has found witches and already indicted some of his closest allies, all of them awash in Eastern European money.  All of Trump’s efforts are now focused on discrediting this investigation, and to do so, he must discredit truth itself. 

I am not sure what happens when a country stops functioning on at least a variation of truth.  I suppose we are going to find out.  The complicit Republican Congress won’t do anything about it as long as they can empty the government coffers before someone notices that “trickle down economics” don’t work now, nor have they ever worked.  It’s a wild ride we’re on now where down is up and up is down.  There does not appear to be a precedent where our head of state lies about everything all the time.  Behaviors that even six months ago that would have been incomprehensible have now been normalized.  Things are wildly out of control and there doesn't appear to be a way to stop it.  In fact, it doesn't even seem that odd any longer.  It's incredible how quickly we went from relatively small lies bringing down politicians to completely ignoring that our leader might not even be aware of what the truth is any more.  History will judge this period harshly, or if "facts develop", maybe it will be taught to children as a glorious time.  The truth will be whatever you want it to be...