Impeachment Trial Episode Recap

aka Fear and Loathing in a Gaslit, Surreal, Mind Blown Nation

The opening video presented by the Democrats was definitely the Trump they’ve seen for the last four years. It was the Trump Jake Tapper sees. The Trump all of Twitter sees. The Trump many millions in America believe exists. The frothing stomping Hitler screaming at people to arm themselves and start shooting people - preferably anyone not white. It was a movie worthy of a Stephen K. Bannon production - full of drama and hyperbole, hysteria and fear. It was everything the Democrats could hope for, neatly clipped and wholly manipulative to shame the Republicans into finally convicting Hitler.

During Trump’s five rallies per day in the last days of his campaign he showed a similar video to his supporters. It was similarly manipulative, full of fear, hysteria and hyperbole. It showed his rally goers and any media that might have been filming his rally (none did) the same kind of propaganda the Democrats used on Day One. They decided in 2016 that they would do everything Trump does. He goes low? We go lower. He manipulates with disinformation and propaganda, so too will we. It is not about the moral high ground anymore. It is about winning and losing. Anything goes.

What was missing on Day One? Well, the actual truth. But we’re used to that now, right?

Also missing was what else might have led to the frustration of Trump supporters that day. The frustration in a media that has been delivering nonstop propaganda day in and day out, presenting the Trump that doesn’t really exist except in their heads. Anyone who steps out of the bubble on the left and judges for themselves can plainly see that. Protests in this country are meant for those with no voice. But on the Left right now, if you’re white, and you’re poor, and you support Trump - you have no voice because you do not matter. You are not even really considered an actual human. You have been grouped and smeared and dehumanized as “white supremacists.” Now, if they’re ready to destroy Abe Lincoln and Winston Churchill, what do you imagine they’ll do to your average Trump supporter?

Now we know from the TIME magazine article of the secret “cabal” there was something strange about the election and yet, the objections were ignored, mocked and eventually shut down. Does that mean they should have broken into the Capitol like a frothing angry mob out for blood? Of course not. But why is their anger any less valid than anyone else’s? It wasn’t just about the election RESULTS, it was about the last four years and the way the election was conducted. Why can’t we all talk about what we saw with our own eyes? Because we are being gaslighted. We must adhere to the narrative. Not the truth.

Trump’s defense can and should show just how bad the violent riots became over the Summer that the media mostly never showed. Remember how it took so long for anyone on the left, much less Biden and Harris, to “denounce” the violence? And when they finally did it was a sentence or two, “we condemn violence on both sides.” The Democrats did nothing to stop the burning of cities. In fact, you were shamed for it if you voiced an objection. Many more people died than on January 6. Trump was called a Fascist for sending in Federal Troops until there was no other option.

One reason I have soured on Democrats of late, and especially the media that supports them, is that I recognized how far from the truth they have drifted at the hands of social media. They are afraid of Twitter and afraid of people like AOC on Twitter. What goes viral is never the nuanced truth. It is always the whipped up hyperbole. That is one of the many reasons people supported Trump, not because they were “white supremacists,” but because Trump, for all of his faults, pushed back against the rising madness on the Left.

If the impeachment were over Trump’s claim that the election contained “widespread fraud” and that he “won in a landslide” I would see that as a better argument than incitement of violence. But that’s covered under the First Amendment so they could get no conviction. They can’t get a conviction anyway but at least there could be a debate in the Senate about the election itself - which is probably a much more healthy use of the time. America desperately needs its leaders to be fighting for them and their survival. Only the truly privileged in America - the ruling class - have the luxury to care about $500 million wasted on the troops protecting DC and a trial in the Senate the outcome of which has already been determined.

It’s true that we live in two different Americas with two different realities and if you don’t pull yourself out of one bubble and spend time in the other, you won’t have any idea what the other world is actually like. That is where we are in February of 2021 with no end in sight.

Trump used his last days in office to spare his own ego from the humiliation of losing. It was a disaster. But he’s out of office now and impeaching Trump isn’t going to improve the equally disastrous state of the Democratic Party, its horrifying inclination towards authoritarianism, the denial by the media that it’s happening at all, and the gaslighting — the gaslighting. Win or lose, as long as the Democrats are THIS crazy, Trump will remain appealing to a great many whose voices still aren’t being heard.