Tag: QAnon

President Biden Attacks Internal Enemies

President Biden addressed the nation on September 1 from the site of America’s founding. In many respects it was a positive, uplifting speech reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s wonderful speeches. Though I disagree with many of the details of his recent policy victories, it is normal for a president to promote them. But there was another part of his speech that has become very controversial.

“When President Biden stood before Independence Hall in Philadelphia on Thursday night, he warned that American democracy stands at the precipice… — one that, he said, comes from within the country’s borders. ‘Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,’ Biden said.”  “Biden-danger within us”

The President of the United States is both the leader and head of state for the entire country and the head of his political party. Did President Biden cross the line between defending the country from serious attacks and partisanship when he made his speech? Biden was not criticizing Trump’s protectionist, isolationist policies as I have done (and I have praised Trump’s tax reform and reduction of excessive regulations). Those are partisan political issues. If we don’t like someone’s policies, we can vote against them. Biden was making a much more serious charge. He clarified that:

 “’I don’t consider any Trump supporter to be a threat to the country. I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it’s used, refuses to acknowledge that an election has been won, insists on changing the way in which you count the votes — that is a threat to democracy.’ Yet Trump supporters generally do all of those things, backing the former president’s calls to overturn the 2020 election and elect candidates who vow to rewrite election rules, and supporting his promise to pardon those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021….

“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) [stated that], ‘Joe Biden just declared all of us enemies of the state.’”  “Biden-danger within US”

The critical question is who does Rep. Green mean by “all of us?” All Republicans or all who believe and promote what she does? And what does Rep. Green believe?

“Last month [Aug 2020] , The New York Times reported on Greene’s past statements referring to Q as a “patriot” and pushing the idea that Q was working to take down a supposed cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles.

“QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory that falsely claims, among other things, that an individual known only as Q with supposed “Q-Level” government security clearance has been leaking high-level information. The theories allege a global network of child sex traffickers is orchestrating a plot against President Trump. QAnon followers believe Democrats are behind the plot.” Rep Green more recently said that she has changed her mind about QAnon. “Marjorie Taylor Greene has several ties to conspiracy hate groups”

Wikipedia’s summary includes that “Greene has promoted far-right, white-supremacist, and antisemitic conspiracy theories, including the white genocide conspiracy theory, QAnon, and Pizzagate, as well as other extremist conspiracy theories” “Marjorie Taylor Greene”

So, if President Biden means those like Marjorie Taylor Greene, then I fully agree with him that they don’t support American values. But are they dangerous? We don’t generally get too agitated by nut cakes who believe that the Earth is flat (there truly are such people out there on the loose) or that we are being visited by space travelers.

Several things make those like MTG very dangerous and justify President Biden’s warning. The primary danger is Donald Trump himself and the significant number of his True Believers. Trump tried in various ways to overturn the results of his losing Presidential race against Biden climaxing with the attack of the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021, in a final attempt to overturn the elections, which Trump continues to claim he won. He has not, does not, and presumably will not adhere to the rule of law. While we have already seen considerable evidence of his crimes, we must await the final judgement of the Justice Department whether to formally charge him.

“Trump told a right-wing radio host that, if he returns to power, he plans “full pardons with an apology to many” who attacked the Capitol. He also claimed he is ‘financially supporting’ some of those charged in the insurrection to defend them from ‘sick’ prosecutors and ‘nasty’ judges. Oath Keepers? Proud Boys? Unclear.”  “Kevin McCarthy – Joe Biden-semi-fascism – Trump”

Trump’s people have used violence before, as Trump quietly watched, and are threatening to use it again. Former Senator John McCain friend Sen Lindsey Graham, now a Trump worshiper, said on Fox News that “there will be riots in the streets” if the Justice Department indicts former president Donald Trump on charges related to his stashing classified documents in his Palm Beach, Fla., home.” If that doesn’t frighten you for the future of our country, read Jonathan Rauch’s account of what Trump’s reelection could look like: “Trump 2024 reelection-Viktor Orban Hungary”

The second reason for serious concern is that the Republican Party has either given in to Trump or gone silent. Given some of the Trump supported candidates the Republican Party is offering in the November general elections, it could be in serios trouble. More recently, Trump has turned his attack directly on Republicans who do not bow to him.

“Trump (who doesn’t do subtle or even not-so-subtle) blasted McConnell as a “broken down hack” who isn’t doing enough to help Republicans win.”  “Will Trump topple Mitch McConnell”

Trump further stated that: “The party is furious at [Mitch]. We have to put up with him for a period of time, but eventually, he’ll be gone. He’s bad news.”  “Trump rages about GOP” 

“In a statement posted to Truth Social on [August 27], Trump criticized McConnell for a statement he made that week about the crop of GOP Senate hopefuls, before making a dig at Chao, McConnell’s wife of 29 years, calling her ‘crazy.’

‘Chao served as Transportation secretary during the Trump administration for nearly four years, resigning one day after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. In a letter to Transportation Department staff, she called the riot “entirely avoidable” and said she was ‘deeply troubled’ by the event.

“Chao previously served eight years as Labor Department secretary under former President George W. Bush.

I waited in vail for the Republican (real Republicans) backlash. “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday said he does not have a reaction to former President Trump’s statement over the weekend that labeled his wife, former Trump administration Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, ‘crazy.’

“Asked in Kentucky if he had any reaction to Trump’s statement, McConnell responded simply, ‘no.’”  “McConnell asked if he has reaction to Trump’s attack on wife Elaine Chao says no”

If the Republican Party does not stand up and defend its principles and those of our constitution and country, I will be worried. Very worried. As should everyone else who believes in America’s constitutional democracy. “Republican Rep Adam Kinzinger says we have no leadership”

Cancer in the Republican party

Does Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene really believe that “a plane did not hit the Pentagon on 9/11, the Clintons crashed JFK Jr’s plane and that the 2018 California wildfires were started by a space laser controlled by Jews”? “Karl Rove blasts GOP rep Marjorie Taylor Greene”  Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, stated Monday (belatedly) that her “loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican Party.” “Has Mitch McConnell been struck by Jewish space laser”

An even more disturbing question is why do so many people believe her and other obviously (to most people) false claims? QAnon is sadly not the only group espousing claims that even my grandmother (or maybe especially my grandmother) would find transparently laughable. QAnon “followers believe that a cabal of Satan-worshipping Democrats, Hollywood celebrities and billionaires runs the world while engaging in pedophilia, human trafficking and the harvesting of a supposedly life-extending chemical from the blood of abused children.”  “QAnon conspiracy theory explained” 

We live in a time in which sorting fact from fiction has become more challenging than usual. As a young man I had Walter Cronkite, who I could check against Huntley and Brinkley. If they reported it, we believed it. If they got it wrong (rarely) they corrected it the next day. The pronouncements of QAnon are so ridiculous that most of us don’t need a fact checker to reject them. Common sense is enough. But when the previous President of the United States lied to us more or less every time he tweeted, and claims to this day that his reelection was stolen without producing any credible evidence, sorting fact from fiction becomes more challenging.

Sometimes we are lucky enough to encounter contrary evidence directly, in which case we discard the lie and downgrade our trust in its source. This seems to be happening to some QAnon supporters–but unfortunately not to Congresswoman Greene. But this also raises the question of why those inventing and perpetrating lies do so. The specific example of Rep. Greene’s claim that 9/11 was a hoax and that no plane crashed into the Pentagon presents an interesting case.

Of course, the conspiracy theorists do not claim that planes didn’t crash into the World Trade towers, too many of us saw it in real time on TV (I watched in horror from my hotel room in Bratislava, Slovakia). They claim that the U.S. Government was complicit and that the buildings were brought down by planted explosives, etc. In short, they developed clever, even plausible but highly improbable arguments for not believing what the press reported.  https://www.serendipity.li/wot/911_a_hoax.htm

Some years ago, probably sometime in 2002 or 3, one of my children sent me a video claiming that the 9/11 crash into the Pentagon was a hoax. I no longer remember the details of the lengthy arguments it made to convince us that American Airlines flight 77 never crashed into the Pentagon that day and did not kill the 184 people the press reported, but it was well done and convincing. If I had not had directly contradictory information, I might have wondered whether these claims of hoaxes might be true.

First of all, I knew from an acquaintance (Lawyer Ted Olson) that his wife Barbara had died in that crash. Secondly, at the time, I lived next to the Pentagon in Crystal City and could view firsthand the crash site after returning home from Slovakia (the hole in the west side of the building and the plane wreckage laid out in the Pentagon parking lot). The impressive and potentially convincing story in the video was totally made up. But why? The video was expensive to make. Perhaps psychologists can shed light on why gullible people fall for these lies, but what motivates those who put up the money to propagate what they know full well are lies?

Who has an incentive to undermine the American public’s confidence in its government and institutions? Who has an incentive to weaken the United States via a distrusting public turning on itself? The devil himself, of course, but who else? Q? Followers of QAnon “believe that “Q” is a high-ranking government insider, presumably with a military or intelligence background, committed to exposing the hidden truth of what they see as an international bureaucracy scheming against Mr. Trump and his supporters.” “What is QAnon-what we know about the conspiracy theory” Russia? Russia has been playing both sides against the middle in the U.S. for years.

And what about Rep Greene, herself? Is she one of the gullible followers or knowing perpetrators?  In a private meeting of Republicans in the Capital Wednesday evening she apparently expressed “contrition for some of her most outrageous comments made on social media — including questioning the 9/11 attacks, blaming a space ray directed by a Jewish cabal for a deadly wildfire and doubting school shootings. She also, according to Republicans in the room, apologized for putting her colleagues in a difficult spot.” But she has not repudiated any of her outrageous claims publicly.  “’I won’t back down. I’ll never apologize. And I’ll always keep fighting for the people,’ she tweeted Saturday.” “Amid GOP paralysis democrats vow to force vote on rep Greene’s extremism”

“While McCarthy on Wednesday condemned Greene’s comments questioning the veracity of school shootings, encouraging political violence and promulgating anti-Semitic falsehoods, he said he would not bow to demands that she be removed from her committees.” [op. cit.] I have sympathy for McCarthy’s position but a tent big enough to include people like Greene is not one I am willing to reenter. Vladimir Putin must be smiling.

We will never be able to prevent the devil in one guise or another from manufacturing lies in efforts to keep us divided and at each other’s throats. But we can and should better educate our public to critically assess wild claims and more carefully choose more reliable sources of information.