Mail Bag

Getting real about reality

Posted

To the Editor:

Recently the Gasconade County Democrats Club was addressed in this newspaper through a letter from a Mr. Hoernschemeyer who highlighted our early and persistent stance against Donald Trump.

To this we can only say, “You’re welcome.”

We can’t, however, take too much credit as the case against our past President being a divisive, self-serving, short-sighted and imcompetent danger to our democracy was well documented by facts and reliable main-stream news sources. Many of these sources featured longtime national conservative editorialists such as George Will, Michael Gerson and David Brooks, all of whom couldn’t in good conscience, ignore the assault on American values by the GOP chief executive.

All we had to do was pay attention and keep an open mind.

Mr. H also offered us a challenge to “take a stand” on several issues of his choosing that seem, by their hot button nature, to be something to fight about. Haven’t we had enough of that attitude?

Wedge issues, as we’ve seen used extensively over the last four years, do a great job of riling people up but now our nation needs to heal itself. Beyond that, whatever might be gained in debating issues is likely to be drowned out by a substantial set within the Trump base that is tuned in to a very different reality.

Spun by leadership lies and sites like QAnon these people are virtually unreachable by reasoned argument. The attractions offered by such sources are potent and include: the entertainment of conspiracy theories, the allusions to sex cloaked as simply informational, and the chance to feel like the smartest guy in the room because you’re privy to something that most people have never even thought about.

Add to that the license of moral and patriotic indignation and it’s positively addictive. Consider QAnon’s baseline characterization of Democrats as Satan-worshipping pedophiles who cannibalize children. It’s ridiculous on its face and yet how many of their flags did we see swirling on Capitol Hill on Jan 6th?

Even in Congress they have their advocates such as Marjorie Taylor Greene who also has her own delusions to peddle such as wildfires out West being started by Jews using solar powered lasers orbiting the Earth so that a high-speed rail project would be unimpeded and thereby profitable.

Racist, Anti-Semitic, Anti-Islamic she defiles the memories of those children lost at Sandy Hook and Parkland by concocting the notion that those shootings were staged by gun control advocates. If there’s such a thing as such a thing as non-religious blasphemy she deserves that condemnation.

The idea that she is just a deviant intruder within the Republican ranks is dispelled by the welcome afforded her by Rep. Jim Jordan, R of Ohio. who says she’s “exactly the kind of fighter needed in Washington to stand with me against the radical left.”

Donald Trump, of course, hailed her as a “future Republican star.”

Other GOP stalwarts such as Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, Kevin McCarthy, and our own Josh Hawley back whatever movement that’s blowing in the wind if it seems to bring them power. The Republican Party’s message is chaotic and the country sees it as witnessed by last election’s rare vote of censure for a President in power.

More recently, House Republicans gave votes of confidence, on the same day, to both the imaginative Rep. Greene and, in the opposite direction, to Liz Cheney, who had the temerity to support impeachment of Donald Trump after he encouraged the Jan 6th insurrection.

Your party, Mr. H, is at a precipice.

One part is grounded with traditional conservatism while the other has its backside poised over the deep end. Not a flattering posture.

So we ask you, “Where is the greater gap, between you and Democrats or between wings of your own party?”

If you’re looking to fight perhaps that’s where you should focus your energy.

Gasconade County Democrat Club

gasconadedems.org