Insomnia and Blind Faith

It is the wee hours of the night.  My monkey-mind is keeping me awake, and I foolishly went to my FaceBook feed in an attempt to bore myself to sleep.  Bad move. I got sucked into a couple vicious political exchanges; which led to more pondering.

The D continues to have his faithful supporters.  They accuse his detractors of being overly critical.  One poster recently queried – what has he done that is so wrong?  Many replies articulately and calmly laid out an extensive inventory of  mis-steps, ridiculous tweets,  unconstitutional executive orders, lies, and more.  I will spare you the full run-down.

The defense provided by his supporters, including his appointed representatives as well as those on FB, are consistently a variation of this theme:  “Whatever… but the important thing is that The D is WAY better than    Obama — that guy was horrible! “. 

Somehow, this argument is used to justify anything and everything.  However, it is no argument at all–it is a transparent gas-lighting technique to avoid accountability by shifting the focus to another target or topic.  Any High School debator, worth their salt (or evidence cards) could see through that tactic.  And I speak from much nerdy debate experience.

The D is a master of this technique-never accepting any blame or acknowledging his mistakes by aggressively attacking and shifting blame to others. Obama is one of his favorite targets, along with most of the media, Nordstroms, immigrants, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Americans tend to be an emotional bunch–we make decisions and align our loyalties based on emotion. And, once we have made up our minds on something, no amount of factual information or ‘real news’ will sway us from our views.  Social media tailors our feeds to show us what we want to see–what we already agree with; while also giving us a false sense that we are keeping up with the ‘news’ .

We seem to turning into a post-fact society, where information is readily available, but facts are hard to discern. This is what keeps me up at night (as well as Stephen Colbert wicked monologues).   A charismatic candidate with a sound bite that resonates and lots of media exposure, can be elected without benefit of experience, credentials or actionable policies.  It does not bode well for our future.

And that is why an inexperienced, immature, vengeful and impulsive man has the nuclear codes.

It’s a wonder I sleep at all.

 

 

 

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