I hope reality does win, it has a formidable competitor with marketing designed to manipulate opinion.
Here is a quote in Joseph Conrad in the novel Lord Jim,
"You must see things exactly as they are - if you don't, you may as well give in at once. You will never do anything in this world."
1
The big word here is "eventually," and how much destruction the GOP will cause in the meantime.
10
"You can try and try, but eventually you'll be led away by an escort of people in white coats". I wish those white coats were just around the corner from the White House and moving swiftly, but I'm afraid they're stuck in Alabama somewhere. When the volcano finally blows and many, many people suffer massive injury or worse, I'll be listening to what the Republican congress members have to say for their complicity.
4
Republicans are experts at taking advantage of the nation's stupidity. We, Democrats, are hindered by our commitment to truth.
16
Trump has always believed in the kindness of strangers who seem to agree with his delusional reality...speaking as one who can visualize the last scene of Streetcar Named Desire.
1
How long can an unhinged authoritarian maintain control of the nation through a combination of (1) a compliant Republican Congress, (2) a sympathetic alternative-reality media, (3) money from a relative handful of the richest people in the world, and (4) the support of 50 million voters who don't care what he does as long as he continues to bad-mouth minorities, non-Christians, immigrants, and "cultural elites?" Let's hope he's satisfied with eight years.
10
I hope Tim Egan is right about reality winning out over the mendacity and bald-faced lies of Trump and his band of apprentices in the White House. At times, I question whether truth has been outlawed in the White House or in the Republican party, who are Trump's most significant and fervent enablers. For example,
Orrin Hatch proclaimed recently that Trump is one of the best Presidents he has served under, and Lindsay Graham encouraged the press to stop referring to Trump as a kook not fit to serve as President ( words that Graham himself used to describe Trump a year earlier.) This support offers Trump aid and comfort to say whatever he pleases and the truth be damned.
Likewise, Trump's non-stop attack on the press is ignored by the the Republican members of the Senate and House. His attacks on minorities and immigrants are met with silence by the GOP. And, finally, I am not aware of one member of the GOP who has called out James O'Keefe's reprehensible behavior for the harm it does to journalism and the First Amendment.
I am waiting eagerly for the people in the white coats to pay a visit to Trump before reality is totally shattered by him.
4
Silly people: There is too a child-labor colony on Mars! Where do you think all the red baseball hats, with That Slogan stitched on them, come from?
9
I wonder who at the Times will be the first to get it. Trump is being run by the Russians, through skomprometirovany. His capital comes from Russia. His campaign, which he claims was self-funded, was financed by Russians who "bought" real estate for cash from him. He was schooled, willingly, by Russian razvedchiki in the art of dezinformatsiya. First tried it out in March, 2011, on Good Morning, America, when he reminded us that no one knew Barack Obama as a kid. He has been engaged in asymmetrical warfare with the US since then. This week he has revived this campaign, and it summarizes his belief system. “The more doubt you can sow in people’s minds about all information, the more you will weaken their propensity to recognize the truth when they see or hear it. This is the overarching goal at the heart of Russia’s propaganda”
Excerpt From: David Patrikarakos. “War in 140 Characters.” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/war-in-140-characters/id1212218627?mt=11
The NYTimes continues to legitimize his treason by covering him as if he were a loyal American citizen. He is not. Please wake up.
10
Led away under escort of people in white coats? Dream on Tim. People in dark suits continue to applaud and enable this fraud because it keeps them in power. The useful idiot said it best himself, "they'll let you do anything."
3
45 "led away under escort of people in white coats."
Amen.
Funny I don't remember either the NY Times or Washington Post ever admitting they got conned into printing allegations from Steve Bannon's employee Peter Schweitzer's book "Clinton Cash" which trashed the Clinton Foundation with dishonest allegations that were easily debunked by other media outlets. So much for due diligence.
According to Jill Abramson (remember her?):
"Bannon, according to the book Devil’s Bargain, considered this a triumph. Injecting a clearly partisan book into the bloodstream of the mainstream press was indeed a feat, one that damaged Clinton, as her trust and honesty ratings began a nosedive in polls."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/08/robert-mercer-offs...
3
That is the hope. However, the US has slid into the warped world of a lunatic and his party. In 1932 another white dominant European heritage country slipped on rot spewing from a lunatic's mouth. It took 13 years and a World War to let the truth win out at Nuremburg. And that was because of the integrity of the US which is now in question.
I am not so sure that the criminals in the White House and Republican Party are going to succumb to the truth.
6
Yes the nightmare will end, hopefully in 2020. However, a lot of of the GOP has learned that:
fake news works
racism dog whistles can motivate enough voters
diplomacy in the state department can be dispensed with
tax cuts to the wealthy/corporations can be disguised as a middle class tax cut
the president can be an incompetent moron and congress doesn't care
a significant number of voters vote for their party above all else.
Those facts alone will do lasting harm to our country.
6
I believe this will be over soon. Jared Kushner, given a choice between 25 years in prison and his wife and children, will roll his mentally ill father-in-law and will choose his wife and children.
And I honestly think it will take the threat of the National Guard to get Donald Trump out of the White House when he is informed that he is going to be impeached or indicted - or both. I think that as crazy as things have gotten - where do I start? Maybe with a president who defended Nazis? - that things are going to get a lot crazier and a lot worse before they get better. But I do believe the country will survive. As for the Trump crew? I hope they all survive in federal prison.
5
The GOP is based in a series of lies, promoted by their right, far right, and radical right "news" organizations. The Republican leadership will put up with the lies from their useful idiot in the White House until reality catches up. By then, the damage they have done will take a decade or more to overcome. And their "news" organizations will have plenty of lies to explain why it's all the Democrats fault.
It never changes.
Only the people can change this by relegating the "blame government first" GOP to the dust bin as a failed experiment in conservative governance.
5
Thank you very much
1
Let's hope the people with the white coats show up soon!
1
Dementia would be an improvement for Trump.
"Well, you can try, and try, and eventually you’ll be led away under escort of people in white coats."
Here's hoping.
Great Egan column!!!!!
4
Reality: Trump just fired his Secretary of State who was against recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Isreal. Trump wants to.
So who are the major contributors to O"Keefe?
5
This tactic of calling Trump insane won't work. The "people" like insane, they feast on insane, insane is what we need in Washington, so it would seem. It is giving in to the Chaos. And part of that might be planned leaking of false info - the leaking of "fake news". "Tillerson is out the door soon?" This, also, may be planned distraction, planned chaos. Does anyone see the Grim Reaper hand of Steve Bannon on the President's shoulder? Who love chaos, Baby? Who's your Daddy?" Who is hiding in the bushes? Bannon alert! Bannon alert!
1
2017: The year Truth died.
6
There was a definitive list of trump's lies that was being updated by David Leonhard and Stuart A. Thompson, but the last update was July 25th:
Https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html
Could the Times kindly update this list & keep it posted front & center?
The reasons for Trump’s lying, & how his base could possibly allow these ridiculous falsehoods to be blurted by their president uncontested, is all a matter for further analysis.
But the lies need to be enumerated & documented in a concise list & published for the public to continually reference.
Thank you.
5
"So in the end, reality will out."
Maybe, but with so many people in this country unwilling to believe real reporters who carefully double-check their stories, albeit with an occasional error that must be corrected, how will you get them to believe it?
Many of these people already tune out the mainstream media, assuming all it produces to be "fake news," rather than the truly fake news from the right.
And what of the consequences of waiting for them to see that the emperor truly has no clothes? What happens to America meanwhile? What happens to our international relationships and our internal political-socioeconomic status?
We can't wait for them to finally admit the truth. We need action now.
6
"Well, you can try, and try, and eventually you'll be led away under escort of people in white coats."
Agreed. But, how does America and the rest of the civilized world deal with the debasement that led to President Trump in the first place? This is the existential question.
5
Trump is a pathological liar. He lies even when it's the easiest thing in the world to show he's lying. He lies even when it contradicts something he said years, months, weeks, days, hours, or even minutes before. He lies even when there's no apparent purpose for him to lie.
We can ask, What is wrong with you?
But just as important, or perhaps more so, exactly what are the Republicans in Congress waiting for? History later, and the general public right now are not going to excuse your complicity in this toxic mess. You broke it. You own it.
5
Trump is, for sure, the end.
The problem with Timothy's final analysis, as always, is the liberal belief-- and it is a belief, no different than a religious belief, with no basis in fact, only in ideology that MUST be true or nothing, finally, makes sense-- that they are good, that they are right, and that they will win.
Well, most liberals that I know are good, mostly. I can say the same thing for most Trump supporters I know. But both groups share a fanatical adherence to core "beliefs" that are not compatible with reality or even with compromise, let alone any kind of functioning, truly inclusive, society.
Truly, both "ends" of the spectrum are nothing more than two sides of a wedge being driven deeper and deeper with the passing of every day, the edges of the thing through which they are driving-- i.e. the United States-- thus being pushed farther and farther apart. To a hammer the whole world looks like a nail. To a wedge, well...
Honestly, liberals are certainly more intelligent than their counterparts on the right, by a long shot. Unfortunately, while the "respect" the science on CO2, they deny it on crime statistics and gun ownership. They "claim" to "believe" in evolution, until one begins to attempt to show that aggression-- like peacemaking-- are hard wired into us as they are in all other animals-- and plants, with their armies of fungi and microbes battling it out, with war chemicals, and insect symbionts.
Liberals are drowning us too, in their denial.
The first amendment means that eventually the voice of reason prevails. Unfortunately it also allows crackpots a platform to spew their nonsense. We must accept the good with the bad.
In the meantime I'm thankful for the journalists who work together to keep us informed. Without your hard work things would be so much worse.
5
Wow---this is a profound column--gripping, moving--impassioned--caring, necessary. Thank you.
2
I love your optimism, but cannot embrace it. This sort of optimism represents a failure to acknowledge the reality that conservative politicians and voters live in an alternate reality constructed out of Trump tweets, Breitbart fraud, and Hannity howls about fake news. Partisan loyalty and partisan "news," not reality, is what wins now.
Just ask yourself: if we changed nothing else about the Trump presidency and our current government other than Trump's political party, making him a Democrat but changing nothing else he's done or said, what would be going on right now? All based on the same facts. We'd have impeachment proceedings already underway. Chanting crows demanding: lock him up, lock him up. About 50 partisan-driven congressional investigations. Legislation passed stripping him of war powers. Fox News using the words treason and war crimes on a daily basis. Now that's the reality we're stuck with. Partisanship trumps (pun intended) everything.
4
Maybe I'm just a cynic....or a curmudgeon, but I don't see any evidence which would lead me to agree with Egan's optimistic conclusion that the truth is about to set us free. In fact, I see overwhelming evidence to the contrary on a daily basis. Americans have always shown a willingness--even eagerness to believe and embrace the incredible, the fantastic, the absurd. And this is not a new phenomenon starting with Trump or Gingrich or St. Ronnie.
There is no European equivalent of the Salem witch trials, nothing like the various "awakenings" featuring mass speaking in tongues, holy rolling, etc. which have risen time and again in our history, right through the present-day born-again Christians and end-of-days and the glorious "rapture". And on the secular side, we've seen the 1830's tale of life on the moon with exquisitely minute detail, endorsed by the scientific elite of the time. We've seen Barnum, who begat Buffalo Bill who begat Walt Disney.......fantasy worlds that tend to obscure the line between reality and fantasy. Today we have an America where significant numbers believe--really believe--in angels, demons, Satan, fairies, UFO abductions, werewolves, zombies, and a 6,000 year old planet.
Any expectation that "the truth will out"! under these circumstances is sadly nothing more than yet another fantasy.
3
We will see if Kushner is willing to go to prison for his father in law.
1
I think truth will out, too, for many reasons. For one thing, people in this country can be fickle and they tire of status quo, which is partly why Trump got elected in the first place. Trump's antics are getting repetitive and predictable and that's the beginning of dull. He and his family are just dull rich people. And with this insanely stupid tax cut for the wealthy, which will result in the dismantling of the safety net of entitlements such as Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, people are going to feel so much pain in their own lives that the reality will change to Americans not being able to stomach the rich.
3
Thank you for this amazing piece - you are a voice and a force for good in the wilderness.
2
The mendacity of Trump and his sycophants provides a useful health check for the system as a whole. The money spigot has been turned on full blast: anyone who can be bought surely will be. The question is whether the number of good citizens who resist the temptation will be large enough to push back effectively. If not, then we will have reached the point where the bloated and toxic body politic will not be worth preserving.
2
I believe the only reality that will save us now is when trump's mental illness reaches a level where cowards such as Pence, Kelly and Sanders, who handle him now, can't continue the charade. Or perhaps after Congress secures tax cuts for the donor class, they could put aside their historic greed and attempt to preserve our democracy by ridding us of the true "lowest form of humanity".
1
In all frankness, I thought reality would long since have won by now. So much damage has already been done to our democracy. But Trump's supporters are a raging cult, still calling for heads, and impervious to the real world. And Trump's enablers, chuckling and gleeful, who've struck a devil's bargain with him, are getting just what they want, namely, the tax-cut-for-the-rich legislation that most Americans find so reprehensible. Do none of them value our democracy?
4
The only way to ensure that not only will reality will win, but so will American democracy, is for everyone who cares to vote next year, and vote out every single Republican on the ballot, whether a House or Senate candidate or some low-level local functionary. That is the only way to break this corrupt, evil cabal's hold on our government.
1
You are wrong beyond belief. While you are figuring that out, I think you need to read up on the history of this country, and its ability to allow each individual their own set of facts. This is not going to end well by anyone's measure. The question is, will there be enough truth available for us to know.
1
I'm thinking that when the dust of the Mueller investigation finally settles, one of several things will happen. 1.) Trump will declare war on North Korea as a distraction; 2.) Trump and the Trumpanistas will stage a coup in order to keep the Orange One installed in power ad infinitum; 3.) Trump will suddenly leave for Russia, Saudi Arabia or some other friendly country for an "extended stay;" or 4.) Trump will suddenly allow himself to be examined by psychiatrists and, based on the results, will peacefully retire to a luxury resort or sanitarium somewhere instead of subjecting himself to whatever fate might befall him if and when he is impeached and thrown out of office. Insanity makes a great defense.
1
Yet it will take a decade for this harsh reality of the consequences of electoral fraud to trickle into the brain-washed minds of the minority supporting it, one so large it can perceive itself effortlessly as the majority.
We arrived here on top of well over a century of Big Oil and its big offspring industries rigging all things, a rigging that has seen a dramatic intensification in the past five decades and especially in the 21st century, among its crucial victories the stolen Bush and Trump presidencies, stolen Congress seats and Governorships by voter suppression, gerrymandering and voting machine manipulation, followed by stolen Supreme Court judges, financial deregulation, a flood of tax loopholes and tax evasion vessels and schemes for the filthy wealthy, GOP Congress obstructionism to all benevolent policies and the Citizen United rigging that came with them, all culminating in our current break-, shake- and meltdown of everything good and true and beautiful.
Filthy rich psychopathy has now installed itself at the rudder of the ship of state with its puppets at all the important switches and levers, rapidly ousting the good people everywhere and replacing them with the worst exhibits of utter stupidity, corruption and malice they can find.
The darkest decade in the history of humanity extends before us, before enough of us will see through the lies and the fake news mist and realize what we have done by complicitly allowing it in dumbed-down bigotry and ignorance.
1
Little hands in the white house has to lie. He wouldn't know truth if it hit him broadside. He has no original thoughts and any of his tweets are from faux or any other fake news. He doesn't know the difference and in his world, he doesn't care. Part of this idiocy is a smoke screen and diversion to cover what is happening, in real time. We need to stop being diverted. A day without little hands would be heavenly.
1
Mr. Egan, you left one notable journalist out -- Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Franklin.
The problem with getting divorced from reality is that reality turns out to be a really nasty ex.
Trump wants to be our Putin/Kim type leader where the press just praises them or wind up dead or in jail. It seems we elected a crime boss to the white house and he is operating as one Constantly lying and cashing in on a tax cut worth a billion to him , nice pay day for signature the GOP endures him for. This will not end well for the country or Trump regime.
1
Spot on ! The hurricane is gaining force and the slate will be wiped clean of the insane asylum now known as the white house . I hope it takes all the republicans that enabled him too in 2018. Enough is enough.
1
You forget that Trump has been awarded a Nobel Prize in Ballet. All the other Nobels are fake.
This isn't madness. As you say, it's an attempt to destroy the very idea of an independently verifiable truth. If there is no truth, or none that we can be sure of, then all we have left is our visceral passions and allegiances and the power of those in positions of authority to manipulate them.
17
He is mad. I heard him speak in Oklahoma; the right-wing lock on the media here ensured his campaign speech at our fairgrounds was broadcast on every channel, preempting the nightly news. I was aghast at his madness; not since the '20s in Germany have I heard such malice and nastiness, and even that was saner than the word salad that proceeded from that man's mouth. And the crowd went wild; I was appalled and horrified and shocked, to put it mildly. And I knew we were in mortal danger, but thought surely the rest of the nation would put an end to it. You're right that truth itself is under attack, and deliberate attack; such as Stephen Miller and Breitbart types are certainly busy with that. It's demonic, practically, in its guile and intent to disable the nation for looting and whatever else its masters will care to inflict on us. But make no mistake, Trump is mad, and others involved in this business are crazy, too. They may, in their inchoate angers and malice, ultimately destroy even the wealth class and their sane cronies, who for now hitch a ride on the national folie à plusieurs (mass madness).
3
"If O’Keefe were a lawyer, he’d be disbarred." More likely he'd be nominated by Trump to a federal judgeship.
23
Remember when Romney was ridiculed for claiming Russia was our greatest international threat? Now,Trump is our greatest domestic threat.
1
The United States has withstood a revolutionary war, a civil war, two world wars and many conflicts, but it now faces its greatest threat ever - Donald Trump. Not only has he cuddled up to our number one enemy, Russia, he has also sown seeds of mistrust among our historical allies. There is nothing negative that I could say here that hasn't already been voiced by thousands of others, and there appears to be no remedy for the situation. If there is a god, may he/she/it intervene now.
See:
RevolutionOfReason.com
TheRogueRevolutionist.com
11
We can hope but its getting harder and harder.
6
Reality will win. We've seen dark periods in history before; but the overall arc is towards greater individual freedom, greater respect for human differences, greater respect for organized knowledge and lower levels of violence. And I also think this is all an aberration: demographics is still destiny. The groups who will be making up the electorate of the future are strongly opposed to the current Republican agenda, and their disgust with what is going on now will only motivate them more. Conservatives have prevailed because their constituency feels besieged by cultural change and economic woes, and they are far more engaged and motivated than liberals. And tack on a few percentage points for voter suppression and gerrymandering. But this can't last forever. Nor will people be able to keep denying science when flooding becomes an annual problem in our coastal cities. I think the backlash will be major. I remember a bit of the 1950s, but I remember more how much America changed in the 1960s. I am looking forward to the next few decades.
7
Don't count on it. The American Century is over.
1
The realities which we all too often choose to avoid, but which are ever-present, neither win nor lose.We, as individuals, families, communities and other inter-relating human systems, can and do.Our reality is that of uncertainties. Unpredictabilities. Randomness, in the sense of not knowing enough because of gaps in knowledge, understanding and helpful technologies which would enable both.The reality of lack of total control no matter what we do, when ourselves as well as with others.With people whom we know as well as with strangers. Nor how often.Notwithstanding this implicit lack of control we can and do make choices.Carrying them out, or not. Helpful ones. Harmful ones-to ourselves, to and with others.And changes, sudden as well as incremental ones, planned or not, come about. Temporary as well as more permanent ones.What enables each of us to learn from these complex realities?To use what we learn. Or, as is often the case, to BE willfully blind to what is and shouldn't be.To be deaf to voiced unnecessary pains as well as muted ones by those around us who no longer have the energy to speak up. To cry out. Willful ignorance about the implications and consequences of what each of us enables. Allows. About options "immunizing" against infectious complacency and toxic cooptation which can anchor barriers to mesnchlich life styles of well-being in a range of ways.And conflict free life spaces. Reality, as each of US experiences IT is a daily gift of opportunities.Choices.
Trump is just the latest in a long line of Republican presidents that wrap themselves in the flag while trampling on the Constitution at the same time.
JD
13
You need to lay off of Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She is the perfect White House Press Secretary for Trump - dumb as a rock.
21
"In the End, Reality Will Win." In the end, it may be too late.
What worries me more than the lying "gangster White House," is the more finespun lying, gangster Republican Party and its constituents of idiots. (Yes, idiots.)
The "gangster White House" is made possible by the gangster Republican Party and the idiots who support both gangs of liars.
Reality does not matter to liars and idiots. An apple is a banana in their world (thank you CNN). And no matter how the apple looks like an apple, smells like and apple, tastes like and apple, is determined to be an apple by credible scientific analysis, they will insist it is a banana. Because it suits the gangsters' worldview where lies are essential to take and keep power. And idiots are easily persuaded that an apple is a banana.
These lying gangsters (all) and the idiots who support them prove that both America and the world teeter on the verge of total disaster.
24
Influential newspapers and writers...such as NYT and Tim Egan.....are in a quandry.
They are trapped in a world of their own devising.
They cast their lot with an aging Hippie-Era Baby Boomer....Hillary Clinton. \
She represented NOTHING except Status Quo.....stay the course.....the world of 1968, no borders, John Lennon, Civil Rights, we shall overcome, its my turn, rainbows, govt largesse, political elitism......on and on.
TheNYT and people like Tim Egan taught us to mock the new wave and cling to the old guard....Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. They coached us to mock accomplished governors, like Reagnite John Kasich....who quickly devolved into a non-committal sounding babbling idiot. Lizzie Warren, also a Reaganite...until Bush ruined the program.....she sold out, and endorsed Hillary.
So now, thanks to the short-sightedness of NYT and TimEgan.....Donald Trump is our President.
ANd I support MY president.
1
The way you write is a really good reflection of the way you think!
2
The lowest form of humanity are the leeches and blood suckers attached to the terminally diseased white house occupant. They have no honor, ideals or morals whatsoever. The most disgusting aspect of all of them is that they pretend to be Christians and know Christ. Their actions speak thousands of times louder than their lying tongues. Their newly proclaimed concept of "cruelty is compassion" is only the latest in their line of inhuman treatment of those without their own golf courses.
17
The grossest enablers of Trump's Ministry of Mistruth are the Republican leaders in Congress and the nation's statehouses. If there were any integrity, or any residual loyalty to the Constitution in these individuals, they would be putting the screws to the administration's daily onslaught of propaganda. Instead, they have become the Trump Party. They are all one now.
But we as a loyal citizenry to the ideals of our democracy must remain resilient, steadfast in our beliefs, and unwavering in our denunciation of the Trump Party debacle.
Keep investigating, keep analyzing, keep reporting. And every eligible voter must make it their patriotic responsibility to make certain they are properly registered to vote - regardless of gerrymandering, regardless of the Trump Party voter suppression initiatives, regardless of threats by the likes of O'Keefe and his fascist style organization.
The most important thing the Democrat leadership can do is stand fast, decry every instance of the Trump Party's attempt to undermine the Constitution, keep lists of everything (thank you NYT), and make sure that voter registration is the number one priority.
Our republic is at stake. The Trump Party wants to transform our Grand Republic into a neo-fascist oligarchy. We must not let them.
10
It is imperative that the electorate hold the GOP accountable in all upcoming elections for their failure to stand up to Trump and his destructive ways. We can’t vote Huckabee out but we can sure vote the rest of them out. And to all my fellow Christians out there when the heck are you going to demand that the people you put in power act “Christ-like” - such as telling the truth, acting with compassion for th poor and being humble in thought and deeds The current Christians in power have done more harm to our nation then any ISIS idiot. Time for us all to walk our talk!
15
Reality may win in the long run. Remember though, what it took for reality to eventually win in Nazi Germany, Hirohito's Japan, Napoleonic France, Maoist China, Soviet Russia, Mussolini's Italy, etc., etc., etc............
14
The last greatest fake news leader Mr. Hitler. Germany followed his lies. It was great while it lasted, but in the end they lost their wealth, lost their children, lost their country and were condemned as mass murderers. Resist with the truth and with action for if we do not, the end will not be pretty.
11
You said it. We have a mafia in government, doing (and undoing) as they please, with coward and hypocritical enablers...that should know better than abiding a sick mind into destroying democracy's framework to smithereens. Crooked lying Trump is the scum on Earth, whose political career began with the hysteria of Birtherism, a distinct racist move to deligitimize a black president; this, with the full complicity of the republican party and it's propaganda loudspeaker, Fox Noise. Ever since, we have witnessed a slippery slope by allowing Trump to get away with 'murder'. His constant lies, innuendos and insults are legion now...but they began slowly, tentatively, however vulgar, but allowed to pass because it was good financially for a press that fell into his spell of Fantasyland and entertainment. This dangerous circus clown, once secure in his alternate universe, took off like an ugly rocket man, little fingers and all, demeaning our body politic to it's lowest common denominator, the stinking sewer we have today. Given our complacency in this outrage, Trump's misrule has effectively become the new 'normal', allowing him to take us to the slaughterhouse by our nose, seemingly willing to accept our miserable lot, just to show elites the mobs' insurrection, wanting to share more than the crumbs that fall from the privileged table of capitalist's greed. As to why this unscrupulous and irresponsible thug remains in power remains a mystery. Are we tamed into free submission?
3
"...and eventually you’ll be led away under escort of people in white coats."
Yeah? How did that work out for the victims of Hitler, Mussolini, and the Khmer Rouge?
8
Calling all escorts in white coats, proceed to the White House to apprehend the madman within. Global emergency. I repeat: all escorts in white coats, proceed immediately to the White House. Klansmen need not respond.
8
Impeach.
4
If reality does not will out and 2018 just sees more of these whack jobs taking office in support of the great cheeto then I have news that might not be unique to me among folks of my age group. I'm leaving when I hit my "retirement age" (whatever that might turn out to be based on the economics of the next few years). As in skipping town. As in taking a hike. Because not only do I NOT want to be governed by this group of geriatric yet oddly infantile dotards, I refuse to live in a country where 50 % of the population thinks this is ok. I often wish I had left earlier. And don't worry, I won't be letting the screen door hit me on the way out.
10
Trump is our first National Enquirer president. He typifies the readership because he is low information and a lazy reader. He seeks quick out there answers to things he cannot reason his way through and he has found a source for his wild speculations. His good friend is the owner.
He cannot see or accept the world as it is if he is not the king and receiving his fair share of omnipotence and love. Needy as hell, dumber than a bag of rocks he cannot face his limitations. He was raised to believe he was perfect and all were at fault but he. Any achievement was exaggerated.
So, as his illness continues to put us at risk the only cure seems to be Mueller's investigation and the consideration of impeachment.
We can only hope the idea of impeachment becomes more acceptable as it is part of the national conversation. Damage can be reversed with time and will but we are reaching a crossroads. Hopefully that reality will win out soon.
5
Decades of actively demolishing the bedrock of any democracy, an educated electorate, has produced this mess, where politically illiterate voters can easily be swayed by emotional arguments disconnected from any reality. How can we have hope that "in the end, reality will win" when entirely different realities now exist for different people? I fear we are sliding into the maw of a political black hole, which will not only suck the US in but may drag the entire planet down with it, such is our gravitational pull.
3
No matter how bad it gets, millions of Americans will continue to support Trump. Because Trump voters are smart. People who voted for the Democrats are dumb. How do we know? Trump won. Game, set, match.
To admit the obvious, that Trump is unsuited to be President of the United States means having to admit maybe they weren't smart after all in choosing to vote for him.
And then it becomes personal. So now it's not about Trump anymore. It's about them. Like Trump, they will never admit they made a mistake.
Trump know this. They can never abandon him without diminishing themselves. That is just not in Trump voters DNA. He'll have their support come hell or high water.
69
It is nice to think that the truth will win out in the end. I am not so sure. I hope you are right. But even if it you are right - what about all damage that will be done until the truth finally triumphs.
6
“Reality” might end up survivors living in a post nuclear world. He is nuts and he seems to be getting even worse but you know, for the GOP none if his behaviors matter as long as they can pass that disaster of a tax bill. There’s no good ending for this, just less bad ones. Let’s hope we get the least bad outcome. I have no idea what that could be. Maybe if more people voted we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
7
Our lunatic leader may be led away by people in white coats but the residual damage of the hurricane will last for generations. How followers will remain to quote their departed martyr and justify their own visions of power and reality supported by the bed of lies he is sowing.
6
Perhaps truth will out, but will we have survived? There is a good chance that Trump and his fascist allies will drag us into a war which we barely survive, but only in the way Germany did after the Nazi horror. We do not live in strange times, we live in terrifying times.
9
To salvage America, there is only one thing that can be done. VOTER TURNOUT. That's why the GOP is working so hard to shut down any policy that supports broader voter turnout. They know they're not the majority. They know that they can't win in a fair fight. And there is no changing the mind of a single Trump voter, because they've abandoned reality. So we're not getting them back. They're gone. The Democratic leadership need to accept the reality that there is no "independent, on the fence, gee golly if we're just Republican enough, they'll vote for us" voter. They need to emphasize the "communist" causes of clean water, decent education, basic health care, sufficiently funded public services, and infrastructure investment that the majority of the population agree on. And that majority must come out and vote. Only if people actually turn out and vote will anything change. That's it. That is the only, only, only thing that will turn this Hindenburg around. The GOP wins because old white racists vote while others do not. End of story.
12
And reality, described as “tax reform” (speaking of Orwellian), is about to come crashing down on poor and middle class Americans. 45 is, among other things, the Great Distractor.
3
Trump and his enablers in government and media are problems, but, Trump voters are the bigger problems. Watch for the votes in Alabama on Dec. 12. If Roy Moore loses, there is hope. If Roy Moore wins, truth is dead in this democracy.
5
“Lead away by people in white coats”, not soon enough!
2
So many people say it's going to be all right . It's not. Unless we due something drastic we're in the save situation the Jews were in the 1930's. We have learned nothing. Wake up! Trump and the Republicans are making this into a dictatorship and our rights are disappearing and our money with the tax cuts.
6
At last! We have our very own George III. A new padded room at the White House cannot be far behind.
4
Unfortunately reality does not always win, and good does not always conquer evil. Bad people say lies in politics to stroke fear and build up support from like-minded followers. After WWII many wondered how so many Germans bought into Hitler's fear and lies propaganda, but hate and fear are strong factors that work depending on culture, struggling populace and cult of personality. Trump used many of the fascist tactics and he rode it all the way to the White House, with some help from his Russian friends.
7
"You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd." Bob Bylan
3
I thought it was Roger Miller.
I was hoping you meant REALITY WINNER!! Talk about sad, where are her friends?
1
" be led away under escort of people in white coats."
Or be led out of some bunker by people in cbw- radiation gear.
No, the Trump Regime has a gold medal in Synchronized LYING.
Thanks, GOP.
4
If that’s synchronised lying god help us! They can’t even do that properly..
The only way reality will win is if voters refuse to support any Republican in 2018. A massive landslide, turning out many of these toadies despite their protected gerrymandered districts, will be the only vehicle to send the message that truth matters. Republicans delenda est.
4
The white coats can’t come soon enough.
Thank you for the outrage
No more mr nice guy.
They start by getting in the sty and throwing the stench mud.
Then they get worse
No more benefit of the doubt
The liars, sexual predators, and phonies must be exposed and called out of their holes into the bright light
3
John Oliver did a fantastic segment in which he breaks down and proposes a three pronged method to spread fake news.
First, delegitimize the media. In other words, simply label anything and everything you don't like or approve of as being fake.
Second, begin to ask 'whatabout' questions. In other words, when folks challenge the assertion that some news fake, fire back a "But whatabout xxxxxx?" This conveniently shifts the focus away from the current point to something that has no relationship to that.
Third, start to troll. In other words, just attack, attack, and attack. Never mind defending. Do not give an inch.
Here is a link to that entire segment:
http://www.newsweek.com/how-donald-trump-destroying-america-three-easy-s...
6
I recently subscribed to the Wall Street Journal to make sure I am reading both sides. The NYT comment boards are so much more thoughtful. There is a mass hysteria out there, this is for sure. It does smack of 1930's Germany. People buy into lies - how to out them? This is the problem of the year.
8
I subscribed to the Wall Street Journal for the same reason, but the comments were so far out there that I gave up the subscription.
2
The Alt-Mob of 2017. Alt-gangsters are seizing control.
3
Thank our stars for those hard working reporters that search for the truth! Just as scary as our mentally unbalanced abusive president is the large number of Americans that follow and believe anything he says despite the reality of gravity. I feel I've awoken to France in 1789 or Germany in 1936.
5
Much as I disrespect Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she deserves credit for truly believing in her boss, our totally unfit and ignorant and racist 45th President. She is an odd enchantress, a pie-faced magician who has an answer for every " fake news" question from the Press in her horrific White House Press Conferences. The Gaggle - those who are honest members of the 4th Estate - are gobsmacked by her manifest ignorance and fast-talking false-eyelashed chunky optics. OK. Granted, fact's don't mean diddy to this president and his sychophants (read nuts). But why does Trump call journalists "the lowest form of humanity"? What does he know from humanity? And why do you think "reality will win out", Tim Egan? So far reality is the undisputed victim of Trump's modus opeandi. We can only hope we endure long enough to see President Trump bundled into in a white jacket and escorted back to Mallomar-Lago here in Florida, for the duration of the Republicans' stranglehold on the Presidency, and both houses of Congress. So far, hope springs eternal.
1
Welcome to The Hunger Games.
3
He's been trying to get fired from day one. He keeps ramping up the crazy knowing eventually someone will stop him..PLEASE! Then he can say "See it's all been a conspiracy from the beginning", blame the Democrats and the liberal media from keeping him from helping from helping the little guy. Then he can start his white warrior network and continue to do what he does best, lie, blame, spread hate and fear and make a trillion dollars off it. It was his intention all along and a little thing like being elected president got in the way. The white coats can't come soon enough.
3
Trump is not the problem, here. He does what he does. He lies. He bullies others. He embraces hate. Because his supporters are hungry for it. They love it when he does what he does. He is their reflection. I don't care what anyone says. If you embrace this man. If you stand up and cheer him on. You do so because this is who you are. You don't care who gets hurt. You don't care if it's true or not. You don't care how far he goes. Because you are just like him. And ,despite what you say, the folks in the White coats won't be coming until the folks on Main St. find a moral conscience. They embrace a liar and sexual abuser. They embrace a pedophile. And they embrace hatred. You cannot rationalize your way out of the box you have built.
9
Re: "...We learned this week that President Trump does not believe his own words on videotape — words that he had earlier acknowledged, in explaining how a star can get away with the type of predatory behavior that has caused everyone but him to get fired..."
Re: "...We've all seen the steppin', off the bus video, in which the U.S. president admits to groping people-/-has apologized for, (aka: "Locker room talk")!
Now he pretends his, is NOT the 'Trump_voice, speaking' on the tape!
If I admitted such behaviors within the statutory time frame, I'd be arrested; I could, (also), be civilly sued!
Why do we allow-/-have to endure a president who is OBVIOUSLY damaged goods...from a clinical, (psychiatric) P.O.V.?
4
Sarah Sanders may not be as mentally unstable like her boss. That makes her statements more egregious than the babblings of a madman.
1
I wonder how successful this hucksterism would be if POTUS were brown (or black), had a foreign-sounding name, and was born in, say, Puerto Rico?
3
"If facts don’t matter, then a professional press that tries to deal scrupulously in facts is irrelevant. Everyone is a liar... This president calls journalists ‘the lowest form of humanity.’” There you have it: the game plane of every dictator.
1
Never forget the immortal words of Philip K Dick: Reality is the thing that when you stop believing in it is still there.
4
Read Fantasyland. It complicates this thesis.
If you view the behavior from the vantage point that he is a traitor, it makes sense.
PROSECUTE RUSSIAGATE!
"But he has a gaggle of people being paid very well to help him subvert truth, justice and the American way."
And just what the h--l is the American way? Are you really that naive? You were doing fine - but you should have put a period after 'justice'.
1
When the United States was attacked by foreign a power at Pearl Harbor we rose as one. When we were attacked by Russia, when Russia targeted 140 million Americans, when Russian propaganda assaulted our election, when the entire Intelligence community produced analysis of evidence that Russia favored Trump and subverted Clinton there was no outrage in our Congress and denial and obfuscation from Trump. why? Well despite the echo chamber chorus “No votes were changed” Trump knows that focused advertising directed at 140 million voters changed many votes....ask Madison Ave or statisticians how many. They have numbers.
Trump’s supporters marched in Charlottesville. Racists, Nazis are “fine” people. Trump’s core is behind Judge Moore because they have a primary agenda: defeat Democrats even when it means electing a pedophile. What the Hell! Trump has a score of accusers who have been denied any recourse, any voice, even the DNC has turned it’s back on these women.
Then there’s the Trump properties......outrageous to anyone who doesn’t drink the “he won the election and everyone knew he’d use his office to make a buck” kohl-aid.
When the entire government is corrupted by money who can we ask to enforce laws on the rich? When NDAs can end felony investigations there is no justice that money can’t buy.
We can blame Republicans and Clinton Democrats who climbed into bed with Bill and took money, incentivized exporting jobs, and abandoned unions. So who’s gonna save us?
An upbeat column, at least the title. Personally think we might as well be in Argentina in the 1970s. As then, it will be an honor to be a free speech advocate who gets rounded up first. See you there.
3
Did you ever go to a movie with a bunch of friends and realize early on, this is a really stupid movie, but you don't wanna leave because you haven't seen your friends for a while and you want to hang out with them after the movie, but the movie is really long and you just keep thinking, "I wish this damn movie would end!"??
So it's sort of like that.
1
WITH FLYNN'S ADMISSION OF GUILT, there is a crack in the dyke. The flood will soon follow. Manafort spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $ 11 million to post bond. Mueller continues his methodical work, done with the level of secrecy the law requires. The hour of reality is upon us. I wonder if we're going to get the best holiday gift anybody could wish for, in the form of numerous resignations from the top echelons of government.
I remember hearing my mother's sobs as she watched Richard Nixon declare he was not a crook, on tv. Of course he was. The Trump makes poor old, (misunderstood? probably not)) Nixon appear positively presidential, even in that terrible declaration. Mom is sadly missed by all her family; but, I'm glad she isn't around now, and can't tune in on this wretched republican awfulness that is Trump
3
In Homer's Odyssey, Ulysses recounts how his seafaring warriors were driven by winds to the shores of the land of the Lotus-Eaters. There, the locals fed them lotus flowers and they became addicted, forgetting all thoughts of returning home. America has for some time now, been like the land of the Lotus-Eaters, addicted to their relative affluence or the lure of being able to attain it. Disregarding the communal underpinnings of the Mayflower Compact, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights, most cleave to poisonous individualism that affords them the luxury of not having to care about issues that affect our society unless something is biting them in the ass; e.g.; healthcare, income inequality, civil rights, and yes, unfair taxation. Well, hopefully the gnawing going on right now will sufficient to spur action, now, in whatever way possible, and next year during the election. Stand up, people: We ARE better than THIS!
4
I’m presently reading Robert Reilly’s 2010 book, The Closing of the Muslim Mind. Reilly’s thesis is that Muslim societies started their long slide/stagnation starting between the 8th and 12th centuries, when the faith-favoring Ash’arite sects crushed the reason-favoring Mu’tazal sects.
I’d like to hope that the West is not entering a similar phase and can expect a similar outcome. But I can’t find much reason for optimism.
2
Unfortunately, Trump understands what the greatest American spy novelist, Charles McCarry, had one of his characters say in "The Tears of Autumn:"
"You think the truth will make men free, but it only makes them angrier."
3
I agree that truth will always win out. The problem is that many are hurt before that time comes.
67
Trump "endorsed" (from what I can see, he thanked them for saying bad things about his opponents) a website that has bizarre conspiracy theories.
Does that mean he believes those theories? I don't know if he read anything that didn't pertain to him. Or even if he did whether it registered.
Sorry, this goes overboard. Trump is crazy enough in his own right, you don't need guilt by overextended association. It only shows that Timothy Egan is foaming at the mouth to take Trump down, and lends credence to the view that the media is out to get him. Egan should follow his own advice - stick to reality, there's plenty of material to work with.
A good summation of what Trump is and of the dystopia he is building on the foundations of the shining city on the hill! Reality is relative--ask the followers of various religions. Reality is shaped day by day by the "media," and the least scrupulous win out. A solid foundation for the Trump dystopia was prepared by discrediting the main stream media. That done, any set of lies can be advanced. Pied Pipers and con men have always existed, but never with audiences as large as they have now and never with working budgets such as those they have now. And the sad thing is that those budgets are fattened by corporations who make their money off the people
1
great column! i hope there are more like this coming from all over. these 24/7 propaganda machines need to be shut down. FOX included. this is not free speech anymore money is free speech.
The republican congress has a non-disclosure agreement with their abusive champion: give us the money and all's forgotten.
While a tsunami wave of anticipating voters builds on the horizon that will submerge them all.
1
In a democratic republic, with more or less free and fair elections, we can say we get the kind of leaders we deserve. What kind of leadership should good leaders demonstrate to deserve our support? In turn, in what ways should we behave in order to deserve that good leadership? Trump is a dangerous man - dangerous to the U.S., to the world. He needs to be removed by any legal means possible. If we don't see to it, well, we get what we deserve.
Trump is a great conman. He knows that when the facts about his snake oil come into question he invents another web of lies and distraction to cover up the truth. But he is still only one man. What I find incredulous and very disturbing is there are so many people in our government or who are wiling to serve in our government who will give this reckless conman cover including the Republican congress. Are they all living in some form of hypnotic state. Let us all hope the voters awaken them from their trance in the next election.
The Gold Medals are for synchronized LYING.
2
Comparing journalism to Trump era information is like comparing apples to the pocket-sized black hole I keep in my back pocket. According to quantum physics, there's a slim probability they both might exist and might actually be related to each other. You're fooling yourself though if you think there's a reliable equivalency between the two.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is probably the most absurd example out there. Well, she's the most absurd example aside from Trump anyway. Fortunately for us, modern marvels in public information allow us to know the exact price of Ms. Sander's immortal existence. Her soul is worth exactly $176,461 dollars per year according to the White House Budget Office.
As an analyst, I deal in objectivity too. My approach uses different techniques but the principle is the same. The important point for journalism to remember is not that bias exists but to remember to publicly acknowledge your bias. You're most objective when you state your position explicitly. That's the basic principle underwriting academia. We all know we're imperfect. We want both ourselves and the reader to understand how we are imperfect. In the end, the issue really relates to self-examination and honesty.
Isn't it a criminal offense to make a false claim or accusation of murder against someone? I think Trump should be prosecuted and there are billions of witnesses to his latest crime.
Of course, there are so many Trump crimes against humanity starting with his violation of oath of office and spiraling outward. Then there are possible criminal charges arising from the Mueller investigation that may very well include the charge of treason for him and two of his family business partners living in our WH, treason as in conspiring against the United States. This is especially heinous when Americans are working with a foreign enemy government already at war against our democracy.
As far as domestic conflicts, there are two wars occurring in America right now, the ongoing war against truth being waged by Trump and his cabal. You are exactly right, Mr. Egan, they want to diminish truth so it no longer matters or people just don't care because this propaganda machine works 24/7 for the sole purpose of exhausting us and stupefying our minds.
The other war is the wealthy vs the middle class and the poor. Donors with incredible wealth have bought most of the GOP who are doing their bidding. This was a war of attrition and now only one percent of Americans control all our wealth and want to take the power from the people. They are using Trump and their money to silence the majority of Americans, and so far they are winning.
1
The truth may eventually win out, reality will eventually assert itself. But at what cost? As George Orwell once said:
We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield
3
The belief that "reality will out" may be irrational optimism. Republicans have been selling the same supply side snake oil and abhorring the deficit only when the president is a Democrat since 1980, and most voters have not caught on. They are set to do grievous harm to the great majority of Americans and whether they will pay any price remains to be seen. The capacity of people to ignore objective facts is great.
1
We only defeat ourselves when we allow ourselves to feel defeated. Perhaps this is what fanatics can also count on. What an uncanny victory when you can get the enemy to tell itself that it has lost.
1
It looks to me like we'll end up with President Ryan. I hope the Flynn news today means the entire story will start to unfold soon and I don't see how Pence can continue to act as if he were an innocent bystander. I am a little concerned about how Trump will react to the ever-growing threat to him and his family.
I know that reality will win but in reality very bad things can happen when people behave carelessly. What Trump says is what is, no matter what it contradicts which cannot be false, because he is trusted to do what his supporters want if anyone can. That includes all those conservatives who have been longing to erase all the progressive legislation since the last quarter of the 19th century to the self proclaimed pious God fearing politicians who want Government to serve God's will above all and for science to reflect their religious doctrines or to be silenced as well as making illegal all birth control methods and to restore the primacy of patriarchy in families and the social order. That includes people who have felt left out as the country has changed since the 1950's and want it all turned back, and those who believe in everything conservatives say about economics and the fair distribution of wealth but object to the outcomes which have left them insecure about the future. They believe in the man while considering his tweets and inconsiderate behavior to be noise, unrelated to what he will really do for them. The Republicans are to Trump what China is to North Korea, the only ones who could rein in the craziness in the short run, but they will not do so. They are even about to enact the worst legislative acts of this century with these tax bills that complacently impoverish vast numbers of Americans only to give the superrich more money to hoard.
1
Yeah, but it doesn't seem to hurt him politically. He maintains his 37%+ hard core support no matter what as well as the protection by the GOP congress. Journalists and our foreign allies as well as a large majority of the public can be outraged, but are powerless to do anything about it.
Reality is relative. I’m not sure if al theses harassment and assault disclosures are going to force Trump to resign. Or if it is the intent. Is Trump behind this? It’s reasonable to assume these larger corporations knew what was going on, they pay for this information. They do not risk millions without knowing who they employ. The government also investigates these high profile types. Didn’t The FBI confirm Kronkite wasn’t a communist. Maybe Trump open the files and had operatives manipulate the press to start this mess. His way of getting even with the media. There’s nothing new with the left devouring itself.
I saw a video of Laur wanting to get to the truth about Pizza gate. It didn’t seem real to me. Could it have been edited from file footage? is the technology that good yet? When it does Reality would become meaningless. Like today but worse.
Nearly half of the country still supports Trump and Republican monsters. And why not? Trump IS a Republican. All the talk of backing away from him after the Access Hollywood scandal broke was just show. Republicans band together no matter the crime--as long is it keeps them in power so they can destroy the nation and our Constitution.
So, now we have the "tax" bills. This is a tax rip-off of everyone but the top .1% but it is so much more, designed to do the following:
1) Make normal people hate the uneducated class who voted for Trump so we will no longer help the most vulnerable.
2) Allow churches to campaign for Republicans in order to sway the vote and make the rest of us pay them for it.
3) Bankrupt the federal government so important social programs have to be eliminated.
4) Punish Democratic states and force them to cut funding in an effort to make their citizens angry and swing toward voting Republican. Cal it fiscal gerrymandering.
5) Force all Americans to wear tracking devices and install cameras in their homes so "rebels" can be tortured into submission.
Okay, that last one was made up (I think) but you see where Conservatives are going, right? After all, there is potentially 7 more years of this horror story left! Read Orwell's 1984.
RESIST!!
1
excellent... keep it up!
Under normal circumstances, I would share your optimism that the pendulum will eventually swing back. In the current situation with the GOP accepting Trump's unhinged commentary as cover for destroying government as we know it, and his array of defenders both within government and without, it is quite possible the nation could be led into nuclear war, or to a collapsed economy, by this despotic president and the sycophantic congress.
1
We're living the political and moral equivalent of the tulip craze. The only hope is that the inflation of lies and evil can crash at some point. I hope it doesn't crash on our heads.
Frederick Douglass? says Trump. Great guy, nobody knows how great he is, just talked to him yesterday. Rachel Carson? Evil, very very bad, enemy of freedom who tried to destroy the American farmers.
"Well, you can try, and try, and eventually you’ll be led away under escort of people in white coats."
I'm sorry to say this is only one possibility.
The other possibility is that you become the leader of Germany, revoke German constitutional protections, and begin WWII.
1
Another great journalist was Hannah Arendt. It is worth taking a few minutes to recall her warning about totalitarianism. Her words should resound with Americans. “In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”
2
We wish you a Merry Mueller, and a Happy New Year.
BIGLY.
It is more than "a gaggle of people around him".
...It is the entire GOP. There are 52 Republicans ready to fleece the country by approving a tax bill they have nt even read...they want to do so before the CBO rates the plan.
They are in a rush to get a pedophile into their Senate majority.
They will , no doubt. advance Don Blankenship, a former West Virginia coal executive to run for the Senate next year.....after he signs all the paperwork upon being released from a one-year federal prison stint.
"Rotten" does not come close to being a description of what's happened in eleven (11) months.
I am beyond disgusted.
2
Hope you are right, but I dunno. The people that you have named are hopelessly incompetent, but here we are. There are competent operatives studying the techniques that this stooge patrol has used to destroy democracy. I am more worried about the next wave of greedy robber barons than I am about this gang that couldn't collude straight.
Actually, instead of men in white coats leading them away, I'd like to see the guys in FBI jackets accompanied by the boys in blue leading them away. And then to see them all in orange jumpsuits.
2
"People in white coats"? Since when do the police wear white coats?
2
Obama, class act. Trump, lacking all class. None.
Great column Timothy. Seeming dementia, flagrant conspiracy theories, lies, petulance, total lack of doing his job. The men in white coats can't come soon enough! Obvious the craven fools in the Republican Party won't. He's committed so many impeachable offenses by now that it's unbelievable! And thank goodness real journalist, of which there are many, are still speaking truth to power!! Mueller ain't going away!
8
Thank you! Keep up the good work.
8
all true as usual in egan's columns. could've added hemingway and jfk--for a short time at least--as journalists.
6
Richard Farina, Ed Sanders, Pete Stampfel...
The media is responsible for this. Shallow chasing of ambulances is all we got during the run up to the election. This Trump was nuts long before we got here and the non Fox/Sinclair media did not investigate or stress forcefully enough the clear and present danger of not just the Trump, but the Republicans as well. Christian based plutocratic Theocracy is what Republicans represent. Yep, a christian Taliban worshiping the golden calf. Jesus lives in none of them. The medias complacency and basically their Neoliberal owners kept out any true discourse based on fact, even as one side lied in every sentence. When this is over, if it ever is, the FCC must be strengthened to encourage truth, not ratings and or greed.
5
You need to stop being part of the scoffing commentariat with ironic, critical, diagnostic, humorous and sarcastic analyses of the President's actions and start focusing in on reasonable ways to rescue our country.
3
Ask any parachutist, free fall feels pretty good until you enter the ground rush during the last few seconds of the jump. So it will be with climate change and deep aquifer drawdown and topsoil erosion and clean drinking water and species extinction and a host of other ecosystem collapses. When your whole identity is built on the lies of a literally interpreted Bible and further distorted by a "burn one get one free" millennialism that raptures the righteous people off the planet just as God destroys the rest of it; once you have swallowed those lies and made them the anchor of your reality, it's a good bet you will be blinded to reality until it destroys you.
6
Mr. Egan,
I fear your optomism about reality winning in the end is itself not based in reality. Republicans control all branches of government now. They are intoxicated with power & willing to do anything it takes to remain so. Suspending Constitutional tenets, patholigical lying, racism, misogyny, & overt white anger are now rooted in our political discourse. This is not going to end well....for any of us.
5
This is what the people want, for entertainment.
The people loved the SOPRANOS. Our political culture has been reduced to reality tv and social media blitzkrieg, anyhow. Why would West Virginia and Montana not eat up the organized crime family that is served by the Billionaire GOP on a platter?
4
It would help if the legitimate press would simply call the untruths what they are, lies. All too often, you equivocate and use less accurate nouns (and adjectives). I'm not sure why you do that. Perhaps it is a worry about being too partisan, but truth is not partisan; it simply is. Tell it!
7
This is going to boomerang on all of you. Under the circumstances of arbitrary truth the foundation of arbitrary justice is set.
A simple denouncement, and blue stater or red stater, GOPper, Dem or other ... Joe McCarthy's dark vision realized.
Tail-gunner Joe's misfortune was a matter of timing. The west was still wobbly in the wake of the last fascist surge, so more determined than ever to return the stabilizing effects of decency and dignity and fairness to the public space. Joe went down in flames, Kruschchev stood up to at the UN. What could these miscreants have accomplished in this day and age? Well, we don't have to wrack our imaginations over that question now, do we?
McCarthy chased his hobgoblins with the mindset of a 21st century Republican. The Russians have their unwittingly compromised mole in the Oval Office.
Once truth is out of the picture, paranoia strikes deep. Justice gets it in the eye. Trust is whatever can be paid for by the highest bidder.
It'll be one heckuva show when a society, armed to the survival shelters as it is, starts confusing neighbours with enemies. Ask those who recall living amidst Stasi roundups. Ask Pol Pot's scarred survivors. They'll tell of what happens to citizens brutalized by cold-blooded liars.
You could do something now to put a halt to where you're headed. But the path is closing. Millions would have to suffer and die to have it reopened. That's what history records. There is so much living truth in history.
8
Outstanding!
I, for one, am exhausted by the incessant lying from this scoundrel and his enablers. Well written pieces like this one give me energy again.
Nonetheless, can we survive 3 more years of this?
7
Teddy Roosevelt a journalist? He was certainly a voluminous author, but what qualifies him as a journalist?
So far, no one I have seen or read has remarked that Sander's defense of Trump's re-tweet of the anti-Moslem videos is exactly the defense that would be endorsed and used by the likes of, say, Joseph Goebbels and a bevy of tyrants throughout history. The truth of a statement doesn't matter: what matters is that the statement serves the interests and doctrines of the State and it's leader.
So we have a press secretary who sounds like Dr. Goebbels and a president who is doing his best to discredit the press and claim that 'alternative facts' that he believes are the only facts that count. Everything else is 'fake news.' Sounds like we are well on the road to a fascist dictatorship. Anyone listening in Congress?
6
"In the end, reality will win." I suppose if you consider reality a mushroom cloud, you are right.
1
Egan, while I agree with your larger premise yous short term and lower order examples are not that good. Nobody thinks of CNN as an examaple of great journalism, or even reliable reporting. Please! And NASA and space research budget is getting out of hand. To find some theoretical particle a tool was built for a billion dollars. A billion dollars for a physics tool that would serve at the most 10 doctoral dissertations. This while millions are going without insurance, and many faculty are underpaid in the social sciences and are homeless while working as Adjuncts.
It is okay to criticize Trump...but to assume that everything he jokes about or criticizes, even crudely and in silly ways, is somehow perfect is ridiculous.
Look at NASA and see where the money is going...for all these astronauts going back and forth like luggage spending millions of dollars in every trip and building a White man's colony in space. That needs to be looked into seriously.
Your larger premise is right, but your examples suck and actually are problematic.
1
In order for that to happen, there will need to be some "people in white coats".
1
I think at this point everyone with a open mind has come to realize the trump white house and trump himself are corrupt and trump is a very unbalanced, self centered bigot. Its time to start using these pages to call out the GOP that supports him the American people in general to put an end to this disgrace.
2
Timothy Egan wrote:
"So in the end, reality will out. You can’t stop a hurricane by calling it a snowflake. You can’t say you won the Masters when nobody has given you a green winner’s jacket on the 18th hole of Augusta National. Well, you can try, and try, and eventually you’ll be led away under escort of people in white coats."
I hope so- but mere wishing and hoping will not make it so.
1
Right now it's difficult to share Mr. Egan's hope that reality will out. The guys in white coats who can haul off the crazies are Republicans and they've shown no courage or morality to do it.
Read the comments here and elsewhere. Decent Americans are getting more desperate by the hour.
3
RoseMarie
Thank you, you give me hope.
1
In light of all the harm Trump, the Republican Party and the CEOs of major corporations have done it is safe to say that Vladimir Putin is laughing at us Americans. His plan to disrupt our lives and possibly destroy us is working because we have allowed Washington to become the cesspool of greedy liars that it is.
5
Sadly, it cannot be true that the pope uses magic to mastermind world events.
Tragically, madness seems to be contagious. Huckabee-Sanders, all the Congressional Republicans, and about 30% of the country, have been infected.
There is a cure, if we survive until November 6, 2018--the VOTE.
I never thought it possible our great country could be destroyed by one mad man.
3
and "eventually you’ll be led away under escort of people in white coats." I can't wait to see that! Trump and Huckabee Sanders, side by side, in straight jackets.
"...eventually you’ll be led away under escort of people in white coats."
Perhaps, but we've seen that the enablers of this horrific Administration are numerous and have clearly decided that they'll abide whatever mess their leader gets into provided they are able to continue pursuing their craven agenda. I'm not so sure the beast will die even if we succeed in chopping off the head...
2
Those poor children! It's bad enough being a child laborer. But with the thin atmosphere on Mars and all . . . But if Trump's administration is running it, I'm sure its a really, really fantastic child labor camp--nobody has ever seen a better off-planet labor camp.
4
Tax bill gifting billions to millionaires and billionaires “And it’s not good for me, believe me.”
3
This is bracing, positive thinking. Two comments strike me as particularly prescient:
If good people stand up resolutely for the truth, the truth will out.
As for supporters of the demented Orange Creature, only real personal pain and tragedy -- turned away by the healthcare system, not enough $$ in the Social Security check to eat -- will cause them to rethink their stance.
Both of these forces are unleashed now. Mueller will produce more substance prior to the mid-terms.
Buck up, all!
3
Trump is a con man. Con men will never tell the truth. This is how they succeed. Trump, though he never truly wanted the office, is now president of the United States. Trump would rather be Trump. Therefore, he will continue to lie and subvert until we are no longer the United States. He and Okeefe and all his 3rd grade minions will make this nation the New Trump America Plaza. And let me tell you, it is really something, this you can believe.
2
Mr. Egan, where was your razor-sharp scrutiny--when the Obama Administration refused to even acknowledge the threat of Muslim extremism--when they called terrorist attacks "Man-caused Disasters"?
We're now dealing with a nuclear-armed Iran--and North Korea with missiles capable of delivering nuclear payloads to the U.S. Mainland. This is all courtesy of the feckless and effete foreign policy of one Barack Obama.
In a dangerous world, give me Trump--with all his warts. If you want to understand the difference, go look at the decimation of ISIS in the year since Trump has been president. How many stories about the decimation of ISIS have appeared in the NY Times? Very few if any--and they give credit to Obama.
I find it completely ironic--how Liberals spent 8 years blaming the previous administration for it's woes--and then wants to claim responsibility for every success in the next eight. Reality indeed.
2
I find it ironic how for eight years, repubs and trumptards complained about health-care and the minute they get a chance to change it, there not smart enough to execute. If they would have had something ready, like the lier promised instead of whining and throwing rocks maybe we would have something. Instead of draining the swamp, they have filled it to the brim.
1
I am sick to death of the reality show that is the tRump administration. I am ready for the programming to end and wind up in the trash heap of the dark hole of a TV editor. I refuse to live in tRump's reality show or his alternate universe, where ever it is. Let tRump live out his days at Mar-a-Lago off of my expense account while he scuffles around in his bathrobe, showing off his man hood to whoever is interested while he babbles about how great he is. Just keep him out of my viewing lens. I am so tired of feeling sick to my stomach over what he and his minions are doing to our country. Those who enable him can go live with him if they like him so much. Just get them out of my view. The real "reveal of the reality show" here lately is the fiscal conservatives (NOT) that tRump has brought to the reality show. What a hearty joke they are. They are no more fiscal conservatives than the black snake that lives under my back deck. Actually I think that creature moved out when I moved in. Showed up a couple of times but decided a rat terrier was not his friend and moved on. Yes there is lesson there for the tRumpites. Move on, find another hole to hide in, another feeding ground, maybe someone who really believes you are a fiscal conservative because we all know you aren't. You are Ayn Rand devotees, but not fiscal conservatives. Beyond tRump's lies, the GOP being fiscally conservative is the 2nd biggest lie.
3
There can be no bottom when the people who support this nonsense keep digging.
2
All during this holiday week-end, I became conscious that Fox was on in all the public spaces—the airports, the motels, the restaurants. I am going to contact them all and tell them that I don't like being followed by the lying media.
4
In the end, reality will win? Well of course. But is that the same as the long run? You know, when we're all dead? This madness needs to end now. Egan rightly calls this a gangster white house, but that's just the penthouse. These days the entire Republican structure ,from media to office holders to activists, resembles less a political party than a mafia crew, only more vicious and deadly. It's war.
2
My fantasy is that one
morning when I wake up
to my NYT news app at 7 am,
when DC is well into business,
the headline will state that
Trump is gone, he has been
taken away. The entire clan
and the enablers who lie at
the drop of a hat...All will
be gone. We won't have
to deal with a man who doubts
his own words. This Kafkaesque
nightmare will be over, replaced
by reasonable, intelligent people
who put our country first, people
who do not spew hatred, rascism,
misogyny. My hope every morning
when LA is waking up.
4
Unfortunately that would require the Republicans in Congress to put the country above their own political interests and the interests of their donors. Ain't gonna happen.
1
In the words of H.L. Mencken, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” A number of what I thought were fairly intelligent friends---Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, Teachers---vote for this clown--and some continue to rationalize this circus---
5
Scathing and so appropriate! Thanks for this column.
2
I'm afraid Tim just gave Trump an idea, and soon we'll see trump on the cover of Time in that green blazer, cradling the master's trophy in one hand and the severed head of Joe Scarborough held high in the other. Joe will no doubt have CNN etched on his forehead. Look for it on shopdonaldjtrump.com. (yes, that's a real website, sick as that might make you feel). Sci Fi magazine might name him alien of the year as he's a plutocrat and in charge of all our plutonium, irrefutable proof that he's from Pluto. Eat your heart out E.T.
This presidency has been a tsunami of destruction, the depth and breadth of which won't be fully known until we're faced with the bill for fixing it all. Our standing on the world stage can best be described by the Everly brothers: our goose is cooked and our reputation is shot. It's not so much a dumpster fire as a tire fire, emitting voluminous noxious, thick black smoke that obscures reality nearly completely.
3
What a vulgar man.
I'm reeling from his insults directed at Senator Warren.
They smack of something a fourth grade bully, raised by wolves would say.
Every Republican Senator should say, in no uncertain terms, that this kind of denigration must stop.
Imagine what Republicans and their State television would be saying if President Obama had shown such contempt and disrespect for one of their Senate colleagues.
What a thoroughly horrible man.
7
Thank you, Mr. Egan, for continuing to bail as this sinking ship goes down...
8
Having still duped 40% of the electorate, overtaken the Republican party, cowed and co-opted the Republican controlled legislature, capitulated the US hegemony in the free world, abandoned allies, embraced enemies, abandoned long held principles, made the US appear feckless and untrustworthy, one ought not be too sanguine about a return to reality.
This incompetent and ignorant President has already accomplished more to destroy America and American values than could be imagined. One might have hoped that General Kelly and others could affect a constructive change but hat appears not to be the case.
7
The column's closing image of Trump being "...led away under escort of people in white coats" is tantalizing but still out of reach. Trump continues to do damage every day. The GOP's purely greedy tax reform bill may well be voted in today. If it is, nobody wins but the embezzler Trump, who would pocket tens of millions of our taxpayer dollars.
Still, I await the day when Trump is finally in custody, which in his case should clearly involve a straightjacket.
3
At this moment, I have no faith that reality will win out and watching the country being gutted is heartbreaking. Those Americans who are blindly supporting Trump provide no solution. Congress, although heavily Republican does, but the question is how to make more of them cognizant of the damage they are about to allow with this terrible, deficit raising tax bill fraud. Why won't they acknowledge their constituents?
4
REALITY may win. But who will be around to identify it? Right now, it seems there is not one person who would recognize it.............
3
To renounce American citizenship or not, and when, is the question I face as the endless onslaught of news about the Trump Derangement Syndrome continues apace.
Please understand that it is more than just Trump, although that alone is quite enough reason. It is the ugly, constant American tendency toward fascism, towards stupid self-defeating wars of choice across the post-war era, the denial of national healthcare to its tens of millions of downtrodden citizens, Jim Crow by other means, the presence of 300 million firearms in the hands of anyone who so desires whether they are sane or not, and at the top of this dung heap of disappointment, the wasting of all of America's promise to itself and the hope it can make the world better.
But before I check out of an America held captive by Trump Tower for good, I really want to cast a last vote against the monster who inhabits the White House.
And in the meantime I wait and watch from abroad in horror, hoping in vain that the damage is contained to its source, the US.
12
Well put, sir.
Fantastic points! Pointing out Huckabee-Sanders' unbelievable rationalizations by equating her statement about the anti Muslim tweet with accusing Joe Scarborough of murder because murder happens is perfect. This insane man needs to be removed from office before damage he is causing is irreversible, like nuclear war, destruction of the climate, the destruction of the United States of America...
4
Keep reporting on this and please don't stop, because there is an assault on reality from the very top of government and the ruling party is complicit in it. It is a truth that one person can't change the behavior of another, but if there is a concerted effort to modify the behavior of the masses by an autocrat and his aides, many susceptible people will be affected. I think a core number of people wanted to be convinced of certain lies. However in Alabama, for example, we see people who have turned their backs on morality in favor of ideology, or at least have found themselves in the position to chose between that is more morally repugnant to them: pedophilia or abortion/homosexuality, as if it was all was so black and white.
2
I agree the light of reality eventually has a way of shining through the cracks of the insanity bubble. Until that occurs, the harm done to others and to our country will likely be significant. This harm is cruel and unnecessary, which highlights the insanity. That the bubble exists is not surprising considering the past few decades of concerted attempts to change the reality of our democratic Republic and the role of modern government.
It is impossible to understand collective sociopathy, hate, racism, bigotry, white supremacy, and a Magic Eight Ball belief in purist capitalism, one that says, “Let the market decide” winners and losers in all aspects of society and all of it is totally needless and inhuman.
2
Yes, reality will win, but whether the human race will survive will survive as we know it a nuclear war with north Korea or climate change is another story. The apocalypse may come, but it will not be a supernatural god that does it. It will be our own stupidity and denial of reality that accomplishes it. Sorry to be so dark, but this is a hard time. Is it just polyannish to think that the sun will come out tomorrow? Will we find a plan or a dream that will see us through?
1
The way the WaPo handled the criminal O'Keefe's sophomoric attempt to snare its reporter in another of his (Orwellian) "Veritas" traps -- 100% professionally -- gives me hope for this failing nation like I haven't felt in a while. What a perfect answer to the fools like O'Keefe and the Faux News crowd who think journalism consists of whatever lies and biases the practitioners feel like expressing at the moment.
Let's just hope the headline "In the End, Reality Will Win" won't take as long as it did in Germany that time.
3
I can just imagine Pence assuming the presidency with this opening statement:
I am a Christian first
A conservative second
A Republican third
And president of the United States of America forth
So the White House position is that it doesn’t matter whether the individual videotapes retweeted by President Trump are real. What matters, according to Sarah Sanders, is that the videotapes (or at least their captions) call attention to a real problem of violence by Islamic extremists.
In this spirit, it should not matter whether or not the Access Hollywood video is real, because it calls attention to the real problem that our President is a sexual predator. Many women have made this claim, and the fact that the events occurred with no camera running is irrelevant.
3
Reality will win when real journalists as those fake press conferences start asking Ms. Sanders: "Have you no shame?" I won't hold my breath.
Beats me why rich liberals aren't funding an organization to stalk James O'Keefe. Unless and until we manage to get rid of the undemocratic Electoral College (highly unlikely in my lifetime), centrists and liberals may need to fight the deplorables on their own ground. Instead of phony, staged "town halls," why don't Democrats publish an enticing, manipulative, fake-conspiracy laden tabloid, prominently displayed in every supermarket checkout line in America?
I'm only half kidding.
2
"Most powerful person on earth."
"Greatest country in the world."
"Leader of the free world."
Maybe we need to give these terms a rest.
This is coming from ALL Americans, not just the America First acolytes. All media and all journalists use these terms. They are working themselves into a tizzy when they see that the current president is no such thing. America is far less powerful than it thinks when you look at the wars against small countries that it keeps failing (Vietnam, Afghanistan, ...)
1
I've been an incorrigible history reader all of my life (62). I've never used any of those terms. The only exceptionalism I have ever seen is the hypocrisy of conservatives and evangelicals. Trump is the tip of the iceberg. But the tip is the most dangerous part in this case. Our democracy will not survive this. The world will probably be dragged down with us. At this critical time of climate change, they elected trump. Thats exceptionally stoopid.
The good news is that we write our laws and amend our Constitution. The power has never been in their hands but in ours. Truth does not win out if so-called leaders are spouting lies and some believe them. There are few Southerners blinded by their GOP background to vote for a child molester. But they can be blinded by lies that meet their criteria of distrust. We have distrusted our federal government since the lies of Vietnam, Kennedy assignation both of them, Ollie North and the worst one fabricating WMDs in Iraq to create the new millionaires and billionaires of today. We knew it would one day all come to a head. This time there are more than just a few, the founding fathers had few supporters, that will win the day regardless of how many other Americans do not come along. It will be hard but we expect it to be. The American truth resides in patriots who are willing to use our laws and our Constitutional rights to combat these criminals and traitors. We finally realize what it takes to be a U.S. citizen.
In the End, Reality Will Win...are you sure about that? A few months ago I would have agreed...now not so much. I believe Trump knows exactly what he's doing...in his own bizarre way he's a genius. We reached a tipping point years before he entered the public arena. Trump's crassness isn't surprising, isn't accidental, it's intentional, it's carefully calculated & it's working quite well. It plays perfectly to his base & they love it, so he'll keep doing it as much as possible. From a strategic & tactical standpoint, it's brilliant. It's open season on liberals & progressives like Egan. There's absolutely no downside to attacking, shaming, & embarrassing them with relentless abandon. Get real. That's the basis for Hannity's entire career. That's why Fox News ratings top all cable networks on a regular basis. The mainstream press can rage & shout about these tweets until there's ice on the equator...it won't change the mind of one person who voted for Trump. The more you complain the more he will do it.
A huge portion of America hates & despises what liberals stand for to their very core. What progressives & their co-dependents will never be able to see is that Trump supporters revel in the non-stop drama, are galvanized when he punches back. Far from being embarrassed by his antics, they're thrilled by it & in their heart of hearts can't get enough of it. So why stop? Because the press is offended? Not happening. Sadly Lib Baiting has become the new Great American Pastime.
6
People who believe what they want to believe despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary will be the death of our democracy. We are a nation where irrational lemmings are in control and the President is leading the way off the cliff.
We are doomed. Doomed, I say.
1
A powerful, powerful piece. Thank you. You allude to dementia; a growing chorus of mental-health professionals call for intervention, including Dr Lee at Yale, whose letter to the editor of the Times appeared in yesterday's paper. However, none of this matters if his colleagues in the GOP continue to enable him, themselves refusing to face reality. Trump didn't invent Fox or found "Project Veritas"--Republicans did. Trump may represent the nadir, but Republicans are also responsible for this assault on truth, because it's the only way they can get elected and maintain power, and I am just as furious with the entire disgraceful GOP as I am with their vile leader.
2
Our only hope is a Congressional reset in the 2018 elections. Never has our vote meant so much to our children’s and the planets future.
3
Another unfortunate lesson from this sobering experience is that the chaos (entertainment) keeps people reading the media. So, of course the media, like this august newspaper, covers every lie, tweet, insult, and wink made by Trump and his lackeys. Because revenue. Necessary stories languish to make way for pouts, posturing, and fabricated feuds. This column is an example.
Whoever we elect next had better be a performer, whatever their politics may be. Boredom is out.
2
Reality does eventually win out; but sometimes it takes a long time. In the meantime we are finding out that there are people who will do or say anything for a dollar or to keep their job. In fact the republican right is infected with people who are spreading lies and disinformation for profit.
I believe that trump has some form of dementia; but most of the spreaders of false information are of sound mind and know what they are doing.
I always enjoy Mr. Egan's comments.
1
Greed over truth is the Amercian way. It will take nothing short of human annihilation and starting over to rid ourselves of the deep seeded disease known as Trump and and the GOP. We are a stupid nation which has allowed ourselves to be duped by a realtiy show mentality. We are being managed by marketeers feeding us garbage for decades. Substance, intelligence, patience and science is passe. Politicians and social media are driving us crazy. The untruth is now firmly embedded in our lives. This is the new norm.
1
Anyone who hasn't read George Orwell's "1984" should, because we're living it. The main character Winston Smith worked for the "Ministry of Plenty", which was responsible for the economy. Its main function was to keep the people hungry and poor, because hungry, poor people are easier to manage than rich people. Like the other ministries the Ministry of Plenty had the opposite purpose from its name and spent most of its effort in propaganda, to convince people that they were better off, even though the truth was the opposite. This was Winston's job.
"But he thought as he readjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connection with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of time you were expected to make them up out of your head."
Yes, I see what they are doing. You explained it beautifully, Mr. Egan. Can we please fast forward to the day when reality and truth prevail? Our democracy, the free media, respect for the truth, the facts and the Earth itself are all taking quite a beating as the King of Liars keeps lying while the ignorant mob cheers.
"Reality will out"? I don't see that as a natural law. The reality of stupid policies can come back and bite your society, but you can still deflect the blame to others, with the support of your massive cult and your billionaire donors. The reality of lawbreaking and contempt for the rule of law only wills out if society cares enough about these to demand it. Clearly those who run Congress prefer to take the benefits the President is able to dangle in front of them. If there's one thing Donald Trump understands with laser-like clarity, it's venality.
Reality does hit you in face. Ask the people of Houston and Puerto Rico. Last March here in Michigan we had record-breaking windstorms. Power was out and I was picking up pieces of aluminum siding from the front yard. I know that Trump and Scott Pruitt will kill us if they're not stopped. Trump's psychopathic contempt was in full display when breezed in to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and threw paper towel rolls at people whose homes were destroyed. That sneering counterfeit of a smile said it all. Republicans are behaving like loonies now, but the reality has the last word.
"So in the end, reality will out". You are much more optimistic than I am. Every day, there seems to be more garbage (a more polite word than the one I wanted to use) coming out of this administration.
As long as Trump supporters believe him and Congress lets him get by with lie after lie, reality doesn't matter.
1
Sorry, but it really doesn’t look like reality is winning out. It looks more like when a lie is exposed, the Administration and Congressional Republicans either repeats the lie, and repeats it again and again ad infinitum, or produce an even worse lie. And it looks like that’s being normalized – the reaction to exposure of lies, or the reaction to even the most blatant racial animosity is becoming more and more muted. Think of the reaction to his posing Native American heroes in front of a picture of Andrew Jackson and his remarks about Pocahontas. Not a peep from Congressional Republicans.
I’m afraid there’s no longer a path open through public discourse. Our only hope is to defeat them at the polls. That’s what the focus has to be for the next 11 months.
1
So Trump is a moronic fantasist. Big deal, we, the at-least-reasonably informed public know this. The problem is threefold:
First, the Republicans in Congress have lost every single moral mooring they ever might have had. Okay, so Senators Flake and Corker have told the truth about Trump and will retire rather than run for reelection. Who cares? If they had any integrity they would oppose this monstrous "give more cash to the rich" bill that the GOP is pushing.
Second, Trump is not a politician, per se, but rather a cult leader. I've read many interviews in which Trump supporters say there is absolutely nothing that will make them remove their support from their strange messiah.
And third, there is a well funded right-wing media machine that indoctrinates and misinforms millions of ignorant, intellectually lazy, and frequently stupid people all across our country. If the balance of power ever shifts, Fox News should be shut down under the Patriot Act (Oh, the irony!), and Rupert Murdoch should be tried and sentenced to death in absentia.
In the end, reality will indeed win, but at what cost we do not know. But one thing is sure - when reality wins, there must be a reckoning. What is being done to our country is not an accident.
2
Yes, and this administration is the tip of a very large, very crooked iceberg, an immense, no-holds-barred effort to promote right-wing ideology by making it seem mainstream and popular, one financed by super rich true believers that's been going on for decades. Read Jane Mayer's Dark Money. Yikes! A sympathetic Republican Party sold its soul to this fake 'movement,' and, trying to ride the tiger, is being destroyed. The folks who've bought into this nonsense are being taken for a ride as well. Sunshine is the best disinfectant--Go Journalists!
Trump has done such a good job of setting the stage of fake news that all or most of the 63,000 people who voted for him believe the "fake news" label on all true journalists.
It is not a real hard lift as the media in the US is owned by six individuals and going to get worse. Journalist who want to keep their jobs have to toe the line to some extend to the owners ideology. Their ideology is that of the 1%.
I don't believe it is fake news, much news is left out, analysis is left out and all we the people get is "he says, she says". Not facts of outcomes from the past which now they have decades of data to prove the facts.
This will be ugly before it gets better and along with breaking up too big to fail conglomerate monopolies we have to break up media ownership in a few hands.
The underlying problem is that Trump is a figurehead and the GOP Congress is a collection of venal lackeys, all at the service of a cabal of kooky billionaires dedicated to dismantling democracy and installing an unsavory Theocracy. The bonkers billionaires have to be brought to justice.
2
Certainly some facts will inevitably prevail. The physics of human-caused climate change, for example, will not be influenced by the ignorance and lies of Trump and the Republican Party.
However the longer that the pathetic Mad King and his craven minions are allowed to paint the roses red, the greater will be the cumulative damage to America. Can we exclude the possibility that this damage will be at some point irrevocable? I don't know, but I fear that we cannot.
2
From your lips to God's ears.
Unfortunately, this is the sort of wishful thinking which has paralyzed those of us who are so appalled by Trump.
Hoping the 62 million who Trump continues to inspire and amuse (not necessarily in that order) will wake up one day and the scales will fall from their reptilian eyes and they will see him for who he really is, is folly.
If Grant had hoped Lee's troops would somehow awaken to the perfidy of their cause, the South would have prevailed.
But Grant kept thinking about what he could do to Lee to bring about his defeat.
We should do the same.
I find myself recalling the old joke about the man falling off a ten-story building. He is heard saying "Everything is great so far!" as he passes each floor on his downward fall.
Unfortunately, it won't be just Trump and the GOP, but we will all be badly damaged by the time reality hits us.
1
Trump, Mnuchin, Huckabee-Sanders and the rest of the Administration are gaslighting America. The GOP is selling tax reform with supply-side fairy dust. Scores of psychologists are warning us that Trump's mental instability is an existential threat to our country. How could America sink so low so fast?
1
What the so called president doesn’t yet realize is that as soon as he puts his signature to that bill the GOP doesn’t need him anymore. They must realize by now that if he is president going into the midterm elections he will diminish their chances of keeping their power. So he will be impeached as a clear and present danger to America and Americans. His best chance to remain in office is a veto of the bill.
The Republican Party has managed to grab on to and hold power in American politics for the last 50 years using lies and hate radio and TV. Without demonizing the Democratic Party as the party that stands for everything evil in the modern world they couldn’t sell their brand of austerity for all except their donors.
And they wouldn’t have gotten away with for so long without a Press that insisted both parties are the same.
2
It is obvious that there is no conscience in the Republican Party and that the 2018 election is looming as potentially the most momentous in American history. If patriotic Americans do not turn out in large numbers to wrest at least one legislative chamber from Republican control, the president and Republican leaders will take that as validation of their headlong rush to establish our country as a permanent plutocracy. I am generally wary of hyperbole, but I really believe that the next election will be every bit as pivotal as Gettysburg, if not more so. Will Americans rise to defend their democracy, or will they be too brainwashed, distracted and apathetic to defend their country?
I hate to break the news to everybody, but reality ain't what it used to be, and it was never all that "real" to start with.
It's always been an extremely heavy lift to get people to agree on anything in this country, even well before Trump came on the political scene. Once Gingrich weaponized the hyper partisanship that exists today, the last vestige of a government that could make a plausible claim to working for the people went up in smoke.
What has been going on in this country for two generations has simply come to a head, with Trump as it's inevitable avatar of doom.
We're done.
First, let me say that I agree with every word of Mr. Egan's column today. But I have also been reading a few of the readers' comments. And kudos to the TIMES for being fair in presenting both sides of an issue. That is what is needed..a dialog in which we can try to understand another's view point. As the saying goes we need to at least agree to respectfully disagree.
But I do take issue when commenters and people in general imply that the opposing side is desperately ideological. We Democrats are just as guilty as Republicans in our judgements. But more times than not, in 90%, more or less, of our media, facts are found to support the journalism. We see that. We experience it. And although we sometimes would like it not to be, reality is reality. Spinning and deceit can not mask what is happening before our eyes.
So yes, just like justice, "In the End, Reality Will Win."
3
Yes the truth will win out, but it may be a long while. And humans only live for a finite number of years. What damage will occur in the meantime is the real problem. I'm glad my parents died before this catastrophe happened, and I only hope I can make it to when truth finally prevails again. I've got about twenty more years, if I'm lucky. What do we think are the odds?
Your optimism is not warranted. You could also say to a cancer patient that reality will win.
2
In some cases Reality wins, but not often enough and not soon enough.
The catastrophic Brownback tax voodoo in Kansas lasted 5 years, 2012-2017. Voters brought it to an end because the demolition of state finances was so complete, the state ran out of money do even finance schools. The fact that it took voters that long to respond to an obvious financial catastrophe is chilling and telling. They were willing to believe the tax cut rant even though it obviously wasn't working, and they kept believing it.
9
Truth won out in Germany after 15 years and a world war. I hope it does not take so long and entail similar circumstances in our case. Even if Trump is turned out, should the tax bill in anything like its current form pass, it will take at least a decade, probably two, to undo the effects.
181
I'm not expecting a return to representative government in the rest of my lifetime (30 years max). It has been minority rule or obstruct since I can remember. The electoral college has seen to that.
1
If we think outside the box, the tax bill's effects can be reversed. If the national debt is too big, we can go bankrupt and force a large haircut on our creditors. We can encourage the governments of tax havens to embezzle the money entrusted to them. We can reinstate the death tax and raise it higher, calling it a reset button and the beginning of a new season, as in sports, where a championship must be won anew each year. We can demand information from tax havens so we can make sure taxes are paid. We can declare war on countries that make it possible for our citizens to hide from the taxes they owe. We can find a way to pass what would be in effect a wealth tax (lawyers are clever at things like this) and get our money back.
The tax bill is being sold to us as something that would make the economy grow so fast that the deficits it produces will go away and everyone will have a choice of halfway decent jobs. If it doesnt deliver what it promised, we should be able to get our money back. All it will take is the determination to demand a refund.
In the End, Reality Will Win - maybe but in the meantime, and for as long as they can sustain it, Republicans will see to it that Expediency Will Win.
Reality will win but in the present case of the United States it will only happen when it hits us with the force of a freight train. And the United States won’t be the winner. The side that continues to ignore reality is never the winner in the fight against reality.
5
And we continue to be amazed at all the Trump supporters at his rallies, wildly cheering for their own economic destruction.
3
Right now, at least, a lie is more valuable than the truth. The stock market is at record highs because investors are counting on a huge tax cut as truth while Congress sells a lie to the American people. (That the stock market numbers are the ultimate definition of economic success in the US is, in itself, a lie. Politicians have to continually square that with "the economic hardship that so many folks feel." Democrats want you to go back to school, which is almost adorably naive. The Republican answer: Obama was born in Kenya.)
The word "tweet" is not a noun, like butter. It's a brand, like Twitter. Whenever Trump tweets one of his lies it's breathlessly picked up by the media who repeat it over and over again, driving people back to Twitter and other social brands, like newspaper websites. That Trump has violated Twitter's Terms of Service repeatedly doesn't matter. They claim that he gets special privileges because he's a newsworthy figure. But, as he himself has acknowledged, Trump drives revenue. And it's catching. My NYT subscription cost just went up yesterday, and in Q3 NYT had a profit of $32M compared to breaking even a year ago. There's a bull market in lying these days. The question is what will the crash look like.
10
The question is: What is reality?
1
I wish I shared your optimism. I see a new age where Trump and his accolytes are meerly the harbinger of worse to come.
- Rise of unreliable information
- Belief in fanatsy and fundamentalism with denegration of intellect amd expertice
- Climate change causing famine and mass migration
- Rise of cleptocracy
- Threat of nuclear war
Welcome to the new Dark Ages. No being lead away in white coats for these perveyors of darkness. It is us belig lead away to the dungeon in chains.
183
While I agree with your hypotheses, why would an "MD" misspell so many words:
acolyte
merely
Kleptocracy
denigration
expertise
being
purveyors
I certainly hope you aren't writing prescriptions - if you are as you want to project!
2
Why did Trump and Brexit happen? How come Marie La Pen was in the run off for president of France? Those are the questions that need to answered. Then we and Europeans have to figure out how to reestablish our grand bargains that allow society to function.
And don't forget that Trump declared that he was going to be named "Man of the Year" by Time magazine.
The scary thing is that Time was just bought by Trump supporter. Maybe that "man of the year" thing will happen now. Trump seems to be able to make anything into "alternative facts". And about Huckabee, it is hard to believe she grew up in household with a minister for her father. Didn't he teach her "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor"? If this Administration wasn't so crazy this whole fiasco would be laughable.
147
please think about the kind of reverend her father is the apple does not fall to far from the tree
1
With Huckabee Sanders, the acorn didn't fall far from the tree. Listen to her daddy and you'll hear that family resemblance. This is the "evangelical" truth: They don't support politicians because of their churches; they pick their churches because of their politics. Religion is lost in this sad phenomenon.
History is cyclical and in many ways self-correcting, so it is almost certain that we will see a return to some sort of sanity and stability in the future. The problem is that these cynical, criminal elected officials will have done a huge amount of damage by that time. Our children and grandchildren will pay for the evil done by these heartless, dishonest, unpatriotic, and self-serving people.
4
In the end reality will win?
There is justice?
Good triumphs over evil?
Thanks for the huzzas.
What is abundantly clear is that there is absolutely no limit to which obfuscation, lying, distortion can prevail. And prevail bigly.
After some 30 years of rantings by Fox, Limbaugh, and the what we believe was "fringe" radio and churches - how could deep paranoia not set into a critical mass of voting people.
If half of American voters are either sure that the earth is flat, or sure that they are better off casting their future with those who think the earth is flat - because they view a black president, or a woman likely president are bigger threats - your notion of truth, reality, and justice has just been rubbished totally.
If half of Americans think Charlottesville was about good people, that EPA is the problem, and schools should have only one text book (math immediately banned), everyone should own an arsenal, and we should transform into a walled off compound, then your notion of truth, reality, and justice has been rubbished totally.
While there is deep history here, this "return to medieval times" beliefs have fresh roots in Nixon's southern strategy, and the surrender of the educated classes (or the cognitives) to relativistic thinking.
But, keep hope alive.
Kalidan
9
The White House is occupied by a man suffering from dissociative identity disorder. There is The Republican President, the larger than life role model for every Republican. There is Donald Trump, the larger than life candidate engaged in a never ending campaign to remove and replace President Obama, And there is The Donald, the larger than life Tweeter who has shaken free from the chains of truth and reality.
Don't believe the Republicans, the White House is not occupied by a triumvirate. It is occupied by a very sick man.
6
Journalists "the lowest form of humanity"? Are there no minimal standards for civil servants? Any clerk would be ousted if he behaved like that.
3
"It used to be that a press secretary would say, “I have no information on that.” Now it’s standard operating procedure to shrug a whatever and wait for Sean Hannity to clean it up on state-run television. That’s what happens when your boss shows signs of dementia." I strongly suspect that Sanders' equanimity in the face of trump's outrageous public behavior is because what she witnesses in private is much worse. We are seeing just the tip of the iceberg, folks. Be afraid, be very afraid.
2
In the end what really matters is what you stood for in your life, your integrity. Sadly, It is completely absent in this administration.
3
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor unless it's politically expedient to do so." Moses, updated by Roy Moore, the Ten Commandments judge who doesn't think he dated any of the teen girls who said he made passes when he was in his thirties, but anyway, if he did, he always asked their mother's permission.
And anyway, abortion!
6
Here's what I fear the most: Trump is delusional. But, like a wild animal, he is most dangerous when he fears he is about to meet an unsavory end (read Russian roosters coming home to roost). He hasn't been able to undo the Mueller probe and as it rolls forward, it is likely to put him over the edge. Although that may be hard to discern. At the same time Trump seems to be ready to replace Tillerson and put two people who favor wars with N. Korea and Iran into place. Can you imagine a clearer sign of impending Armageddon as we go it alone, having made a mess of our image among allies? With a supine congress unwilling to act upon its constitutional authority, things are not OK at the corral.
10
So, the President is mentally ill and he eagerly accepted Russian assistance to win the election, and once elected he continuously sought to obstruct legal investigations into that Russian cooperation. And he’s still in office?
5
Republicans control the house and senate, so yes trump survives.
Get out and vote if you don't like what this dotard is doing in the whitehouse and the USA's image and reputation abroad. And email your senators and congressmen. Its incredibly easy to do. Let them know this outrage of a government is outrageous.
1
The reason every civilization up to now has collapsed and died is that they were all based on arbitrary lies and illusions forcefully held against reality. We are simply following that tradition. For a while, a brief while, we flirted with inquiry and negotiation, but then we relapsed into dogma at all cost, as usual. Sic transit gloria mundi.
3
When our opinion writers -- The New York Times writers, that is -- cannot find one word to comfort us; do not even attempt to inject a bit of lightness, much less humor, then I know we have no hope.
When mental health professionals sign their names to a list of hundreds claiming that the president of this country is psychologically unstable, then I know we have no hope.
Who will save us from this mad oppressor and his underlings?
3
Sorry Tim, but you're wrong. Truth won't ever win out when half the population refuses to acknowledge it. I just spent Thanksgiving with my Alabama-living, hyper conservative Christian in-laws, and was absolutely amazed by their version of reality. Roy Moore? Those child-dating allegations have been debunked. The Clinton economic expansion? That was because of Reagan. W's recession? Clinton's fault. The Obama recovery? That was because of the GOP house. The ACA? More people have lost insurance than gained it, but the liberal media won't tell you that. Climate change? It's just cyclical; scientists are lying and/or it's God's will. Did I mention Christians are oppressed because they can't lead a mass prayer at football games? What about the uptick in violence against minorities? Well, you know Muslims throw gay people off buildings so the US isn't so bad.
There is literally no reasoning with these people. Down is up, and up is always by the grace of the GOP. Democrats are evil; the media can't be trusted* and should be investigated for perpetuating "Fake News!"; Donald Trump is extremely smart because he didn't lose the money he inherited (despite the fact that we don't know anything about his finances because he won't release his tax returns, which to them, is not suspicious).
Don't have faith that reason will win the day, because to these people, their worldview is reasonable.
*Certain exemptions apply: media that reenforces your preconceptions is fair and balanced.
599
It’s the same here in my own family (in-laws)--and I ain’t livin’ in Alabama.
3
This is true of Trump's base but not of the the majority of American voters. We have Trump as a President simply because voters did not vote and because of our Electoral College system. The majority of Americans who did vote, voted for Clinton. Had voters turned out in the few states that swung the election for Trump, Clinton would have prevailed. We cannot change the opinion of the conservative voter but we can encourage everyone to vote. I would like to see more commentary on the reasons why people do not vote.
7
If you can somehow get them to stop listening to Fox news....I've seen miracles happen when the media source changes.
2
This occupant of the Oval Office has no original thoughts; he has words that he speaks. He does not care if they make sense or contradict something he said earlier or that is known to be "true." No. He only cares about 'hitting back, harder.' That makes him completely unsuitable for the office he occupies. He lies to make himself look good or to make others look bad.
His believers have 100% trust in what he said, no matter how crazy or untrue, offensive, socially abhorrent it might be. And puts the rest of us in mortal peril.
2
Having traveled to Brazil, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and South Africa, I see exact parallels of those formerly bright places. In the NYT today, we have a opinion that starts:
“How Democracies Die,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, political scientists at Harvard, write:
Over the past two years, we have watched politicians say and do things that are unprecedented in the United States — but that we recognize as having been the precursors of democratic crisis in other places. We feel dread, as do so many other Americans, even as we try to reassure ourselves that things can’t really be that bad here.
The Tragedy of the Commons was not believed when it was first printed ... in 1833. Nothing changes except the scale.
6
The liberals are just upset because President Trump has not failed at his presidency. We are seeing fewer illegals cross into our country, the stock market is soaring and the level of job creation has not been this robust in years. And the tax reform bill is proceeding as planned by the Republicans. Hopefully, it will pass and the Americans will see their taxes reduced. This is the kind of success that Democrats can only wish for.
1
Take this the right way, but you're completely wrong. Illegal immigration was already dropping, the stock market benefits only the donor class and hedge-fund managers, the 'jobs' being created are minimum-wage jobs with no worker protections and the tax reform bill will only benefit Billionaires at the cost of the Middle Class and strong Blue-State cities while adding trillions to the defect.
You've run around the room shouting lies, then passed out insisting it's a victory lap. Sad. Very sad.
7
All the "winning" you cite was already happening during the Obama presidency. If you actually see your taxes reduced in a significant way from this bill, you will be in the minority. Brandeis once called states laboratories of democracy. Well Kansas tried what the Republican Congress and President are proposing, and it failed miserably for the majority of Kansans. What does that say about Republicans?
2
Job growth was at this level during the last several years of the Obama administration, the deficit was coming down, 30+ million more people had health insurance, despite the resistance of the Republicans. The Republicans are trying hard to screw most of us for the benefit of the rich and corporations their masters. And please stop trying to claim their is a legal path to immigrate. I have sponsored twice family members it is far from easy and without a sponsor impossible to immigrate.
"You know who was a journalist?"
You mention Frederick Douglass in past tense? I hear he's doing pretty well. People are saying this, you know.
6
Thanks for the laugh in these sad and scary times.
Perhaps after the GOP sneaks through its disastrous tax bill, it's legislative members will accept that what they got from the crackpot in chief was all they could have hoped for and turn their attention to brushing up on the 25th Amendment. Still, the damage done will last for quite some time.
3
Mr. Egan, unfortunately the town folk still think Trump is dressed fit for an emperor. When they see the naked truth it might be too late.
157
In the modern era, as soon as the child pointed out that the emperor has no clothes, he would be threatened and told to shut up. By at least thirty per cent of the onlookers.
2
They will never see it.
3
All too true.
I always like to point out that Journalism is the one private industry that the founders of this country knew needed to be vigorously, diversely owned, and independent from Washington’s long, well financed industry of political marketing (used to call it propaganda.) A real fourth estate, not a fake, made for media one.
No one talks about the fact that in 1987 the GOP gutted the FCC rules for media ownership, despite all the evidence and protests that a politically captured and/or corporately monopolized media would drop most reporting in the public’s Interest, and aid the rise of reckless political leaders and serial liars like Trump. They dissolved the 50 seperate market rules along with the famous Fairness doctrine. Slowly the nation has suffered from a shrinking independent fourth estate, and the rise of de facto party run news operations that invest in cheap TV production, no real newsroom or fact checkers Insight! Some states, like NJ, have declared local journalism virtually extinct. Cable TV has always been incapable and inept at real investigating and reporting on a scale needed to keep politicians accountable to the public. Today the proverbial political tail wags the dog. Washington is so steeped in it’s own propaganda, and so completely detached from the public it’s supposed to serve.
7
They're not coming in the white coats, Mr. Egan. At least not for him. It's not going to happen. If they were coming, they would have come a long time ago. On the other hand, they may be coming for you and me, carrying in their clenched hands a little blue folder with an arrest warrant.
3
Reality does not exist in Trumps world. It lives only in whatever fantasy world his six year old like mind is entertaining at the moment. The man obviously has never had any understanding of or recognition of why the need for accountability in adults. His behavior patterns are considered perfectly normal for children. Children who are in the molding process to eventually become responsible adult citizens. I have seen very little in Trumps daily demeanor that indicates he has evolved beyond childhood. Accountability, responsibility and the ability to reason beyond his own self interests simply do not exist. For all intent and purpose a child is in charge of this nation.
4
The republican party exists for the sole purpose of enacting policies that serve the financial interests of the very rich, period. It is clear that they don't care who signs the bills into law.
1
In the physical world, the realm of empirically verifiable events, reality does rule. Climate skeptics can reject the evidence of global warming, but immunity to facts will have no effect on climate change. In like manner, GOP fantasies about the transformative potential of the current tax bill will not alter the impact of the measure on GDP growth.
In the world of politics, by contrast, where smoke and mirrors play a major role, perception helps to shape reality. Last year, Donald Trump ran a campaign built largely on lies and half truths, but he still won a narrow victory. Republicans have successfully peddled their potions and elixirs to the electorate for more than 30 years, despite the fact that their tax measures and hostility to regulation have hurt many of the people who voted
for them.
Critics of Trump cannot wait passively in hopes that reality will finally destroy his political career. Democrats must provide an alternate vision of reality by crafting policies that would actually improve the lives of the non-elite Americans who followed the original Pied Piper, Ronald Reagan, and now support his strange offspring, Donald Trump.
People trapped in a political Twilight Zone cannot escape by pinning their hopes for rescue on some deus ex machina. They must save themselves by working to restore a reality that voters will find appealing.
3
A day never passes without a new outrage from this president and also from those in his administration and the Republicans in congress. The country is sliding into a strange dark never-never land where everything is false and worthless, and we are sliding faster than we think towards war. The usual opposition is weak and divided and only two forces protect us: a savagely free press and the people themselves. Trump is wrong to ignore the people; the people may move slowly by they will move on this awful administration and this awful republican Party. He cannot stop the press nor the people. Thank god!
A beautiful editorial.
I wish one of these phony news sites would feed Trump the Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist a story suggesting that his golf courses are being seeded with mines by (insert catchy acronym) and he's going to lose all his resort business. Much worse on the bottom line than sports stars he has publicly offended refusing to endorse his hotels!
Then the sane among us can collectively hope he'll pack up his Trump merchandise, grabby relatives, elderly generals, and enormous ego and vacate the White House. The world will be a happier and safer place when he is gone.
3
There is no point in further analysis of Trump's mental state. His base loves his craziness and everyone else knows he is unfit. It is time to focus more on the dangerous role of his enablers. For without his enablers, Trump's current behavior would result in his removal from office. I would like commentary on what drives a Sarah Huckabee Sanders to lie. How about Rex Tillerson? He was once respected but now is to be pitied. The unmasking of the powerful men who sexually harassed women was a good start to dismantling hypocrisy in the business world. Now let us focus our attention on government employee enablers who are detrimental to the good of our country.
1
Who are the non-voters?
What are they thinking?
Have they learned that not voting has consequences?
If they become voters, how will they vote?
I'd like to see some research on this bloc, which comprised about 46% of the adult population of this country in the last election.
3
In the end, reality will win. The only problem is, that end may so far away that by then, it will be too late.
All the needed to be said about Trump has been said.
More and more, the Republican Party needs to be associated as complicit and facilitators of this Presidency. That pressure will bring about change.
Yes! As clearly as day follows night and night follows day.The premise of this article is beautifully, clearly and passionately written.
In the light of even the rainiest and foggiest day much is seen, explored and accomplished. These times feel as a very long night, where many a phantom are a frightening boogieman. ( Some really are)
Not wanting to carry this metaphor much further, This looooooong night is a Nightmare and thus the premise of "In the End, REALITY WILL WIN, is sure.
How long must we stare at the ceiling waiting for a bright morning to follow this NIGHTMARE ?
It might be a surprise to the chattering classes, but "reality" might not be what they choose to agree it is. By this time it should be clearer that "ignorance" isn't the problem because a great many people whose views certain people believe to be formed of ignorance are well educated and informed.
The reality for many people is that what they believe to be true is what they feel to be true in a world that is complex and in which "real' information is difficult to discern through an avalanche of meaningless trivia. To this problem of perception might be added what to an individual feels "right," as well as real, as there is no one clear reality that can be robustly proven.
Of course, there is also the important subjective problems of human personality that can easily range between sheer orneriness and obsessive self-righteousness. Give credit to that pragmatic realist, Pontius Pilate, who was reputed to have said "what is truth," perhaps the greatest human perception of the ultimate question, and made in the ultimate context for "believers."
I want to agree with Mr. Egan's... optimism on reality winning out. But it is getting harder. If I did not have children and a grandchild, I might be tempted to just get on with my life and let the people who put Trump and his co-conspirators in power finish the job of destroying constitutional government and the environment. I might derive satisfaction from knowing that, one day, even the Koch brothers will be unable breathe the air. But I will try to summon the energy to support what Mr. Egan valiantly wishes to occur.
1
No you can't change reality. But people can still decide that they just don't care about reality. That is what appears to have happened in the last election. What if that attitude doesn't change?
Boy, I hope Mr. Egan is right. ("reality will out"). I have been the nay-sayer among my friends who are convinced that the Trump administration will never be caught in the net of its own complete disdain for the notion of truth. But lately I've started to wonder whether the combination of completely un-moored sources of information (the internet) and the ability to make stuff up at the rate of 3 or 4 or more crazy statements a day has in fact undone us for good. As someone was quoted as saying yesterday, people who are constantly told untruths don't object, they simply stop believing everything they hear, they lose confidence in the notion of truth itself. Yesterday I was trying to imagine the next presidential election debate and I couldn't quite figure out how it would matter what Trump's opponent said to point out his untruths. And look at our current Senate. 2 or 3 Republican senators at this moment are grasping at the possibility that a small part of the truth about the tax bill matters, and even they waver constantly. Every other one of them couldn't care less. I don't think this is immorality. I think it is a literal loss of the ability to reason, to distinguish truth from fiction. Well, my most pessimistic comment ever. Let's continue to resist nevertheless - I'm hopefully wrong!
The folks who said 'government isn't the solution, it's the problem' are now firmly in control of the Federal government and a majority of the state governments as well. And for those of us who happily pay their taxes for the comforts they provide, like a relatively safe society, this is dismaying. As such, here's my take on reality:
- When the next global epidemic (like ebola) occurs, more people will die than necessary because the organizing and logistical skills provided by our government will be lacking.
- When cataclysms (like Maria) occur, the US will be non-responsive and people will die.
- When our foods are no longer safe to eat because regulations have been gutted, people will die.
- When the effects of global warming become more pronounced (and they will) the world will be in upheaval, then US will provide no leadership.
- When healthcare is available to who can afford it, then the people without will get sick, get disabled, be unable to fend for themselves, and the US will have beggars on the streets.
- When financial regulations are gutted, people will be cheated, and ruined with no recourse and they too will end up on the streets.
- When fresh water resources become stressed, it too will become a market commodity where its safety and availability will be determined by market forces and people will die from thirst of waterborne diseases.
- Etc.
Reality will win out. We as a species don't have to like it. We as a species may not survive - and that's reality.
4
Project Veritas made the mistake here of trying to get the Post to produce something false on the public record they could attack. Their successes have usually involved secretly recording a lot of stuff, editing it to make it look like the targets were doing things they weren't, and getting it out to their true believers before anyone could figure out what they did.
2
One of the few things that maintain what little sanity I still have is that I get to read articles written by experienced journalists who have integrity and follow professional standards in their work. I am and will forever be indebted to The TImes and the Washington Post, to name just two of the papers still out there, and the various other on-line and print sources that provide factual news, commentary, investigative reporting, and a platform for artists to be seen and heard. These things matter to me, and I think that if they stop mattering to enough people, then the world will indeed go dark.
It is one thing for a press secretary to "shrug a whatever and wait for Sean Hannity to clean it up on state-run television" (Sanders goes a good bit further than the shrug – at least Spicer was often visibly anxious when he lied). The deeper and more difficult problem is when a big chunk of the electorate gives a collective "shrug" and cheers. How we change our country so that more people do not join that group is something that should be of prime importance to anyone contemplating governing in the future.
If you want to know why "normal" Americans show perfect willingness to subvert the Constitution compare the net worth of the world's most successful popular scientist, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, to the world's most successful lie bloviator, Rush L. We're talking a factor of 200+.
After all, accumulating vast sums is the American way.
3
A dog's breakfast. I love that Australian expression, and it perfectly captures the Trump administration.
1
I'm starting to really dislike the country I once loved with such intensity everyday was like falling in love for the first time. Each day brought a brighter, hopeful, and endless stretch of new ideas, new sights and new knowledge.
I don't think any of us should be standing, hand over heart, to the national anthem until we bring it's words and intentions back. That beautiful hopeful song represents "OUR FLAG WAS STILL THERE". All of us hovering under a flag representing a massive struggle to create a union unlike no other.
It's not a flag representing black citizens, unarmed, shot in the streets. It does not represent one religion. It does not represent aristocracy, oligarchy and dictatorship. It does not block citizens from voting. It does not represent a SCOTUS decision that encourages open bribery of our officials. It does not support a duo of brothers threatening to turn off all financial support to any official that doesn't vote for this bill.
I want my country back. I want the symbolism of our flag and the pageantry of our anthem to be restored to its glory.
2
Well we suggest then you ignore the utterances of liberals like this columnist, who for decades have heaped scorn...and farm refuse...upon folks like you and us. The current occupant is a harbinger of a more populist, less accommodating and far more polished right wing leadership that will clean the stables these hypocrites have left us. No mercy.
I wish I could be that sanguine: reality will win in the end. The obsessiveness of ideological conviction among Republican conservatives, the goals of downsizing government and the lack of empathy for less fortunate Americans, the disdain for legislative process and the championing of self over oaths of office: “to protect the public health, safety and welfare” have conspired to remove the rational realities of typical legislative processes to produce the most seemingly irrational behaviors; irrational because most legislators want to be re-elected! Are we so ignorant that we all have to feel the sting of tax bill inequities before we are prepared to be thoughtful about who we put in office?
I cannot agree with the positive tone at the end of this article. I evoke a different Winston and the new Newspeak. There is no truth. Or, to quote "Lester Holt" on SNL, "What's that? Nothing means anything any more?"
Trump's outrageous tweets and statements distract both the thinking public and media at crucial times when he and his republican henchmen are once again engineering another take down of social and environmental safeguards in order to gain a short term benefit for their donor base. Today it is their tax bill that will send 62% of the total tax relief to the top .1%. Who knows what's next.
not sure what you mean synchronized swimming - but he is a able to always get his way. More money, control and power over others.
1
Trump has been diffident about some career highlights: His exceptional military record, including service in Viet Nam where he rescued dozens of fellow soldiers under enemy fire and was promoted for his bravery to Brigadier General. His stellar record at the Wharton School, where he graduated at the top of his class summa cum laude. His commendable civil rights record as a New York landlord where he renovated apartments for the poor and disabled, including people of color, and let them live free of charge. His outstanding business record of making sure every business and property he owned or managed paid back every penny of debt with interest. And now, his selfless devotion to the middle class by backing a new tax law that will increase his own tax bill enormously but put thousands of dollars in the pockets of those who have not achieved his wealth -- all without adding one single dollar to the national debt while ensuring a balanced budget.
Trump has lured journalists into excesses. He is obviously indifferent to the truth. That is big news, but not so much anymore. I'm sure its maddening to report on Trump daily. But the mission of the media is always to report the news. And news journalists should expend more energy reporting the truth and less energy debating Trump.
The news consists of events of importance. Trump's lies and his tasteless comments are surely newsworthy, but the point has long since been made and on any given day, there are many more important matters to cover. An endless account of "Trumpisms" should give way to world affairs, human suffering and weighty political developments.
Are Trump's lies and offensive remarks what matters most? Are they always the top of the news? I don't think so.
One other thing that real journalists do: they own who they are. They don't insinuate themselves into news gathering sites pretending to be people they're not.
So, "this president calls journalists 'the lowest form of humanity'." He knows he's wrong about this because all he needs is a mirror to disprove it.
1
Well put. You can’t be a President of the United States of America without having the faintest idea of how to act like a President of the United States. The truth will indeed out. The only question is when.
Reality won last November when The People Spoke. Mr. Trump is the solution of eight years of non-stop lying to the American citizen that was seconded and applauded by political advocates supposedly working for newspapers like this one.
We could have found a pretty face who is polite and well-spoken and dresses well as he lies through his teeth like we had the last wight years. Instead, we have a brute who actually wants good things to happen to the country.
We've had Donald Trumps in the Presidency before. The question is if we will recover from the illegalities visited upon us by the progressive ideologue who put his blessing on a political slush fund posing as a consumer protection bureau as it robbed the taxpayers.
When a company is fined for breaking, say, an environmental rule, that money paid is the taxpayers', right? No! Maybe corrupt ideologues send it to Planned Parenthood or the next Acorn. People should go to prison for doing that.
"In the end, reality will out."
Yeah, but when? We're all getting exhausted under the assault of falsehood, and we fear we may die before anything improves.
1
I've been waiting for the people in white coats for a very long time now.
I think the damage done is irreversible.
Americans have the reputation in the world for being some of the dimmest people on the planet.
They really proved it by electing Trump.
Even if Trump gets thrown out in the next election, and is replaced by a more sane person, the whole world understand that the US is just one election away from doing it again.
1
Should I be surprised that Trump doesn't recognize that the lowest form of humanity is the con artist? The snakes in the business suits who will rob you blind and take your home and life with them after winning your trust. They invented the phrase "buyer beware."
"bad guys" make no pretenses about being bad when they come to rob you or worse. But con artists not only steal from you or worse but they betray you as well. Con artists can be big or small, independently be pulling scams and deals. They work as business executives and business owners. Real estate developers are almost by definition con artists promising whatever they have to (and reneging on it) to get what they want. And of course politicians. The only thing better for a con artist is to be a con artist in an official role with the power of authority.
1
As a centrist I have noticed that progressives are no friends of reality either. True, Trump is quite absurd compared to any progressive. But progressives long ago abandoned truth for pro-Democratic partisanship.
And that means that those of us who DO care about the truth find ourselves a small minority.
The 66 million who voted for Hillary were not voting for the truth any more than the 63 million who voted for Trump. They were all voting for different lies.
1
What we appear to be witnessing is a man who is in way over his head and desperately flailing in a job that he never expected to win. Indeed, no one expected him to win. The combination of Hillary Clinton’s gender and “inevitability” frightened all sane potential opponents (Democrats and Republicans) out of the 2016 race. Shame on them and shame on Ms. Clinton for putting her personal ambitions ahead of her ideals. The voters who elected this man did so as a rejection of Ms. Clinton and the cowards who did not stand up to her. Who are the men and women who will step up to rebuild congress in 2018 and the Whitehouse in 2020? And what can the rest of us do to help our country survive until then?
Joseph Goebbels was an amateur compared to Trump. Egan is right that reality will win in the end - just as Goebbels' propaganda house of cards held sway for only 12 years, instead of the promised thousand - but at what cost?
Trump is a real threat to democracy. He is waging war on the justice system, the freedom of the press, scientists and the civil service, he is dismantling the State department, the EPA, now the CFPB, he is systematically weakening crucial institutions of the American Republic. He's planning to destroy the regulatory state and rip up the social safety net, turning the US into an authoritarian plutocracy whose government exists solely to serve the rich. Don't ever underestimate the threat he poses.
2
"So in the end, reality will out."
Alas, Mr Egan, you are very likely wrong. The president's epigones live in an alternate (and, of course, false) reality. Facts just don't cut it today, at least not with the majority.
And I don't expect any help on the matter or primacy of truth from the soon-to-be dominant Millennial generation
1
I wish the press would stop taking the bait. The flamboyant excursions that Trump regularly takes with truth and reality are merely an obfuscation of his criminality. Lock him up.
1
Mr. Egan, you're wrong. Trump won all the medals for synchronized swimming, plus the new one minted for him, platinum. Can't you people get anything right?
2
Yes Tim, truth typically prevails after a while but at a cost in between (like WWIII?). Fox news propaganda will be exposed, ins-Hannity will fade in the sunset like senator McCarthy did and there will be some apologies. Oops, sorry we burned you at the stake Mr. Bruno, Sorry Galileo, never mind dear African American brothers, we are sorry. There, can we move on to the next idiocies? We'll just be sorry later. Darn it what makes those "conservatives" so easy to fool? What happened to their sense of honor and decency, to their certitudes about right and wrong? They not only misplaced their moral compass, they lost it. These are times that try the soul of democracy. Winter sure is coming. But you are right, Tim, I am re-enlisting because I know that in the end, we will all win.
Mr. Egan writes, "So in the end, reality will out." Really? Why didn't reality "will out" when Trump first appeared on the political scene spreading birther lies? Why didn't reality "will out" when 60 million voters walked into the voting booth and pulled the lever for a man whose despicable character was up front and as obvious as the nose on their faces?
Mr. Egan's optimism is based in the quaint notion that being exposed for telling humungous, blatant lies humiliates a a political leader. Today, half the public consists of Trump supporters--his base and the Republicans who go along with him--who hear his lies and just plain don't care.
No, reality will not "will out." We have to fight to get rid of this monster and his crew. That reality is 2018. Get out there, everyone, and volunteer to work for a Congressional candidate who's against Trump. Get out there.
332
Reality will win out, it always wins out. because ignoring reality leads eventually to the destruction and death of those ignoring it. The problem is that no one knows how long it will take , or how much harm will be done until it does.
1
I agree, Emile. Reality will not out unless Citizens Unite [sic] in 2018, draft honest candidates and take back the voting booth.
We study history and learn that with FDR and the New Deal, the system worked (with deficit spending) and capitalism was saved. In the Civil Rights era, the people marched and listened to Dr. King, and arc of history bent toward justice. During Watergate, the system worked when whistleblowers and dedicated reporters in the free press forced Nixon to resign. "The system" does not work by itself, technology cannot replace it, hard work will.
I learned in a university symposium and found it reinforced in 2017 coverage of the 500 year anniversary of the Protestant Reformation that Gutenberg's press was instrumental in both protest against the rule of a Roman Pope AND proliferation of the bible. The bible, an edited compendium of ethnocentric and geographically circumscribed stories, was one of the first books printed and widely distributed. The bible became one of the first "how to read" tools and the only available book to read. Today, twitter tweets of opinion shape public discourse with persona and fantasy "trumping" reality. Many of those who support the 45th president, Sarah Huckabee Sanders included, grew from a cultural substrate where the bible supports whatever powerful ideologues and phonies want to accomplish for themselves. I hope reality will win before the end.
41
Ironically, if they ever read the Gospels or the words of their supposed master, they wouldn't touch the Republican Party with a ten-foot pole.
1
Well … the president probably wasn’t referring to Winston Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt when he said of journalists that they were “the lowest form of humanity”. Fairly, though, both went on to do other things.
But I continue to be entertained by this increasing desperation on the left to have Trump declared non compos mentis, since they appear to have nothing else to throw at him, and since we may get a Senate tax bill in a day or two, and a conferenced bill that Trump will sign soon enough. I do understand that “reality” such as that calls for the left to pull out all stops.
So Flynn is going to plead guilty to lying to the FBI. I’ll give it one week with no news from Mueller about anything more significant related to the Trump campaign and alleged Russian cahooting before I start every comment with one of Gail’s Hehehes.
Ah, for the days when Charles Blow wrote eloquently of racism in America and Tim Egan of tree-hugging. Better days, greener (and far more varied) comments, less ideological desperation.
4
"But I continue to be entertained by this increasing desperation on the left to have Trump declared non compos mentis"--as am I from those that refuse to see what is pretty obvious to most, and continually deflect and make excuses for aberrant behavior that we would not accept from any CEO or even a low level manager.
26
Why do you find the disintegration of our government so entertaining? Are you not aware of what is going on in the cabinet departments and the agencies? And what is so entertaining about destroying the judicial branch? Did you approve of McConnell's Supreme Court caper last year as just one example?
Do you not think at all about our international standing? Our alliances? Is it also entertaining that so many ill-prepared if not ignorant and biased people are filling important positions while many other important ones are left vacant out of some misguided belief that all government is bad?
I read your comments, but they are getting tiresome and increasingly silly and/or irrelevant. I'm done. Happy Holidays :-)
26
What is more disturbing than trump’s lies are the number of people who believe them!
28
Sorry, but the notion that reality will win because people will eventually recognize truth, is not that defensible an argument. From the title I was expecting something about how actual physical reality will win because it is real. For example, climate catastrophe will cause a collapse of civilization because it is real whether you believe in it or not.
19
So, given the many examples cited in this column and what we read about everyday or watch on the news (except “state-run Fox News”) every evening, the Republican majority in Congress will not exercise their Constitutional obligations and put an end to this madness. I am not as sanguine about the outcome as Mr. Egan as the United States is rapidly becoming the most reviled and dangerous nation on Earth due to the madman (and madmen) at the top. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that our president will get us into a preventable war with huge civilian casualties in the near future.
What to do? The 2018 elections may be too late, so until then, I would suggest a peaceful showing of anger by millions of Americans throughout the streets of Washington so Donald Trump can really see the type of large crowd he can draw to an event. The March for Democracy may be merely symbolic, but it can make a valuable point: Enough Already!
Second, come November 2018 I suggest that Americans pull the lever for EVERY candidate with a D or an I after their name. The Republican Party has forfeited its right to be entrusted with the defense of our Constitution and the democratic principles that once made this nation so great.
108
Did you forget about the 'U' between the D and the I?
RHD is absolutely spot on Voting Repoublican for ANY office is a vote to dscam the nation, and ultimately sink it. The middle class will shrink dramatically. The customer base for the poligarchs will dry up. then the bread and circus antics of the Republican party will leave them with not a single voter.
If I were a Republican in:califorbia, NY, NJ Md, Mass, Ct, illinpois, i would resign/retire now, to avoid what will surely be a punishing on slaugh oin 2018. This is for every single level pof government. What comes around goes arond, and the lies will indeed catch them, and choke them. The most patriotic action we can take is:
the mass march
the ballot box.
Not even if the Republican is your mother or son, uncle or grandma...they are not to be entrusted with America's future. They are reckless, feckless, immoral, and their words are meaningless.
2
Trump's playbook: ABCD's, Accuse, Blame, Criticize, Deny. It worked in his business dealings and it is working now. And as investigative pressures build, it is going to get worse. My only hope is that at the end of this madness, the ship of state. albeit damaged, will be restored to normalcy.
41
mueller is closing in But not soon enough.
As unfortunate for my American friends and family as it may be, passage of the tax cut bill will bring the world one step closer to end of Trump. Saving millions upon millions in tax payments for himself (don't forget thats what makes him smart) and his family had to be one of his objectives of becoming President. So, once he clears the way to build a Trump tower in Moscow, and confirm pardons or amnesty for family and close associates, and with the Mueller hounds nipping at his feet, he can resign, call himself the greatest President ever and go home and count his money. (assuming basic math is within his capabilities)
The ship of state was restored to normalcy between 2008 and 2012 and sailed forth well between 2012 and 2016. It sailed so well that the mad people felt once more encouraged to sink it. And doing a great job at it.
1
Keep Dreaming
The only way to remove Trump and his minions is at the ballot box. The only way to do that is to convince a portion of the 60 million Americans that voted for him that there is a better way. Instead, we dream of people in lab coats or of John McCain.
15
The unreality of American life under President Trump?
A study should be made as to how much approximately human history demonstrates the human race has been under natural selection (evolution) for psychopathology. Reading, for example, Tacitus, it appears the Roman Empire was alarmingly subject to psychopathology. In modern times, especially with continued decline of war (see Stephen Pinker) we tend to think society is not close to being subject to psychopathology but certainly American life demonstrates a disturbing duality, that of on one hand rampant desire, consumption, pursuit of wealth and power, and on the other a constant presentation of image, brand, clean face, the sanitized politician, businessman, public servant. The duality of hidden heart and clean face.
But modern society also demonstrates with arts and sciences a determination to get to the bottom of things. So we have an incredible tension: On one hand people are revealed as never before, on the other people strive more desperately to remain hidden and present clean face, and it sure doesn't help to have vastly increasing population which favors lowest common denominator thought and action, making it difficult to tell if forces of psychopathology will win over clarity and sanity or not...
Certainly today there is incredible pressure on those in the public eye to be clean, perhaps unhealthily so, because we also have desperate attempt at privacy, constant evasion, lying, falsity presented over reality.
3
Oh, I wish that the positive outlook voiced at the end of this piece were true. Sadly, I think we need to think of a different Winston and welcome to Newspeak. There is no truth... or as "Lester Holt" said on SNL, "What's that? Nothing means anything any more?"
6
"So, in the end, reality will out." One question: which reality?
The notion of wealthy business people dealing, bribing, or cavorting with corrupt and/or mentally unstable politicians is hardly a new phenomenon. Mental illness is not an unknown feature among national politicians: https://www.npr.org/2011/08/20/139681339/madness-and-leadership-hand-in-... (discussion of "A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness" by Nassir Ghaemi). I would not quibble that there are different sorts and levels of madness. Some are less continuous than what we see on display in the White House.
One significant difference we see--a feature of modern technologies--is that the madness is paraded in front of us every day, over and over, by cable news, by social media. For some, the behaviors are normalized. The current guy in the White House has a long history of abnormal behaviors, but his fishbowl used to be smaller. It did not have a camera focused on it 24 hours a day (not that he would have minded). We have old videos of the guy in the White House, and we can make comparisons, we can see escalations.
10
I'm not as optimistic as you are. Technology is eating our humanity alive. The more time someone spends in front of a screen, the harder it is for them to tell reality from fiction. There are studies on this. Secure attachment is the foundation of mental health, and distractions, split attention, interaction via text instead of face-to-face, et al contributes to insecure attachment, which not only leads to less mental health, but also less empathy. If we don't get real about our addictions to technology, we are doomed.
11
The White House ceased being a truthful or reliable source the second Sean Spicer stood at the podium and insisted that a smallish inauguration crowd was, to the contrary, the largest ever. Propaganda only works on people who want to believe it. The Trumpists will never be convinced that up is not down. They're believers.
51
Sorry Mr. Egan, is never like that, and we know about it in Europe. The final thing is the victory of those who suppress freedom, and finally establish a regime that looks very familiar to the old fascist or communist ways.
If things don't change in the USA and other parts of Europe our decadence will be complete, and once again those autocrats there will control us for aeons.
I just fear for so many things that were created after WWII that aimed at enhancing the dignity of human kind.
I'm losing hope!
14
Yes, their methods of surveillance and control will make escape from the robber baron/feudal future very hard indeed. We need to stop them now.
I don't fault Trump; he's simply corrupt and possibly mentally compromised; I blame Congress.
Congress specifically is mandated to oversee this president by the Constitution (that document that, like family values, is cited but then tossed aside by the present GOP). But -- Congress is too busy legislating for THEMSELVES. That is what actually lies behind paying back their donors on the backs of middle class tax hikes. Poor "the money will stop" Graham: we should feel sorry for him if the GOP does not pass a disastrous bill for the US, he might lose his job.
May they all come next November.
25
Unfortunately, the white coats will need to led away congressional collaborators first. Hopefully, voters will perform this role next year, and the Trump disaster will lose its cover.
10
Before the Liar-in-Chief is removed from the presidency by the 25th Amendment, it will be necessary to distinguish between the self-serving insane and the self-serving Congressional sycophants, some of whom may not be insane, but criminal, accessories to the madness.
1
Timothy Egan is at the top of his game this morning with this column. I might add that In addition to Trump being taken away in a straight jacket, all of the republicans trying to ram through their big tax swindle in this haphazard fashion should be booted out of office sooner than later.
12
The question isn't whether reality will win out, the question is which version of reality will we end up with.
4
The truth is already out, and it makes no difference. The damage done to everyday Americans will be complete when the GOP finishes their tax bill, and one-party rule gets solidified when the 2020 census is rigged in the GOPs favor.
The rigging has already begun by depriving the Census Bureau of the resources it needs. There will be an effort to count every resident of red districts, and to not count residents of blue districts.
14
I agree with Mike--there's no evidence that reality will out.
Human beings are endlessly delusional. People who will obviously be hurt by the current tax bill still believe in the trickle own economics theory being espoused that tax cuts for the rich will result in increases for the poor and middle class. Climate change deniers will be explaining away the water lapping halfway up their own front doors as a freak occurrence. Hawks will try to ensure us that a nuclear war isn't such a bad thing, because we will win and most of us--well, many of us--well, some of us--will be able to shelter in place.
The other delusion, of course, is that voting doesn't matter. This one is held by nearly half the country.
16
The long battle between science and religion shows that, while reality will eventually win, it can take an exceedingly long time, and harm vast numbers of people.
23
Republicans now rule the world. Executive, Legislative, Judicial - Let’s all get a good taste of the bitter soup, and the sooner the better. If it is in reality what the majority of those that are able to vote, and choose to do so, want - then so be it.
If we can’t see yet that this is not going to end well...then sad to say, reality has won, and it ain’t going to be pretty. Things fall apart and reading this op-ed, it looks like they already have.
5
Reality will win but at what price? Presently the administration is attempting to erode Constitutional protected rights of Americans, the judiciary system and the tax system. The redistribution of money by the Republican proposed tax plan to the .001% will also redistribute access to education, health insurance and even basic necessities such as food, water and shelter. The price for this period of unreality just maybe so high that America's decline will kick open the door for the end of the experiment in democracy. Sad.
6
Trump doesn't know who Winston Churchill was or what he did, has never read Mark Twain, thinks Frederick Douglas is still alive and doing a good job and that one Roosevelt is exactly like every other Roosevelt. As for Rachel Carson, he categorically denies he grabbed anything of hers.
49
I love Tim Egan. He writes beautifully, and I agree with virtually all of his columns. So yes, he's right, reality will win in the end. The problem is, much much suffering will transpire in the interim. Take for example Trump's attempt to defund PEPFAR, the George Bush initiative that saved, and continues to save, millions of lives ravaged by AIDS. Reality in the end will do little to assuage the suffering of those whose lives are ruined in the here and now.
23
Thank you, Mr. Egan and all true journalists, for the work you do. We need you more than ever--especially investigative reporters. Please, never think your work is unappreciated.
29
Reality always wins in the end, which is why when after The Republicans have devastated The Country we'll find out in a page 2 article of about 50 words in a few years that the election of 2016 was the result of a KGB software vote counting manipulation program.
10
Reality is subjective and more easily manipulated in our digital age.
I guess things haven't changed much since the time when man had just discovered fire and used to beat each other over the head with clubs. We've got more stuff but it just makes us greedier, and we still shuffle along behind some flamboyant 'leader' or another.
2
Trump is the only person in America who lives without facing consequences to his actions. Unlikely to change anytime in the near future.
4
It has taken many years to build distrust of institutions like government and the free press. While Donald Trump is demonstrating every day what happens when enough people think that it would be great to elect someone who will shake things up, a PR leviathan funded by big money is churning out carefully designed messages that enhance that distrust.
Some of it is ad hoc, seat of the pants, manipulation of public opinion. More is carefully designed manipulation that works like commercial placement in movies. You are influenced, but you don't even know that it's happening.
In the climate of news media owned and operated by people with clear agendas, in the climate of foreign governments trying to sow dissension among us, in the climate where lies are SOP, in the climate where think tanks generate rationales for policies favored by their patrons, I think it's very questionable whether reality will out.
2
President John F. Kennedy was a noted author and a man of letters. A Pulitzer Prize winning author, Kennedy went out of his way to cultivate the nation's press and among his closest advisers was the scholarly Ted Sorensen, who crafted many of Kennedy's speeches, including his famous 1961 Inaugural Address. Kennedy's press secretary, Pierre Salinger, was a popular and charming press secretary, widely admired for his wit.
These sentences segue into the sad state of affairs in the White House today that daily antagonizes the Fourth Estate that the president has deemed an enemy of his administration. Riding the point on hostility and false reporting for the president is a press secretary who defends every lie and outrage uttered by her boss on a daily basis.
President Kennedy would have been appalled by the president's put-down of journalists as "the lowest form of humanity". But Kennedy lived in a different time and era when common civility, courtesy and decency in the political arena were the hallmarks of elected officials of both parties. Those days apparently are gone forever.
19
Not in my lifetime -- and I was a teen-ager during Watergate -- has the fourth estate been more vital to this democratic republic.
6
I enjoyed your optimistic conclusion, but I do not think it justified.
1
Tim, Tim, Tim. Unfortunately, you are the one who is deluded. The republicans control everything. Which means that, here in the post-reality world of 2017, truth is whatever they deem it to be. This will become crystal clear if the 2018 mid-terms do not go their way because they will never peacefully cede control. The only question left is how much longer we all pretend we live in a free country.
6
All along in this agonizing "death of truth" march through the Trump era, the focus has been on Donald Trump. But Trump couldn't last in office without an enabling congress and a wing-nut media army. His attacks on journalists have been standard talk show fare at least since the Limbaugh show, and the "gaggle of people being paid very well to help him subvert truth, justice and the American way" includes most politicians in thrall to their wealthy donors. Reality today is more and more a media construct, especially a social media construct. So the issue now, and Trump knows it, is not that "reality will out." The issue now is, "Whose reality?"
11
Okay, I get it: "you just can't STAND the man." And so, you seem fairly desperate to get back to the comfort-zone of Presidents who always give a press briefing once a day and who never say a single thing that hasn't been sanitized through six layers of political-correctness filters.
In less than a single year, Donald Trump has done more to shake-up a thoroughly fossilized status quo in Washington, DC than ten Presidents before him ever did. He represents the very first(!) Chief Executive who was neither a career politician nor a retired General. And, as such, I think that he is exactly what a majority of American states wanted, and that he is in fact fulfilling their expectations.
Their expectations being exactly what? Mindless tweets? Insults to heads of state? Lies? Please tell us how this shake-up has and will help the country.
Reality will prevail.
Not so sure when 35 or 40% ignore reality to have their guy in White House and other 65% only discuss about it.
Remember yesterday Sen Hatch said Trump is the best President he ever worked under
6
The real question is how long will it take and how much damage will be done.
3
Synchronized swimming? That is a team effort and Trump would never share credit with others. Rhythm gymnastics is more like it.
1
Reality is the economy. If and when the markets plunge and unemployment rises, both of which are inevitable during any four year presidency, then Trump's supporters will wake up. Until then, anything that happens is simply a function of interpretation. Huckabee-Sanders must know, just as Spicer before her, that she is spouting ridiculous rationalizations. But she also understands that her bile must only play to Hannity Inc. and Trump's base. That will insulate the president by keeping a critical mass of House and Senate members always behind him, even if the GOP begins to fray more. It is really is an impressive strategy, especially if all one cares about is ego, power, and holding on to just enough Congressional support.
1
I don't know a better or more valuable columnist, from my point of view, but the reality that matters is that this sideshow is a splendid smokescreen for the Republican Party to make a frontal assault on the Treasury for the next 3 generations, which would be utterly inconceivable if we were not being so gaudily entertained from our highest office, to our most revered media voices, chasing him and wasting time. The column this week is about 13 million less insured under the Senate tax plan, rising taxes, gutted public services, and punitive social protections. That is reality. Please address reality.
9
Yesterday, two Republican senators further debased themselves (if that is humanly possible) in defending Trump's presumed 'fitness' to serve as president. First, there is the strange case of Lindsey Graham, who, in 2016, called Trump a 'kook' who was unfit to serve as president. Yesterday, he took the press to task for trying to portray Trump as 'a kook', who is unfit for the office of the president. How dare the press agree with Graham's assessment of Trump, especially when Graham is trying to hold his party together by getting a tax bill passed, even at the expense of his own personal integrity. Then, the ever charming Senator Hatch took to the airwaves to say, with a straight face, that Trump is 'one of the finest presidents under whom I have ever served'. That was the day of Trump's latest dust ups with our closest ally, the UK, and the day after he accused a newsman (Joe Scarborough) of murder, and day after he apparently revived the Obama birther lie.
So here we have noble representatives of the Grand Old Party, scared to death that they are living fossils and that their party is entering an oblivion death spiral, humiliating themselves to support a president they doubtless know is barking mad, as we all know here in the Heartland, folks. Remember to vote for sanity in 2018 and in 2020.
9
"...eventually you’ll be led away under escort of people in white coats." Ah, not so fast, Mr. Egan. Would that it were that simple.
Would that it were that, in our halcyon days of a "free" press, one with investigative (non-partisan) zeal, circa 1930-1990, the Fourth Estate actually provided guardrails on both sides of the highway for the public. Without newspapers and their scrupulosity and rigorous pursuit of "truth, justice and the American way," how would we have survived the Vietnam War? Without the New York Times and WaPo publishing Daniel Ellsberg's leaked Pentagon Papers; without WaPo's twin sleuths, Woodstein, would not have Richard Nixon gotten away with grand theft of the Constitution? His press secretary, the hapless and, yes, "beleaguered" Ron Ziegler, was helpless in the face of relentless questioning and the pressure of a rabid (in a positive sense) press corps that was hungry for the truth: the president's intention to steal the country away from the people to whom it really belonged.
But now, with Rush Limbaugh's Hate Radio Network; with Fox News and its (past and) present stable of talking heads without any pretense to journalistic accomplishments or standards; with an administration now determined to both conceal its sins and to parade them publicly, how do we find our way to the truth?
Donald Trump's ascension to the Oval Office was built on lies. But 62-million American voters tossed reason overboard at the polling places. They have what they wanted.
8
Here is another important strategy, American Citizens of all political persuasions need to employ to save this country. Embrace your own critical thinking. Rarely does Social Media does produce legitimate, accurate and responsible journalism. REFUSE to listen or to communicate with our current President on TWITTER or FACEBOOK. Donald Trump serves the people of this country. He needs to communicate with the American People, truthfully and accurately using more than 120 Characters. He as all Presidents that have come before him are dealing with complex issues. He needs to be present and available to answer questions connected to these complex issues responsibly, honestly and respectfully. TWITTER and FACEBOOK proudly claim no responsibility for the accuracy of anything that is posted on their platforms. Wake up America, stop using these sources as your major news source. And to those hard working journalists... stop trying to present your work, research and findings on TWITTER. CONTEXT is everything. The way for Reality to win, is for Americans to focus, center themselves and use their brains. READ, RESEARCH meaningful sources and look away from your phones and talk face to face with your friends, family and fellow community members. AND REFUSE to communicate with our current President using TWITTER.
3
"Donald Trump: 'We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes'" The Guardian, December 6, 2016.
That one truth which Trump told, and which neither Obama nor Bush saw, is bigger than all of Trump's lies put together.
3
I wish I shared your optimism. Trumpistas are made even more supportive by all this craziness.
3
There is a correction for a President who seems determined to lie about every single fact in the Universe, impeachment. The Trump problem will be solved when there is a Democratic majority in Congress. The real question is how much damage Trump and cronies do before they are tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail.
2
Mr. Egan,
Thanks for another great column, and of course we see what they're doing, and have for some time. I'm guessing that almost all of your readers see it.
The problem of course is that many of those who support the absurdity that is this 'administration' don't read this paper, and perhaps never see your words. How do we reach them? If their only source of information is the pravda of fox news, how do we ever get back from this horrible place? The tidal wave of deliberate lies and misinformation is doing untold damage to the soul of this country.
That said, I can't express enough my admiration for and appreciation of the great journalists at the Times, the Post, and everywhere else who labor to bring the truth to light. Without you all we would be hopelessly sunk.
12
With all administrations, there's an op-ed tug-of-war between writers who approve of the president's policies and writers who don't. With this administration, the main event is a tug-of-war between writers who think the president is cleverly (if crudely) acting to delegitimize reality and writers who think he's around the bend.
It seems that the tug-of-war is now ending before our eyes. Soon the issue will move toward a consensus, like the consensus on climate change, which most people will recognize and only a few will deny: the President of the United States is around the bend.
3
Truth speaks to power and we have the vote. But, do we have the time? Germany kept the same constitution during their march through the 20s, 30s and into WWII. God helps those who help themselves.
1
Truth doesn't die, but may take time to surface. As was the case on Acorn. The current Republican Party is a partner in this crime against facts and truths. The current tax bill which they claim is like Robin Hood is instead like crooked Sheriff of Knottingham. Let's complete a Hail Mary and stop this bill by flooding the senators with our indignation on the phones today.
5
And yet Mr. Egan, the Republicans in Congress stand by him. They are more than complicit. They are his enablers. They feed and clothe the madman. They shelter him. They protect him. Trump is literally destroying our republic by undermining the very institutions he is sworn to uphold. They all know it.
They wear their little flag lapel pins and swear allegiance to the flag. They never hesitate to profess their religious convictions. Then they stand by Trump.
They are his accomplices. Why have they forsaken their oaths of office?
I see two overriding reasons. One is tax cuts for the super rich. The installation of a super wealthy aristocracy is the ultimate goal of the GOP. That's what they live and breathe for and Trump is their ticket to that goal. The second is stacking the courts with ultra conservative judges who will rule in favor of that aristocracy just as they did with Citizens United.
The bonus prize is slashing Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Because of these goals, the GOP has crawled into bed with a madman and cover for him. They have the power to kick him out but will not. There are several Supreme Court Judges who are near the end of their service.
Reality cannot win until after power shifts. The Congress has to flip to Democratic control. With reality destroyed, millions say they will never vote for a Democrat. How do you come back from that?
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The "bonus prize" is merely a means to their end. The fewer dollars needed for social programs, the less tax revenue the gov't needs, the more money stays in the oligarchs' pockets. Part and parcel of the same goal.
2
Alas. All too precisely correct, Bruce. Whether we can get back from this catastrophe, with millions of rabid dupes (sorry, rabid dupes; you prefer me to be sweet about it?) voting, is not clear. 2018 will tell; if the Republic conspiracy retains control, the U.S.A. is gone.
1
If the tax bill passes, in whatever form, it may be that the GOP will finally deal seriously with removing Trump. I'm not betting on it, however.
5
John Gartner, Ph.D., is a psychologist and the founder of Duty to Warn, an organization intent on warning our country that we are in dire trouble due to our president’s mental instability.
More than 60,000 mental health professionals have signed John’s petition, which states:
“We, the undersigned mental health professionals, believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States. And we respectfully request he be removed from office, according to article 4 of the 25th amendment to the Constitution, which states that the president will be replaced if he is ‘unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.’”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-time-cure/201709/the-dangerous-...
http://www.adutytowarn.org/
Trump's entire political existence is nothing more than a sick racist Birther Lie, wrapped in award-winning consumer fraud psychopathy, with greed and narcissism oozing out of every pore of his diseased body.
Repeal and replace.
Impeach and institutionalize.
Remove the Psychiatric-Patient-In-Chief.
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And then?
Why, we simply move on to the next form of mental illness in the succession chain... and then, the next.
"In the end, reality will win." I wholeheartedly wish it were so, despite several billion years of evidence to the contrary. A case could be made that since the spark of first life, we've been moving in quite the opposite direction.
Among the tragedies of human existence (i.e., our species) is that we don't get to see how it ends. Whatever... onward and upward!
One thing that is almost always missing from news articles and comments is "spirituality." When you break everything down to it's core, even quantum physics has shown us that there is a spirituality that connects us all. We are all one. Good WILL prevail because more humans than not DO know the difference between right and wrong and are stepping/waking up. More people are meditating, which is where the true answers lie, in the silent stillness. We lead by example. Keeping our unwavering eye on the goal of love for all beings and universal peace, with all of our thoughts and actions leading to that result, will bring victory. I once had a friend who called himself a spiritual warrior. At the time, I didn't resonate with the word, "warrior." In this sense, now I do.
17
You grossly misrepresent quantum physics.
1
I agree. Thank you.
"Trump is a hooligan to the Constitution. But he has a gaggle of people being paid very well to help him subvert truth, justice and the American way."
Amen. But as to your central premise, Timothy Egan, I sure hope you're right--that reality will win in the end, after decades of severe conservatism and conspiracy mongering trying to convince us otherwise.
Because the government is still running no matter how much the president's mind blows up. And he's ostensibly running it according to the script in his mind--one so wild and disjointed nobody knows where he could take us.
Even Hollywood would discard the script for this presidency as too implausible.
So I'm not sure if the president came running out naked on
the White House lawn, that anyone would finally get the strait jacket.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, well-trained hostage, would probably just shrug and say, the president is showing us the unvarnished truth of his convictions.
If, that is, the president has any. Because if he has, I haven't seen them yet.
87
Reality may win in the end, but I fear reality will reveal a different nation once the clouds of corruption, dishonesty and agency-destroying by their appointed heads.
At present our Senate is likely to pass a disastrous tax bill using the same tax rules as Oklahoma and Kansas. (Neither state can keep their public schools open days a week for the entire school year. Kansas scored dead last in economic growth -- of all 50 states. Businesses left the state.) Yet probably all 4 state senators from these two states will join in passing a national tax bill THEY KNOW won't work. Party loyalty (and personal gain) trumps statesmanship and oaths of office these days.
12
@Susan, I share your fears 100%!
1
If the president came running out naked on the White House lawn most Republicans in the Congress would immediately disrobe chanting "President Trump is bringing nudity back to America". And that same evening Hannity (sitting naked at his desk) would blame Obama for pandering to the sweat shop clothing manufacturers in Bangladesh. Sarah Huckabee (wearing her bathrobe) would then pronounce that the President strongly believes that nudity is best for America as many studies reviewed by the White House have shown. She would also point out that the President's corpulence, now on full display, is a testament to his firm beliefs and convictions in this matter.
1
The letter in yesterday's Times, by Bandy X. Lee a forensic psychiatrist at Yale School of Medicine should be carefully considered by all, as he puts his and the careers of thousands of mental health professionals on the line in saying it.
In short: "We are currently witnessing more than his usual state of instability — in fact, a pattern of decompensation: increasing loss of touch with reality, marked signs of volatility and unpredictable behavior, and an attraction to violence as a means of coping. These characteristics place our country and the world at extreme risk of danger.
Ordinarily, we carry out a routine process for treating people who are dangerous: containment, removal from access to weapons and an urgent evaluation. We have been unable to do so because of Mr. Trump’s status as president. But the power of the presidency and the type of arsenal he has access to should raise greater alarm, not less.
We urge the public and the lawmakers of this country to push for an urgent evaluation of the president, for which we are in the process of developing a separate but independent expert panel, capable of meeting and carrying out all medical standards of care."
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Dr. Lee and a few others are violating both the law (rarely enforced, but on the books) AND their own official professional ethics & standards, by diagnosing a public figure whom they have only seen on television.
Dr. Lee has never met Mr. Trump, nor is Mr. Trump his patient. He cannot diagnose a total stranger from his appearances on TV or in the media, nor can he diagnose someone for whom he has intense political animus or opposition! His diagnosis would always be extremely biased in that case.
50 years ago, many similar "psychologists" and doctors claimed that Senator Barry Goldwater was insane, violent and would lead us to WWIII -- that's why the law is called "the Goldwater law". Senator Goldwater lost, but he went on to five terms in the Senate and retired a respected, honored citizen admired by both parties. So the shrinks were 100% wrong about him. They were not using professional standards; they were ABUSING their credentials to strike out at a politician "they hated".
What is different this time? And why do professional ethics matter so little here? Even if ONE of these so-called professionals were Trump's doctor at any time in the past....he/she could not speak out, due to HIPPA privacy laws, without inviting a lawsuit.
2
cc- nice try but WRONG-
"The Goldwater rule is the informal name given to Section 7 in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Principles of Medical Ethics[1] that states it is unethical for psychiatrists to give a professional opinion about public figures they have not examined in person, and from whom they have not obtained consent to discuss their mental health in public statements"
There is NO Law stating that one can not offer a psychiatric opinion on a public official. Distasteful, possibly. But hardly illegal.
Trump's doctor, Dr Harold Bornstein, DID speak out, and said Trump was the strongest, healthiest, bestest president ever.
I'd say the deconstruction of the "administrative state" is well ahead of schedule. The tragedy is that the administrative state is what used to be the United States of America, a beacon of hope functioning under a globally respected democratic Constitution, operating under the rule of law. Ah, but those were the days.
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Right. A synonym for “administrative state” is “ rule of law.”
Looks like the baby is going out with the bath water. . .but the swamp water remains.
2
It's easy to enjoy the Fourth Reich: just be rich--and white.
5
My late grandfather told me about how he fought in World War 1 for the US Army, lived through the Depression and watched and waited during World War 2. Each experience, he told me, was a challenge that stoked fear in people that it none might end well. But, they did end well, and like so many other fights against that which is wrong, so long as the good people stand u[p and fight back, then they will succeed, this time at defeating the effort to impose an authoritarian regime in Washington which is rocking our democracy to its core.
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Good point. But regarding such travails, sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you. Or as my wife would say, the bear only gets you once, and then it's all over.
2
Bruce Egert, the difference between prior challenges like World Wars and the Depression, alas, is that we formerly were battling against reasonably well defined and identifiable external enemies or economic forces we had not knowingly and intentionally set in motion against ourselves.
Donald Trump and the destructive scoundrels who now call themselves the Republican Party are a reflection of tens of millions of benighted, gullible and self-destructive American voters.
We have met the enemy, and it is us; or more accurately stated, it claims to be us, although a clear majority of us abhor it.
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Those were wars and economic upheavals that affected most of the world, not just the USA.
Did your grandfather ever tell you that he hated the ELECTED President of the United States so much, that he actively wished or worked for that President's downfall?
2
Mr. Egan's piece, like so many of late, brings to mind the words of the great German writer Thomas Mann quoted by Michael Harrington in his book The Accidental Century:
"Toward the very end of his days, in an essay on Schiller, Mann summarized his odyssey of nearly eighty years:
The past half century has witnessed a retrogression of humanity, a chilling atrophy of culture, a frightening decrease in civility, decency, sense of justice, loyalty and faith and of the most elementary trustworthiness. Two world wars, breeding brutality and rapacity, have catastrophically lowered the intellectual and moral level (the two are inseparable) and left behind a state of disorder which is a poor safeguard against the plunge into a third world war which would end everything."
I first read these words as a high schooler in the late 1960's. I didn't fully appreciate them then. I do now.
334
Your mention of Schiller brings to mind one of his quotes:
"Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain."
3
I think it was Einstein, answering a question about the weapons that would be used in WW III, who said, "I don't know. But I do know that we will be fighting WWW IV with sticks and stones."
4
"So in the end, reality will out."
No, it won't. I like the optimism but I see little to no evidence that this is true.
167
It is imperative that we all continue to believe that "reality will out." When we stop, we (consciously or unconsciously) stop trying to shine a light on reality. When we do that, the purveyors of unreality win. Is it easier to give up? Of course, so please fight the urge.
1
I don't think it's necessarily optimism that reality will out. Reality is out there, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, and I'm afraid that where we are now it's more a case that reality will up one day and pull the floor out from underneath us.
1
"The end" is the reality.
2
All true but as Adam Smith pointed out there is a lot of ruin in a nation.
48
If the Truth ever catches up with Trump, if the truth matters to his followers and enablers in Congress, the landing will be a hard one. For us. For all of us.
Except maybe the 1%.
He has done so much damage in just under a year, that it will take decades to recover, if we can. Reality may win, but this country has already lost. Bigly.
508
I could not agree with you more. I feel so much damage has been done. The events happening on a daily basis and not just by our so called "president" , as I guess I must admit this is sadly a fact. However it is the Congress that is absolutely shocking me as they sit by and not only refused to object to his behavior but at times support it . I have no idea what is going on in this country I really do not , but we will all pay the piper at some point , not the 1% but the rest of us and by then I am afraid it will be too late ..
193
Many will pay with their lives. Whatever it may be, either through no healthcare, neglected infrastructure, or wars, just to mention a few ways life will be lost.
10
ttabernash, I agree with you except for your statement that the 1% will not pay. In the end, even they will be losers as everything they depend on from the 99% will be GONE. They do not have much time left to wake up to this terrifying fact.
3
As they say, reality is a hard wall to run up against. People who support Trump remind of the people in 2008 who tried to talk away the crash. Housing prices were in free fall and they kept talking about "we're in a little gully now, but prices are still rising" or trying to explain why the stock market wasn't falling by the hour when you could watch it going down. Reality does, in the end, win. But think about the damage that is being done to our country until that point is reached.
219
Funny though, here it is only 8 years after the crash (which was at the end of 2008) and most of that time Obama was President, and the housing market is higher than ever, with more rampant speculation and "investors" driving huge price increases. And the house flipping shows are back on HGTV and I just saw an ad on TV last night, where a bank was encouraging people "to borrow money against your house to pay bills, since the value of your home has increased dramatically!"
2
All true, Concerned Citizen, and that is why I said it sounds like 2008 all over again. We have heard this all before. Been there; done that.
3
Or bringing a snowball out of the freezer in congress to "prove" that climate change is a hoax,
7
In the end, we will all be dead. What will be our legacy to those who come after us?
The presidency of Donald J. Trump has already done great damage to our republic.
It's time for the adults in Congress to realize that the Chief Executive is unfit to hold office and do the right thing.
449
If there are adults among the GOP members of Congress (questionable), they will do nothing to curb Trump until they have secured huge tax benefits for the one percent, totally deregulated industry and Wall Street, packed the federal courts with fools and knaves, and suppressed voting to ensure their permanent control over the country.
4
And who in Congress, Kevin, has the courage and integrity to do that. Jeff Flake talks but when it comes to action he is as shallow as the rest of them.
8
And who exactly are the adults in Congress? John McCain and Susan Collins, who stood against the overt repeal of Obamacare but endorse its covert demise through the tax bill they support; you mean those adults?
6
The truth will not be learned or believed. Anything that runs counter to Trump voters' beliefs can be and is easily dismissed as fake news. It is sort of like mass hysteria. Only personal experience like smaller Social Security checks or seeing your child die from lack of health care might change things. But Fox News would blame both on the lack of cooperation from Democrats. And that would be believed.
899
While I couldn't agree more with everything you've written, the only thing to do that raises even the possibility of saving a free state is to fight the lies relentlessly.
The incessant lies aren't just designed to dupe the faithful; they also have the effect of overwhelming those who can still tell fact from fiction by their sheer volume. So I encourage anyone in this latter category to continue to call out lies as lies, to remind others that there are still many of us who know the difference between truth and falsehood, and to re-galvanize them when they feel like the battle for truth will be lost.
10
It's not sort of like mass hysteria. It IS mass hysteria on the part of a large segment of our voters and half the Congress!
4
"Anything that runs counter to Trump voters' beliefs can be and is easily dismissed as fake news. "
"Anything that runs counter to progressives' beliefs can be and is easily dismissed as fake news. "
As someone who has three degrees from Harvard, has published about 125 papers and knows several Nobel prize winners, I have found it almost impossible to talk to progressives. They just assume that either I am a right winger, or simply naive.
Just for fun let me attach a limerick.
Girls who frequent picture palaces
Have no use for psychoanalysis.
Although Dr. Freud
Would be sorely annoyed,
The stick to their old fashioned fallacies
Believe me, you progressives have plenty of fallacies you believe in. You ARE better than conservatives, but not MUCH better.