Beware Misdirection

There is a dawning awareness in the mainstream media that the midterm elections are closer than most actually realize. The importance of the consequences of what we do as a nation seem to have more definition as the clock ticks down to November.

Tom Friedman will have a column this week with a new and more robust warning about how crucial these election decisions will be.  His admonition is simple…..you must vote for Democrats.  Friedman is a conservative Democrat in many ways, but his reasoning is sound.  All the Republicans, save those who are retiring, have surrendered their moral selves to a corrupt leader who is bent on destroying our fundamental institutions regarding the rule of law.  There is no hope that those Republicans currently in Congress will stand up to the conspiracy theories being fostered by a man whose arsenal of arguments is all based on lies.

Now Trump is accusing Democrats of meddling with the midterm elections!  His modus operandi is to accuse without evidence….we’ve seen it all before.  The problem, of course, is that his base and other unengaged citizens simply listen to this mendacious drivel and accept it as fact.  Trump’s malevolent brilliance is that he understands this and is going to be ‘warning’ us from now until November that the election is rigged by the Democrats. 

In his new book, Messing With the Enemy, Clint Watts, senior fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University and a Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow, says Trump’s base ‘believes the impossible and overlooks the obvious’.  For those who get their news from social media or Fox News, these false conspiracies take on the mantle of truth.

Trump continues to incite his base, calling for investigations into red herrings:  Hillary Clinton, the Mueller probe, the FBI, the Justice Department, the deep state, spies in his campaign put there by Obama, etc.  He will continually distract the body politic’s attention toward these canards.  Be ready!

In the meantime there will be a constant harangue against the 'witch hunt'.   Now the arguments are changing.  According to Trump, the collusion is on the part of the Democrats and Clinton’s campaign.  If he repeats this over and over, as he most assuredly will over the next 5 months, many will simply accept these lies as truth.

How do you compete against this nefarious, dark force?

The only way is to call it out.  The Democrats must find the right voice and tactic to call attention to the lies at every turn.  The problem is that there is almost enough in the Republican ‘bin’ of things they have seemingly accomplished to persuade an uninformed voter that they have made real progress.  The only thing positive the Trump administration has achieved was the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch as a Supreme Court Justice.  Republicans will point to their recently passed tax bill; removal of regulations; great ‘trade deals’; ending engagement on the TPP, NAFTA, the Iran Nuclear deal, the Paris Accords on Climate Change, all as major accomplishments.  Rubbish!  All those actions have caused only anger and consternation with our allies and disengagement with the rest of the world; the prospect of huge new national debt projections, not to mention the reversal of regulations protecting our air and water; the emasculation of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency spearheaded by Sen. Elizabeth Warren; and the deconstruction of the State Department.  I could go on, but you get the point.

The Democrats running for office this November must take a more aggressive posture to counter the lies being told by administration and sycophantic Republicans.  The truth must be repeated over and over to dispel the blizzard of false conspiracy theories and misleading statements made by Trump and his minions.

If there is no change in the power structure this fall, then there will be no credible force to oppose the continuation of our downward slide to autocracy and destruction of the rule of law.