Dear Bennet, you wouldn’t believe it. America has gone insane. It would be unrecognizable to you, and quite chilling to see that the Big Lie syndrome has convinced 30 to 40% of Americans, mostly Republicans, of a fantasy reality.

Hitler would be proud; Goebbels, envious! Trump has certainly given each of them a run for their money. The situation currently, of course, is that democracy has fractured and is at great risk of dissolving completely as the fissure gets wider and deeper. 

It’s happening before our very eyes. At least in front of the eyes of people who see the programming and propaganda that has created two “realities.” That pesky paradigm blindness is at play, on both sides actually but in dramatically different ways.

COLLUDERS and Cohorts

Most of the Republicans have bought into a view of the world whereby they think the last election was stolen. Because someone (Trump) then many someone’s said so!  Now leaders (and I use the term loosely) are following behind the rabble-rousers hook line and stinker. 

That’s right, you read it correctly. He is a stinker, that old Trump guy, And his believers don’t even see or feel the stench that has infected them by their breathing it in. They just suck it all in as if it’s gospel, unaware. 

Bizarrely, Trump has followers taking up the torch because of (and I know you won’t be surprised here) Greed and Power, furled by grotesque resentment, insecurity and fear! Right wing and social media have become the contagion of the day, carriers far more potent than any actual pandemic virus! Covid pales in comparison!

Electronic Viruses

You know as well as I, dear bennet, it was never only Hitler and Goebels. They recruited others, tapping into their fear and resentment. Hitler didn’t build each gas chamber or erect each camp by himself. So too, has Trump gotten others to carry the banner and do the dirty work—Hannity, Ingrahm, Bannon, Giuliani, and many others. Even senators and representatives collude in this masquerade.

Many, many others until soon after his Big Lie about a lost election seeped into every nook and cranny it could find, his little ‘army’ wasn’t so little, or so it seems! Even non-believers of the lie cynically use it for their own ends, to stay in power.

Part of the problem, dear Bennet, is unfettered, unregulated and uncontrolled mass media, from Fox News (and I use the term ‘news’ loosely here) to Breitbart and a number of other extremist carriers of the Big Lie virus. Personally, freedom of speech principles have been distorted and reframed as freedom to espouse lies and falsehoods.

Anyway, the situation in America looks bleak, Bennet. You would be appalled, especially after surviving five concentration camps and several death marches due to Hitler’s Big Lie. He and Goebels had radio as the delivery system. In America today we’ve gotten more sophisticated with unchecked and amoral social media and right wing media outlets that are unregulated.

Consequences

I wouldn’t want to “meet my maker” if I was Trump, Rupert Murdock, or Steve Bannon, as well as their numerous accomplices! The lies they spin for money and power are, well, staggering—the demonic opening the door to the satanic, or so it seems. Yikes! A high percentage of these nudniks, as you used to call them, even think violence is justified.

Sadly, like so many Germans in the late 30’s and early 40’s, they don’t know they’ve been used as pawns, hoodwinked and programmed to believe a lie, many lies actually. It is sad. 

We don’t know how this will turn out, dear Bennet, but it doesn’t look good for democracy. Even people who don’t believe the lies, don’t realize how precarious the situation is. And many others are just unaware. It may be inevitable that we’re going down the tubes. Occasionally I have a sliver of hope so maybe by some miracle we can survive with our democratic principles intact.

I’ll have to keep you posted!