People respect you more when you can admit a mistake. It’s common sense – if someone is willing to acknowledge when they are wrong, they gain credibility when they are right. Even before “President” Trump, the right-wing has never been known for easily holding their own accountable for their actions. The barrier of evidence required for them to acknowledge culpability of their own has always been in contrast to their willingness to unquestioningly believe anything that reflects negatively on Democrats or the left.
It’s easy to forget that Trump rose to power by spearheading the manufactured conspiracy networks which now pervade every aspect of his base. Birthirism, and pretentious preening about how much more noble or competent he would be than those with whom were running things is a strategy that even the right-wing acknowledge was used for Trump to gain a political reputation despite a lifetime of non-political action. Throughout the 2000’s, Trump began escalating his rhetoric, trying to find the line at which point people would reject his lies. He found that line quickly with the left, as his threats to run as a Democrat against Bush in 2004 were widely derided. With the right-wing, however, Trump never found that line, and to this day, has still not found it.
They didn’t question him when his birthirism lies were proved to be false. The evangelical crowd pretends to ignore his very non-christian and public 4 decades prior to taking office, and now go along with his pretense of christianity. They rationalize lying to manipulate their religious adherents by telling themselves that the opportunity to overturn Roe V. Wade is a lesser eveil than their own deception, and after a while, start to believe these deceptions themselves.
That there was only one member of the GOP congress willing to even acknowledge the reality of Trump’s crime tells the world all they need to know about the American right-wing. Rep. Justin Amash was the sole figure willing to even publicly address the reality of Trump’s actions, while every other GOP member of congress both failed to defend Trump, and instead attacked their opposing political sports-team as an effort to obstruct congress on their fact-finding efforts.
This type of blanket obstruction has inspired their base to follow-suit. While many think the right-wing is guilty of not comprehending the severity of Trump’s crimes, the truth is even worse than that: They all know what he did was illegal, and continue to defend him and ignore his crimes simply because they don’t want liberals to have been right. That is the crux of their action and inaction – That they would rather do harm to the nation than concede a mistake.
The result of this is a group-think approach to politics, where they will immediately reject any truth that reflects negatively on their own, no matter how well evidenced. Conversely, they will pretend to believe any lie about their opponents even in the face of clear exonerating evidence or lack of any negative evidence of complicity. This is not just a credibility gap, it is a credibilty canyon, and one with which the right-wing will be known for in perpetuity (and it won’t be a positive reputation gained as a result).
It comes down to one stark reality, and it’s implications do not bode well for the future of our country. That the right-wing hates the left more than any other “enemy” they have, domestic or foreign, and will do whatever it takes to fight that “enemy”. “Truth”, “facts”, “evidence” is not neecessary for their actions because they are not judging us; they have already made their ruling. There is no peace to be made. No surrender will be accepted. They only way to defeat this type of mentality is to expose it at every opportunity.
A great example of this approach is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. When she was elected, the right-wing was almost giddy with the opportunity to raise her profile as much as possible, thinking that she would embarrass herself, and with her, the Democratic party. They devoted significant time to her on right-wing media initially, making sure everyone knew who she was for that one moment they could spin her actions into a humiliating scandal for the right-wing. This effort backfired spectacularly on them as they found out that the Representative was both intelligent, eloquent, and able to point out this hypocrisy and petty smear attempts in almost every response she has made, to the point that now right-wing media tries to avoid attempts at covering her actions unless they have a clearly negative angle.
2020 will be the most contentious election season we have ever experienced, or has ever occured in the history of our nation. The Democratic party is facing it’s biggest challenge in the party’s history – deflecting the armies of trolls, shills, corporate special interests, hostile foreign states, and any others who want to capitalized on the fact that the right-wing thinks it is at war with the rest of the country. Those who wish our nation harm will no doubt try to twist the knife that Trump and Russia has placed firmly in the back of this great country, and this history of our nation, our world, and our species is at one of the most crucial junctions it has ever known. Now is the time to do everything we can to fight back. And how do we fight disinofrmation and those who would believe lies? By taking a page from Alexandria Ocasion-Cortez and exposing it, then fighting disinformation with real information and never giving up the high ground.
If we win in 2020, we will have saved the United States of America from it’s most significant existential crisis. And if we lose? Well, if we take action, then at least we know we did everything in our power to change that fate. We have just over 10 months left, which is plenty of time, if we all stand up together.
Whatever happens, never forget the lies and manufactured conspiracies that the right-wing was willing to believe and champion in order to serve their interests.