He called it “a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history … purely political, and an affront to the almost 75 million voters” who supported him in the 2016 Presidential Election, and “it’s being driven by highly partisan Democrat prosecutors.”
Trump actually received somewhat under 73.5 million voters, not the 75 he claims. But then, exaggeration is one definition of Donald Trump. Losing is another. It galls him that President Biden received over 79.3 million votes, almost 6 million more than the former golfing president did. Therefore, the election must have been stolen from him.
To reframe Trump’s quote, the last four years was a continuum of the greatest assault on an already struggling democracy in American history … purely political, and an affront to the almost 80 million voters who supported Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
There are millions more Americans who are aghast at the wanton abandonment of democratic principle, behavior and responsibility by the Republican party than those who believe “The Big Lie.” The more than 26,000 tweets Trump sent as president have provided unvarnished evidence about his thinking on a broad spectrum of issues that proved so provocative that Twitter permanently banned him from its platform. In his final days in office, Trump became the first president ever to be impeached twice — the second time for inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol during the certification of the election he lost — and the nation’s first chief executive in more than 150 years to refuse to attend his successor’s inauguration.
A new NPR/Marist poll reveals that adult Americans, by a near two-to-one margin — 60% to 32% — say they do not want to see Trump mount a presidential comeback. Opposition to Trump is spread fairly evenly across every region of the country and socioeconomic status.
But that has not stopped 66 percent of Republicans who want Trump to run for a third time after winning in 2016 and losing in 2020, compared with 25 percent of Republicans who say the former president should not run in 2024. Sixty-six percent is significantly lower than the over 90 percent support he enjoyed during the 2016 election.
It would take a half dozen My Turn columns to fully chronicle the despicable behavior of those politicians whom Trump has kidnapped, not to mention the many allegations he is facing by a newly convened grand jury. The faint light at the end of this very dark tunnel is that an NBC News poll finds that Trump’s support among his voters slipping with more GOP voters supporting the party over Trump for the first time since 2019.
The National Review, founded in 1955 by William F. Buckley Jr., is the go-to magazine of conservative opinion. The magazine has defined the modern conservative movement and enjoys the broadest allegiance among American conservatives. Last November, Jason Lee Steorts wrote “One of the more insidious things about President Trump is the way he acts as a kind of gravitational distortion in our political-moral space. His combination of self-serving unscrupulousness and weaponized charisma adds ethical weight to the decisions of more ordinary politicians and pundits. Political calculations that in normal times would have been routine and inconsequential become no longer so,” Steorts said, “and courage is required to do what is right rather than acquiesce in what is wrong.”
I am personally confounded by what the last four years have unleashed in our country. What, I ask myself, can be the core beliefs of the Republican party today that attract white supremacists, QAnon followers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and the 24 QAnon candidates that were on the federal ballot last Nov. (22 of them Republicans and two independents)? Is it simply the fear of losing their “jobs” that induced 146 members of Congress to vote to continue inflaming the misguided passions of those who have been deluded by internet conspiracy theories and other destructive lies? Incredibly, after returning to Congress through the blood and shattered glass on January 6, these highly partisan “patriots” voted to support the president’s lie that the election was stolen.
Core beliefs are the perceived conclusions a person makes about themselves, the world, and their future, based on what they have learned through life experiences. The way a person sees each aspect of their world is affected when they develop negative, irrational, or maladaptive core beliefs. What in the world could Trumpublicans have possibly “learned” through their life experiences that has them in lockstep with conspiracy theories that are killing our imperfect democracy?
Greenfield resident John Bos is confounded by people who want Donald Trump to run for president again in 2024. He welcomes your reasons, comments and questions at john01370@gmail.com.