Why Believe Lies?

 I suppose the Social Scientists will have to answer this question but the difference between the lies being believed and factual evidence is blatant.

All of the accusations being made were groundless and I suppose you could believe against all common sense that there is a cabal of white slaving, pedophiles, controlling things and working closely with the Chinese.  Its just not true.

So to believe that you have to ignore all the factual information.  Maybe we have reached a stage in this country where reality has been supplanted by fantasy?

While we should maintain free speech, it is over all the solution, content providers need to be held to higher standards.  If you are reporting things that are clearly false or imaginary, you need to add a warning.  Its not enough to let insane people say insane thins unlabeled.

I'm not a big fan of lawsuits but it does seem like when Dominion and Smartmatic decided to sue we saw the far right media get religion.  

I'm also not a big fan of whatever cancel culture is, but if some lunatic is promoting attacks on our constitution using money from a product he/she sells, don't buy it.  

Just cancel their income, its actually part of free speech.

Bipartisan/

Bipartisan support  ultimately means that the two sies share common goals.  For example during World War 2 everyone agreed that we need to defeat the Japanese and Germany.  There may have been some differences in tactics but the ultimate goal was the same.

Unfortunately I think the parties have a fundamental difference nowadays.  Take the Pandemic.  During the last Administration it was not considered a grave threat, called a hoax, something that would just disappear and a ploy to make them look bad.  Some of those beliefs persist and if you don't accept the need to eliminate it you will not be part of a bipartisan effort.

Similarly, on our basic Democracy you either believe that all Americans are entitled to vote and should be allowed to in a fairly easy manner.  However one party is sure that this is bad for them so they want to restrict certain voters so they can continue to get elected.  They have raised election fraud and illegal voters when none of that happens significantly.  It is hard to be bipartisan when one side favors Democracy and the other doesn't.

We can never have a bipartisan policy on Abortion but we could have one on the right of every individual to be in control of their own body.  Or maybe not.

Americans are more in agreement than not, but there is a lot of lying and disinformation attempting to muddy the waters.  Those attempting to preserve their privileges resist real change.  

The system has worked for them if not everybody.  Why be fair?

Political Parties

 Well our Qanon congresswoman from Georgia had been striped of her committees.  Shamefully the Republican conference was unable to do this so it required a vote of the entire house.

The news is filled with descriptions of how the Republican party is in disarray after its shift to Trump and where that leaves them without him.  For a while at least he still influences the white nationalists and that is enough to make him dangerous in primaries, especially in "safe" Republican districts.  

If this doesn't represent the views of the majority of Republicans the party will likely continue to shrink and a replacement party will emerge.  I predict we may see a schism where traditional Republican exert themselves and either take back the primaries or run as third arty candidates.  

In democracies this won't be the first time and if you look at the history of our country you can see switches in policy between the current parties.  At one time Republicans were the party that supported the end of slavery and led reconstruction.  Democrats were the party of Southern Whites until the Republicans convinced them that Democrats were two liberal for them.

Now we may see that as education levels and racism recede in those states, maybe the Democrats are just the right degree of liberal.

People change and parties will follow, or disappear.

Digging up Dirt?

 There are times in everybody's life when they have dug themselves into a hole they can't get out of, at least metaphorically.  The best  thing to do is to admit your mistakes, apologize and hopefully move on.  The other alternative is to keep digging.

Clearly our Republican friends have decided to do the later.

There was no massive election fraud, there was no reason to support the coup or try to overturn the electoral college and end up inciting a riot that attacked the Capitol leading to some deaths.  They could admit these things and work to help the country heal from the pandemic, which many of them also lied about.  

It looked for a brief minute they might do the right thing but then I guess they found some more shovels.

So they dig deeper looking for a way out.

I can't imagine they will find one.

Unfortunately many of them are in "safe" districts although you have to wonder if they are pushing the limits on that.

Its only two years until there will be a reckoning and the American people aren't that forgetful?

Are we?

Build for the Future, not the Past

 We are seeing the fulfilling of promises and the restoration of the Government that most Americans actually want.

The last Administration was more interested in undoing the progress we had made in the last few decades by both parties to move into the future.  It was sort of a nostalgic ride into a past that never was but where some favored American got very wealthy.

I think some Republicans actually believe in trickle down economics and supply side economics but both are discredited.

Trickle down only works for a very few and supply side is in fact voodoo economics.

The way they interpret it is a bit like a ponzi scheme which suffers from the fact that neither the supply side or the demand side can be extended to infinity.

The theory is fundamentally that reduce prices on the supply side which will increase demand which will further reduce prices and further increase demand etc. etc.

The additional economic activity will result in more and more jobs and a booming economy.

Trouble is that companies are more interested in profit than expanding jobs so the reduced cost from tax breaks ends up as profit, not jobs.

In order to keep demand up you see companies offering upgraded products with new feature using less workers overall as robotics and outsourcing reduce costs.

Think about cell phones, a relatively new market where dominance has gone to the high priced high featured smart phones not to the cheap low feature ones that cost a lot less.

Many of the early entrants have disappeared and while other phones are available only two really dominate.  No supply side magic there. 

Lies, Lies, Lies

 Its sort of easy to understand why many Americans can be led to believe lies.  They are lied to constantly.  A lot of the lying is done by people who promote not lying as a central creed, religion.  Without getting into specifics much of what they teach is based on sources that are not close to what they pretend they are.  Many churches simply exist to get you to donate or tithe with the promise of future benefit. (you don't need organized religion to follow the scriptures) 

Ignoring Religion companies lie to you as much as they can to get your to buy their product.  Not really very different from what the organized churches do.  We do place some limits on this but not many.  

Of course there is the day to day lying we run into but we have to talk about politicians and lying.  Once again they have to sell themselves and we have moved into total new areas as we have expanded media to have whole networks lying in support of certain politicians.

We seem to accept politicians lying and accuse both sides of doing it, as if that would make it right.  We seem unable to distinguish normal slips of the tongue from bold faced lies that ae threats to our country.

Recently we saw a lie that the last presidential election was stolen.  It wasn't and no one who looked into it could conclude that.  Yet the lie persisted and is still out there, despite clear evidence it isn't true, its a lie.  In fact we see that after the election Trumps own pollsters showed him how and why he lost.

We have to be more rational.  No one is coming to take your guns away unless you use them to commit a felony.  Immigrants are not coming here to live off our wonderful social programs, they are trying to improve their lives like all the immigrants before them.

There are other big lies that are designed to trick you.  Don't fall for them.

Trojan Horse Proposal?

 Its a bit hard to believe that Republicans are acting in good faith.  Maybe they are and there may be a few changes that can be agreed on, but sadly I fear based on recent history that they will be an all or nothing offer, designed to win political point for trying to be bipartisan but in the end unifying against whatever is agreed to.

This was their strategy 12 years ago dragging out the process, getting concessions and then vaoting against so they can clam they tried but had to oppose the final package.

There is no way to guarantee they vote for what they agree to.  Maybe they will but stripping away things that the progressives want for no support in ght end is a tactic they use.

Moving the stimulus package along quickly with enough to jump start the economy is more important that working with the insurrectionists.