MAGA and the dark magic of shared lies
From COVID to January 6th and beyond Trump asks, "do you love me enough to lie for me?"
Four years ago this week, then President Trump told the country that the Federal Government would not help blue states in the COVID-19 crisis. He said he would not supply them with the PPE, the personal protective equipment that first responders so desperately needed. He said not to call “that women in Michigan,” referring to Governor Whitmer. In the worst public health crisis in more than a century, America’s president saw only an opportunity to reward those who flatter him and to punish everyone else.
The pandemic took a million American lives. It also robbed a generation of proper schooling. It cost many people their businesses. It was a confusing time, a time that cried out for leadership. Instead, Mr. Trump pitted Americans against each other. He set those who thought we needed to wear masks and limit large gatherings against those who thought asking us to do so was beyond the scope of government.
We needed a President who could see our common plight and lead us through it. Instead, Mr. Trump could only see the dark power of shared lies. He divided, and he picked a side. Like tyrants throughout time, he asked his followers, “do you love me enough to lie for me?” And in the pandemic, some literally drank those lies in the form of Ivermectin and died
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Each day, as the death toll rose, Mr. Trump had a new opportunity to lead. And each day he chose instead to compound the lies. He even hosted a super spreader event at the White House, doubling down on the lie that COVID is not contagious, even as he gave his supporters the disease.
A normal person, a person with any humanity, would be horrified that his words led Americans to die. Not Mr. Trump. For him, soul-harvesting lies offered a path to ongoing power. The lies grew bigger.
January 6th was the result. His followers, now lost to truth, attempted to overturn our election. More Americans died. Thousands committed crimes.
But Americans held firm and put an end to the madness. In the years since, we have rebuilt our shattered economy. We have launched the largest infrastructure program in history. We have begun the long process of reorienting the American economy to favor working women and men rather from one that favored the wealthiest among us. We have even launched the largest effort yet to combat climate change. We have shown that government can work, and that Americans can work together — even in Washington, where President Biden has signed major bi-partisan legislation.
But the damage of the Trump years is still with us. In the captured Supreme Court, that took away a woman’s right to choose. In MAGA run states that dismantle public education and legalize putting children to work on the night shift in meat factories.
It is widely reported that the Republican Party, now run by Mr. Trump’s daughter in law, has purged any who will not attest to the big lie. They ask prospective employees whether the 2020 election was stolen and hire only those who attest to the lie.
Anyone who has ever lived a lie knows it is a kind of death. And there you have it: Mr. Trump and the GOP have replaced democracy’s vital competition of ideas with Zombie Apocalypse.