“Ingenuity was apparently given man in order that he may supply himself in crises with shapes and sounds with which to guard himself from truth.

William Faulkner

 

 
Well, it appears we’ve finally gotten to the bottom of the miraculous loss of the Democrats in the presidential election, and nearly every other election that occurred in November. As it works out, the Russians were the only followers of American politics to discern that Donald Trump had a chance to win the election, or so the theory goes, and took it into their computer grubbing paws to meddle in our election by doing the job of the American press in revealing the nature of the Democratic National Committee. Yes, apparently the indiscretions in the Podesta and Wasserman Schultz correspondences were the ice berg that sank the Clinton Titanic. Of course, Clinton’s candidacy was already vulnerable because of all those fake news stories, though I’m afraid I can’t recall any that I took seriously. They sprung up on-line, undermining our devotion to the well spring of inerrant truth, the mainstream media; and the gullible, the naive, and the moronic were obviously seduced from their natural abode, the Democratic party, to vote for the Trump juggernaut.

“Looky-here Ethel, says here that Hillary Clinton is really the secret girl child of MaoTse Tung! Says she’s gots kids chained in her basement, and wants to give Californy back to them Mexicans. We best change our votes to Republikans this go ’round… says here Trump gonna fix the ‘conomy and make us all rich… must be true, it’s on the intra-net!”

And so the supposed gullibility of the American voter (anywhere outside of the coastal meccas of the illuminated) was wooed by the lies of fake news, and then ravished by the truth exposed by the Russian hackers. In much the same way that an amateur video on You-Tube was the cause of the the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, and the taking of four American lives, we are now to accept that fake news and Russian hackers are the nefarious cause of the Trump victory, especially now that the re-counts seem to have come up empty on delegitimizing the rust-belt surprise.

It’s a tough sell. First we’re to believe that along with a basket of deplorables, there is also a gargantuan basket of gullibles swept away in their naivety by fake news on FaceBook and Twitter. Then, we are to accept that the Russians had some secret knowledge, that with a hacking operation showing the American public the truth, they could somehow do what every expert said could not be done, the election of Donald J. Trump. If the Russians were somehow involved, and by Russians I mean government operatives, not bored Ivan with a bottle of vodka in his mother’s basement; then I suspect their goal was just to keep Hillary from having a mandate by shaking things up a bit. If, as the CIA suspects, the GOP was hacked as well, then possibly the hackers were more interested in general mischief, or maybe Wiki-Leaks were the ones who discriminated against the Dems, or maybe the GOP emails just weren’t scandalous. But Chuck Schumer seems to think this is on the level of the Cuban missile crisis, that we should be “shaken to the core” over Russian meddling in our elections. Seriously, don’t they realize that we are the only nation allowed to meddle in other countries’ elections? Of course, we don’t want enemy nations to mess around with our elections, or violate our digital information banks; that’s something our Government should protect us from, the Government currently headed by Democrats. It would be poetically ironic if the Russians who Clinton and Obama poo-pooed in the last election were truly their undoing in this one. The truth is the hacking only served to confirm the things people already suspected. If your enemy shows your wife that you’re cheating on her, you can’t say that he broke up your marriage, you did that; whatever his motivation he only showed your wife what she already knew, that you don’t deserve her.

No, there’s been a revolution. The old paradigms no longer hold, and the Democrats can’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The strangle hold the mainstream media had on information (read propaganda) is done, and fear mongering over “fake news” and veiled threats regarding censorship will not bring back the glory days for the liberal press. The next progressive idol to be torn down is education. The only way we retreat at all from this vector is if Mr. Trump brings us there by committing the error of spineless republicans and milquetoast men, trying to please those who cannot be pleased with anything short of your destruction. President Obama, after insisting that the election was a referendum on his policies, now insists that it was not. After all, he harkens to his high polling for popularity… yes, the same polling that said Trump couldn’t win… and translates that as support for his agenda. It’s like the hot girl in high school who thinks the boys appreciate her for her intelligence. Barack looks good in a suit, he’s got a good sense of humor, good oratorical style and timing, good family, no real scandals, was gracious at the beginning of his term, and now again at the end; he’s black, he plays basketball, knows Beyonce, and looks good in a bathing suit… he’s cool. That’s what people like. That’s what I like. Give the devil his due, but nothing more, it’s his persona that is popular, not his policies; wrap up his policies and stick them on Hillary Clinton, and they go down in flames.

IMHO: Democrats tried to move too far, too fast, and in the wrong direction. 2016 is when the voters, no longer encumbered by the likability of Barack Obama, said, “enough already”. Blaming the Russians or fake news sites is evading the truth… you would have been bad for America. Like the old Scooby-Doo cartoons always ended, so ended the Clinton/Obama legacy, “I’d a gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling Russians!”. Truth is, it was the truth that offended most Americans, not the lies, and more lies won’t fix anything.