The Grand Illusion
No matter what people claim, no one likes to admit that they were wrong or that they made a mistake. I can certainly understand that, but the lengths to which some people will go to avoid such an admission can be truly terrifying.
It’s even more terrifying when one of those individuals is the President of the United States and when tens of millions of people so believe in him that they also can’t admit he made a mistake. From what I’ve observed, Trump is psychologically incapable of admitting he made a mistake, and all the rhetoric and blame-gaming involving the reflecting pool fiasco and the continuing insistence that the Iranians want to “make a deal” are just the latest manifestations of that inability. His pronouncements that everything he does is “wonderful,” “beautiful,” “fantastic,” and the like are also symptomatic of the same mindset.
This mindset also leads to a raft of problems. If you can’t admit a mistake, you can’t fix it. You can only blame someone else. So “vandals” sabotaged the reflecting pool, and District Attorney Pirro “folded like an umbrella” when a federal judge pointed out that there was absolutely no evidence of vandalism. Since Trump awarded the no-bid contract to cronies, he can’t admit that it was a bad decision because that would mean he’s not infallible.
The same mindset applies to the 2020 Presidential election, or the felony convictions involving the Trump company’s misrepresentation of its financial condition, or the civil cases repeatedly finding him guilty of sexual abuse.
But instead of recognizing Trump’s inability to admit mistakes, tens of millions of Americans buy into his lies. Wanting to believe a President isn’t a fault, but failing to admit that the President has made mistakes and lied repeatedly is.
But whether those “true believers” ever will admit Trump has made mistakes and repeatedly lied is another matter.
It’s a cult
If you can’t admit you made a mistake, you can’t learn from it.
If you can’t learn from a mistake, you *probably* can’t learn as well as others.
If you can’t learn as well as others, you’ll *tend to* be ill-informed.
If you’re ill-informed, it’s going to be harder to make decisions.
Like who to believe. Who to vote for.
Heaven help us.
I’m persuaded now that Donald Trump’s primary appeal to his supporters is that he continues to stick it to the people they hate. As long as he does that, nothing else matters. Chronic lying? Don’t care. Unprecedented corruption? Don’t care. Threatening democracy and the Constitution? Don’t care. He may be an SOB, but he’s OUR SOB.
It’s also a balancing act. To put it in dramatically over=simplified terms:
As long as he shouts hatred and threats of violence and death to Immigrants, Transgender People, etc, then that small, xenophobic base of America will support him without question because he makes their hatred okay. Similarly another group of people who are neutral to such marginalized groups but don’t care will also accept it.
Meanwhile those who would oppose all that are super divided because, quite frankly, when you have a group of people better educated, better informed and more empathetic you get more conflict in terms of choosing a unified point.
Last Election is a lovely example. I don’t think Trump won, I think Harris managed to push way enough people for varying points, and too many of those people were willing to trash their vote to make a point.
(Again, there’s So Much More nuance to it all, but in very general terms…)
From Day 1 of the Trump disaster, Trump has not bothered me. He is what he us, he never tried to hide it and he is one person only. There will _always_ be reprehensible people among us – if not Trump, McCarthy, Stalin, Hitler…
What disturbs me deeply is the obvious failure of the American people as a whole. Failure to see, recognize, respond appropriately to this monster and the vicious dogs he has set on American people and our institutions.
I can posit reasons but the point is this is not Trump’s fault, it’s our fault, the fault of the people who foolishly chose to not believe what they see right in front if them w/their own eyes. Trump is true to himself and what he is was _never_ hidden or in doubt. It was and is the responsibility of everyone to deal w/this instituional evil we allowed to be built w/our resources and tacit acceptance.
I think this horrible situation was 70+ years in the making. It will take long time to change direction. I’m sorry, things work way better when one points to hopeful paths. I don’t see any at the moment. Some of my friends do, pointing to recent election results and I hope they’re right.
But my point remains: Trump is a problem and life is full of problems which we as living creatures deal, over and over. HOW we deal defines us, creates our world. There is no point blaming the problem – that’s what Trump does.
Not to dismiss people’s response to it, but the statement “No point blaming the problem” only applies when the problem is a mindless thing.
There’s no point complaining about a mold outbreak itself, you just need to fix it. It is absolutely valid to complain, blame and hold responsible the roommate who left the water running without drying it and let the mold happen.
You’re dismissing his crimes and pushing over them because there are other matters at hand too. Not really a good way to approach things.
Or we could consider Trump as “The Mold”. Then yes indeed: “We The People …” were the instigating accomplices!
Perhaps there is a solution; reduce the Representatives to Two per state (and extend their service to four years) as we have for the Senate.
Remind ‘The People’ that The President, Congress, and US Supreme Court are our National Government and not servants of the states. In other words, correct a failure of the Founding Fathers, missed opportunities following the Civil War and ‘Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929’, and get rid of the 10th Amendment. The U.S. government has made changes to the U.S. Constitution 27 times through formal amendments since it took effect in 1789 so they can do it again.
Your idea is probably only really fair if you redraw the state boundaries to make them all approximately the same popultaion. That just might not be acceptable to many people.
Why do US states need population based representatives for each state when the Senate gets by with just two representatives from each state. Remember the people in the US Congress are there to run the nation and not the preferences of the most populous states! The present system is not fair to the US Nation.
But yes it will not work because the present system is much more malleable.