I am not a Democrat or a Republican. I’ve been an Independent my entire life, so I understand the importance of having two strong parties who play the role of counterbalancing each other. That’s the key to maintaining American Democracy. When Reagan was President, he would negotiate with the Democrats, based upon facts everyone accepted. If Reagan received 60% of what he wanted to achieve, he considered that a victory. In order to negotiate like that, you need to start with established facts. The policies they invoked to deal with those facts is what made the parties different and America a great country. Each party obviously formulates different strategies and that’s healthy for our democracy. Unfortunately, what I described above with Reagan, is no longer happening.

In a democracy, nothing is more important than the truth. Unfortunately, during the past 4 years of Donald Trump, Fox, and an All White Republican Party, they created an alternate reality, where they totally ignored diversity of opinion and documented facts. As a result, the truth became a casualty of their alternate reality. The GOP based their policies and goals upon an array of lies and conspiracy theories, which many members of the party incredibly believed. 

I’m not sure whether that was conscious or unconscious. What we do know for sure is they adopted the philosophy of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda. During the 1930s, Goebbels learned if you repeat a lie enough times, many people will believe it.  We know that facts, the truth, and research aren’t important or utilized by large numbers of people who will believe almost anything which jives with their view of the world. Trump, Fox, and the Republican Party invested heavily in that form of propaganda because it works. That led to a series of lies and conspiracy theories which seriously damaged our democracy big time.

There are reasons why the Republican Party is an All-White Party. Many members perceive themselves as victims of a culture with rapidly changing demographics, which is oppressing and/or threatening their way of life. In their minds, the liberal elite and people of color are oppressing them everywhere they turn, so they cling to Fox as the face of real America. Their goal is to take their country back. Please note, there is nothing wrong with Fox having a conservative point of view. My problem with Fox is they are Trump’s propaganda machine.  In doing such, they promulgated an array of lies and conspiracy theories, which has nothing to do with a healthy, conservative point of view. Keep in mind the majority of white Americans voted for Trump, while Biden was elected by a multi-racial coalition. In their minds, there’s no way white people legitimately lost the election to that multi-racial coalition, so it must have been stolen. I’ll return to this aspect later in the article.

Ignoring the truth has immense consequences which go beyond politics. In a normal world, fighting the Covid-19 pandemic would never be a political issue. One would expect SCIENCE and Unity to dominate our approach to Covid-19. All Americans should have united to fight this horrible virus and use what we learned from scientific research. But that’s not what happened. Let me to remind you how Trump framed the pandemic in political terms.

• The virus is a Democratic hoax
• The virus is under “Tremendous Control”
• Everything will return to normal by Easter Sunday
• Inject BLEACH as a prevention measure for Covid-19
• If you get the virus, take hydroxychloroquine
• Instead of being a common sense, health & safety logical approach to the pandemic, Trump turned the wearing of a mask into a constitutional personal freedom issue
• COVID-19 will disappear the day after the election

Millions of Trump supporters believed the hogwash he cited above. Is anyone surprised that almost half of all Republicans refuse to get the Covid vaccination? But it does not end there. Remember the absurd story that Hillary was running a child pornography ring out of the basement of a Washington, DC pizza parlor? One guy from North Carolina believed that story and drove several hours in his pickup truck, along with his AR-15 rifle, to Washington, DC. In his mind, it wasn’t a political mission, he was making a valiant effort to save those children. Unfortunately, he didn’t learn that child pornography story about Hillary was completely false until it was too late. In DC, he found out there was no basement and no children in the pizza parlor. He fired one shot with his AR-15, which thankfully didn’t strike anyone. He spent the next 3 or 4 years of his life in prison because of his ill-conceived rescue mission. I know, you’re probably asking yourself how anyone could believe such an absurd story. You can ask the same question about the Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol building.

Please do not think this guy is an isolated case. There are millions of Americans, just like him, who believe virtually any conspiracy theory which mirrors their view of reality. Of course, the current big lie is Trump won the election, but it was stolen from him by the Democrats. Yes, the very same Democrats Republicans describe as incompetent buffoons. Somehow, those incompetent buffoons managed to efficiently steal a national election. Really?

In their alternate reality, they never allow facts to get in the way of what they want to believe. Trump supporters lost all 62 election fraud court cases where they presented zero proof of any widespread conspiracy. Many of those court decisions were made by Trump appointed judges. Trump’s attorney, Ms. Sydney Powell, recently stated in a court of law the stolen election allegation promulgated by Trump, was a big lie. Besides, she said, who could be dumb enough to believe that? Even though Powell admitted, in a court of law, it was a big lie, that admission will not change the mind of many Republicans, who are addicted to Trump and accept whatever he says as the gospel. They are currently formulating voter suppression laws around the country, which are based on the flawed premise of an election which was fraudulent. Obviously, the truth doesn’t matter in their alternate reality.

I’m sure virtually every person involved in that horrific attack on the U.S. Capitol January 6^th, believed Trump won the election. Recent national surveys revealed that over 60% of Republicans believe the big lie about the stolen election. Even more incredible, over 50% of Republicans believe it was left wing liberals, as opposed to Trump supporters, who launched the January 6^th attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Conspiracy theories have no limits or boundaries.  The nonsense of Fox, Newsmax, Rush Limbaugh, and Qanon, are often mindlessly absorbed by right-wingers. Incredibly, many of them actually believe Democrats are Satanic-worshipping cannibals and pedophiles, and they are running a global sex trafficking ring. Sounds very much like the Hillary Pizza Parlor child pornography ring, doesn’t it?

I wish I had a solution which would stop this dangerous form of insanity, but I don’t. America is in big trouble and our only hope is the majority of Americans will continue to research the facts, respect and accept the truth. We need two strong, political parties making decisions based upon facts, not lies.

Mass Shootings in America

America is unique in the world in terms of how many mass shootings we experience compared to the rest of the globe. No other country comes close to the volume we have. In the past week, America was hurt by two more mass shootings. Don’t kid yourself into believing these incidents will mobilize America to act. If the shootings at Sandy Hook, Parkland, and Columbine failed to motivate Congress, nothing will change how we deal with this issue. One must understand that millions of Americans are far more focused on their second Amendment rights than they are on saving lives. Having said that, this is a very complex issue, with no simple solution. Please don’t operate on the fantasy that gun control will stop mass shootings. Gun control will help, and probably prevent some, or several, mass shootings, but they will not go away. You may not want to acknowledge this, but they are part of our culture.

Having said that, think about the following. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could cut the number of mass shooting in half?  Gun Control won’t magically eradicate mass shootings, but it could save a significant number of lives, by reducing the volume.

Let’s start by establishing some basic information. Contrary to what many Americans believe, an American President cannot abolish the second amendment. That is a virtual impossibility. Next, get real on this issue, because Congress cannot find enough votes to establish Universal Background checks, so how could anyone believe somebody is coming to your home to take away your weapons. Therefore, the second Amendment and the right to arm yourself isn’t going away. And with the current members of the Supreme Court, it may possibly be strengthened.

Next, the author of this article does not want to do away with our second amendment rights. I support the right for law abiding citizens to arm and protect themselves. However, if I was in charge, when a citizen  wants to purchase a weapon, there should be a law requiring them to take a firearms safety course. Many people accidentally shoot family members, or themselves, because they have no idea how to properly and safely handle a weapon.

The next common-sense prohibition would be the elimination of military weapons, such as an AR-15, which is often used in mass shootings. Obviously, those kind of weapons increase the volume and type of carnage we’ve witnessed so often. Keep in mind, that even if we banned military style weapons tomorrow, there are so many already in circulation, it would be years before this could turn into a major change. But we have to at least start the proves. We already restrict ownership of machine guns, so we can also restrict ownership of an AR-15, or similar weapons, using the same logic. Keep mind the goal is to make it harder, not easy, to gain access to these type of deadly weapons, which are used so often in mass shootings.

Another positive change would be Universal Background Checks, eliminating the gun show exception. Do you know that surveys reveal over 85% of Americans support Universal Background Checks? Despite that overwhelming support for them, NRA sycophants in Congress repeatedly block this commonsense regulation.  Does any decent American want convicted felons, mentally ill people, and, juveniles having easy access to legal purchases of weapons? In addition, I would include a mandatory 24-hour waiting period for gun purchases. Once again, do you want someone who is emotionally aroused and angry, to walk into a gun shop and purchase a weapon on the spot? Let’s mandate a cooling off period.

Let’s examine another flawed argument offered by right wing NRA representatives. One hears them constantly use a city, such as Chicago, as an example, which in their minds, illustrates why gun control doesn’t work. Despite very strong gun laws in the city of Chicago, everyone acknowledges they are awash with weapons. What NRA advocates and right-wing radicals fail to include in their argument is the fact that anyone can leave the city limits of Chicago and buy all the weapons they want in nearby jurisdictions. This is also true in a city such as Washington, DC where thugs drive across the Arlington Memorial Bridge, into Virginia, and buy all the weapons they want. However, if we implement FEDERAL GUN CONTROL LAWS, the examples of Chicago and DC, cited above, would disappear. Then we would actually find out if gun control eliminates, or at least helps prevent, some or many mass shootings.

The one option America cannot afford is to do nothing in the face of non-stop mass shootings. Let’s try to finally do something about this unnecessary carnage of our citizens. Maybe it will help, maybe it wont. But one thing we know for sure, what we are doing now has been a total failure.