Minus 45
This is going to be an unpopular opinion among most of my FB
friends. But I don’t think we should have given Donald Trump a Senate
trial. His goal, in having the
Ukrainians dig up dirt on Hunter Biden, was to embarrass his principle
competition. To create side theatre, a narrative, a story to have the American
people ponder about a candidate as they choose from the twenty or so who are
trying to figure out their story. Donald
Trump, the ultimate story teller, is just using the Senate trial to spin more
yarns.
On election night 2016 it was determined that Barrack Obama
was indeed a Muslim born in Kenya. Or at
least a significant amount of American’s believed it. Not a majority, only 46.1
percent. The other 53.9 percent of Americans rejected the various hypothetical
conspiracy theories the 45th President had run on. But, because of 18th
century founding father slave state compromises Donald Trump ascended to
the presidency. (* Pay
particular attention to the background section of the linked article.)
The current president has never been a man to let facts get
in the way of his opinions. He is a man of stories. Fictional ones he’d like to be truth.
Everything from the Central Park 5
being guilty and deserving the death penalty, to the idea his inauguration
crowd was the biggliest
ever. I was listening to a sermon by a minister friend of mine visiting a
church in North Las Vegas a year or so back.
He said, people like a good story. He was advocating the parishioners
read the Gospel
according to Mark. Regarded as the
forebearer to Luke, Matthew and John, it tells the most fantastic story of the
ancient world. Virgin births, angels, resurrection from death, cure from
disease, loving thy fellow human etc. Its such a good story, people wanted it
to be true. No one’s experience to that date indicated it could be true. Women did not spontaneously become pregnant
and death was as permanent as it still appears to be. Angels?
Well, humans always wanted to fly. The other story in Mark, Jesus was a
messiah sent to end Roman oppression. Why not. He was the product of virgin
birth announced by angels.
Buildings, art, organizations, political movements,
literature, and society in general was re-organized around the premises in
Mark. Over the years, as people have studied Mark, other gospels and the old
testament, factions have developed around what the stories mean. Some factions
are openly able to realize its metaphor. Ask a Christian if Mary really was a
virgin, in a non-public venue you would likely get “I think Joseph was the
original nice guy.” Challenge them in
the middle of church with the minister and congregation looking on, they tow
the gospel line she was a virgin. What a
person advocates as true varies by need to maintain affiliation with a social
group. More than anything else we cling
to our social factions rather than real truth. Its probably a survival technique
left over from the African plains.
Stories, our fiction, run our lives and our social groups. An anthropologist told me humans are the only
animal that creates an agreed fiction. For instance, there are borders between
our states. Close inspection of all points
in our country reveal there is in fact is not.
We have border crossings and signs, but there is no physical line. At
least not one recognized by other species. Migrating animals use their
omnipotent powers to pass through them as though they were invisible. In
reality we have become one people, but in America we fictionally divide
ourselves up by 50 unequal social groups. Each seems to have its own story.
We extended that association to types of behavior and laws
we agree to follow. But our fiction can be more abstract. We all know the
stories of Star Wars and Star Trek to point we can recite lines of dialog on
the spur of the moment. Nobody thinks the stories are true but we form clubs
and affiliations around which star traveling story we like best. So it is that
America has found itself divided between to factions the Republicans and the
Democrats. Each has stories. Ones that evolve and are interpreted over time. Each
has its fan club to the point of religious exuberance. Like a lot of religions,
open warfare is permissible and encouraged with the members of the other fan
club. Even though, both factions acknowledge they believe the other’s stories
fiction. It really comes down to, who’s
fiction do you like better, this week. Who has a good story.
Donald J. Trump is a master of this environment. The making a story of nothing. He may be on trial for his Presidency in the
minds of most people in America, but in Trump’s mind, the trial is just another
venue to advance his fiction of Joe and Hunter Biden being corrupt. Mark my words, the Democrats in the house
will mount an aggressive story about all the things Trump has done wrong. But the President having calculated what his
associated faction will do in public, in advance, will just switch from having
the Ukrainians defame the Biden’s to having his legal defense team do it in front
of the nation. In the end, he will have
achieved his goal of casting doubt on his main rival, he’ll blame the fact he
had to do it on his rival’s party, and he will still be our President.
Sorry to depress you with a fact, when we all enjoy fiction
so much.