When we were very little, my sisters and I often heard from our parents the expression “honesty is the best policy.”
Patty and I heard the expression correctly, but Nancy, the youngest, heard it this way. “Honesty is the best politics.”
Maybe her version was the correct one for our times.
by Lynn Mandaville
In the media, it’s being called The Big Lie.
Specifically, it’s the unfounded claim that widespread voter fraud is the cause of Donald Trump’s defeat in the November 2020 election.
Nonetheless, it is The Big Lie.
And The Big Lie was Trump’s basis for his call to insurrection.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Donald J Trump put into incontrovertible words his wish that his party – The Republican Party of Trump – stage a coup that would wrest the presidency from Joseph R. Biden.
He was using The Big Lie to urge on the thousands of people he had amassed at a rally on the Ellipse near the White House to storm the Capital and overturn the official ballot certification of the Electoral College.
The Big Lie. To distinguish it from the thousands of other “small” lies he has uttered during his administration.
The Big Lie. That the 2020 election was stolen from him and his supporters by massive voter fraud.
The Big Lie. That somehow didn’t affect any of the other Republicans who were fairly elected to office in the very same election, but only affected his bid for re-election.
It is a sad state of affairs to think that Trump is so delusional that he believes he alone is the victim of imagined voter fraud.
That delusion has proven to be downright dangerous, to the point that his base has bought into the delusion and have obeyed his call to insurrection.
It was right for the House to call immediately for another impeachment.
Sedition is probably the most serious charge to be leveled against any American president, because it seeks to undermine the very basis of our democracy, our right to vote.
And because Trump did it so blatantly, in front of all the media, in broad daylight, in no uncertain words, it was incumbent on the House to respond in kind.
In impeaching Trump, ten Republicans found their spines and their consciences and voted to find for a trial in the Senate. A big step in the face of The Big Lie, seeing as how only Mitt Romney found his spine in finding Trump guilty on one of the two charges leveled in Trump’s first impeachment.
The question now is how many Republican senators will regain their moral centers when faced with the ultimate truth about the result of The Big Lie?
How many will remember their oaths of office when they consider the evidence against the former president?
How many will remember that they serve their Constitution instead of their voting base, or their compromised party?
There was a time when the Republican Party provided a Yin to the Democrats’ Yang in politics.
But intervening years have brought significant changes in both parties, and both are suffering from identity crises, brought about by such movements as the Tea Party and the Green New Deal.
And now the Republicans are coping with something more than just an emerging movement within the party. They are dealing with a party that stands not for a fiscal philosophy, but for a narcissistic demagogue.
I recently heard the Party of Trump referred to as Retrumplicans, a term that differentiates them from the remnants of a respectable Republican Party. I guess that plays into speculation that the Republican Party as we know it no longer exists, or is about to morph into a new party altogether.
It’s worth saying that I don’t hold Democrats as paragons of virtue.
Democrats are facing their own identity crises as Progressives become more numerous, and the Green New Deal becomes more vocal.
Right now, however, it’s the Republican Party that poses an existential threat to our republic as we know it.
Their members have lost the ability to acquiesce to truth, or perhaps they’ve lost the consciences they formed as children.
They don’t seem inclined to see past enlightened self-interest to the bigger picture of what life would be like with an autocratic ruler, a president for life, a petty tyrant.
A deep-seated fear of how Trump could affect their offices rules how they compromise their values.
In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, honesty is defined as “devotion to telling the truth.” Both truth and honesty appear as synonyms for one another.
All members of Congress, in taking their oaths of office, promise “to bear true faith and allegiance” to the Constitution. TRUE faith and allegiance.
By default, that means they must be honest about the evidence that will be placed before them during the impeachment trial of Donald J Trump beginning on Feb. 8.
They must dig deep and find the core of their consciences.
They must rediscover the meaning behind my little sister’s malapropism, “Honesty is the best politics.”
Especially now.
The big lie, interesting how the voter fraud story started out with there is no voter fraud, then no evidence of voter fraud, then no absolute proof of voter fraud, then no proof of widespread voter fraud, then no proof of massive voter fraud, then no proof voter fraud made a difference, then no proof voter fraud changed the outcome in any swing state. Strange how the story changed as proof was uncovered, perhaps this is the big Lie?
Liberals and Progressives turning a blind eye to billionaires censoring Americans for profit to please China gives birth to the big lie of freedom of speech. Liberals/Progressives need to be concerned the Leftists/Socialists are taking close to a billion from the rich and censoring opposing voices in all media but electronic media the most. The media using hate for former President Trump as an excuse to enforce “socially Just” speech as defined by them is not Liberal or Progressive.
Thanks for the column.
Correction: Democrats are not progressives. They have become Marxists.
Contrary to AB, I will not give you the definition of Marxist, get off your lazy arse and look it up!
You are so right with this republican shift. What happened to the yin and yang of a two party system? What does Trump hold over these people? I heard of a couple senators say if they voted against him their homes would be burned down. Does this mean the trumplicans would actually burn someone’s home over this? After the insurrection I believe that would happen and THIS is why Trump needs to tried and prosecuted for his crimes against our country.
Let history tell the story; Joeseph Goebel, Adolf Hitler’s right hand man, developed the technique of telling lies so much and so often that people would begin to believe them. Voila! This technique does work, unfortunately. I just cannot understand how people can be conned like this though, I personally know Trump supporters who still believe all he said.
Clausen, as usual, you have Republicans in place of Democrats. Understandable with your Marxist thinking.
The silence from Trump supporters and self-labeled “conservatives” on the major topic Lynn Mandaville addressed in this written opinion is typical.
To date a significant portion of Trump’s base of support have decided to act as if what happened on January 6, 2021 was an anomaly or didn’t happen. Similar to an extended family choosing to ignore incidences of spousal abuse. They choose to ignore the events or turn to excuses like “But what about that time when (fill in the blank). It makes it easier to go along in their daily life.
Acknowledging the lawlessness that occurred on January 6, 2021 would mean admitting POTUS Donald J. Trump, the person they most likely voted for in 2020 and promoter of “Stop the Steal” was a catalyst for the violence. That undermines their moral paradigms. The “Follow the Constitution” and “We Support the Police” mantras turn out to be nothing but slogans to be used when it’s convenient.
And so it goes.
Interesting how information is coming out now that the violence that was supposedly incited by the President’s speech was actually planned in advance. However, unlike the left, who have no moral courage or intellectual honesty, I hope those who perpetrated the violence and break-ins are arrested and prosecuted. Unfortunately, we know that justice is not blind, and that there are different standards for rioting and insurrection depending on if you are one of the lefts chosen. Speaking of insurrection, how about those “Autonomous Zones” that the left was strangely silent on? Seems a little more blatant to me then “peacefully and patriotically march to the capital”.
“Interesting how information is coming out now that the violence that was supposedly incited by the President’s speech was actually planned in advance.”
Has anyone explained how the internet works and how everything you post on a message board, online community or web based news sites like Townbroadcast lives forever even if its deleted?
Are you aware of what you agree to when you get a credit or debit card? Join Sams Club or Costco? Do you know what you agreed to that’s buried in the long agreement your credit card, debit card, internet and cell carrier?
If you were at the Stop the Steal Rally that was well publicized on multiple internet sites from Parler, Facebook, organized text chains , even President Trump’s tweets directing supports to “Show up for the big rally” on January 6, there is a good chance you’ll be located and identified by your own financial transactions and internet footprint.
Only mysteries are why some folks think everything is a conspiracy or want to deny whay happened at our Nation’s capital on Jan 6 2021.
Not entirely sure who that is directed to or why, since it has nothing to do with anything posted. But if you have evidence of wrongdoing, pretty sure there are tip lines available (even saw one advertised on a billboard near M6, which is more than I ever saw during the BLM riots)
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-01-29/fbi-pipe-bombs-at-rnc-dnc-were-planted-night-before-riot