Twelve & One-Half

THE TWELVE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS DONALD TRUMP HAS TAUGHT ME (Thing No. 12):

The dynamics of lying and public opinion.

There is a dynamic to the Big Lie that Donald Trump has used for years in his business and now uses in politics. It never bothers him to be caught in a lie. He doubles down, repeats it again and again, and turns the volume up.

It begins to sound normal to other people, at least it is no longer shocking. Then it begins to sound TRUE TO HIM. Now that he is telling the “truth”, he repeats it with more conviction and becomes more persuasive to those who have no firm roots in fact and reality, that is, the uneducated and uncritical.

Listen to his Sunday phone call to Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. The more he repeats the lies, the more convinced he becomes that they are true. You can hear his conviction growing as the call drones on.

Trump’s genius is that he probably came up with this formulation independently without ever reading the literature analyzing the propaganda techniques of 20th Century authoritarianism. He never reads anything.

Fourteen & One-Half

There is an unbelievable scene outside the United States Capitol while the Congress meets inside to count the vote of the Electoral College. Our president rode by and stirred the crowd then retired to his safe space in White House. He had hoped to join them but, you know, bone spurs.

Seventeen & One-Half

So the president called the Georgia Secretary of State today and told him exactly how many votes he needs to find and disqualify to change the election result. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” said DJT according to a recording of the call obtained by the Washington Post.

How is it that the Republicans in the Senate just can’t seem to bring themselves to do what everyone knows they should do? Get the man out of office. The House could impeach him on a voice vote and the Senate could remove him the same way. It shouldn’t take more than half an hour. Total. He had ample opportunity to defend himself at the beginning of 2020. He failed and was acquitted anyhow by his cowardly friends in the Republican Party.

We will soon be counting down to sixteen and one-half days remaining in his term. There is no excuse for leaving him in office to continue abusing the powers of his office. None, Mr. Cornyn. None, Mr. Cruz.