Civil Commotion

The New York Times reports a survey that confirms what many of us have known all along: Many Americans are ignoramuses who pay no attention whatever to what is going on in the world around them.

A sizable minority of Americans don’t understand that Obamacare is just another name for the Affordable Care Act.

This finding, from a poll by Morning Consult, illustrates the extent of public confusion over a health law that President Trump and Republicans in Congress hope to repeal.

In the survey, 35 percent of respondents said either they thought Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act were different policies (17 percent) or didn’t know if they were the same or different (18 percent). This confusion was more pronounced among people 18 to 29 and those who earn less than $50,000 — two groups that could be significantly affected by repeal.

To say that the Republicans have exploited that ignorance is an understatement.

The Affordable Care Act has benefited millions, and dramatically slowed the rate of growth in health care costs. By any sane measure, it is a success. That’s not to say that it’s perfect; it isn’t. But as I’ve insisted for years, it should be improved as experience reveals problems; it should not be repealed wholesale.

I am sure, and I think most clear-headed observers would agree with me, that hatred of Obamacare/ACA became a proxy for America’s subterranean racism, and that it was then transformed into an alt-right shibboleth: Hate Obamacare, or you’re not one of us. Mercifully, since reality always has the last word, it appears that the Republicans are now headed toward doing what they should have done years ago: Cooperate to repair the law.

… be snarky about a tornado hitting a Southern Baptist church. No.

That is all.

And it isn’t even from The Donald! No. It’s from Albert the Pious.

“Intellectual community”? Seriously? Puh-leeze. Since theologians haven’t even done the needful work of establishing that Our Invisible Friend actually exists, what could theology — the study of god and man’s relationship with god — possibly be but the construction of cotton-candy fairy-castles in the sky?

What value has the claim that “god wants this” or “god forbids that” when it hasn’t even been established that god is real? What do such statements even mean?

There is a reason why theology has nothing to show for itself but Niagaras of bloodshed, and theological disputes can never be settled, but science and engineering have accomplished so much in the last few hundred years, and that reason is that theology doesn’t rest upon established facts. It rests upon make-believe and wishful thinking and alternative facts.

“Intellectual community” my ass.

The Bowling Green Massacre was a hoot — but maybe ol’ Kellyanne, liar-for-hire, simply misspoke? It happens, and I imagine she’s got so much make-believe ricocheting around inside her head that it’s easy to lose track of what is, and isn’t, real. So we all have our few minutes of fun at her expense, and it’s over.

What do you know? It turns out that it isn’t over. In fact, Kellyanne Conway has been peddling the Bowling Green Massacre story for a good while, and has done so in multiple venues.

White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway cited a demonstrably nonexistent “massacre” as justification for President Donald Trump’s temporary immigration ban in an interview with Cosmopolitan magazine days before making headlines by mentioning the falsehood on MSNBC’s “Hardball.”

Worse, The Orange One weighed-in with the news that stories like the Bowling Green Massacre are a commonplace, but the wicked-librul-bedwetting-commie-media is just not covering them.

Speaking to the U.S. Central Command on Monday, President Trump went off his prepared remarks to make a truly stunning claim: The media was intentionally covering up reports of terrorist attacks.

“You’ve seen what happened in Paris, and Nice. All over Europe, it’s happening,” he said to the assembled military leaders. “It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.”

Now, that’s crazy on its face. If a bomb goes off somewhere, there are pictures on the Internet before the first ambulance arrives. Even so, it is a fact that the “Bowling Green Massacre” has joined the list of terror attacks in the mind of some people, and those same people have added another offense to their list of media offenses.

I know some of those people. They actually do believe all this crazy stuff.

When Adolf Hitler needed a casus belli to justify the invasion of Poland, he resorted to a crude deception. He took some prisoners and dressed them in Polish army uniforms, drove them to the border, gunned them down, and then displayed the corpses to a credulous world, saying that Poland had tried to invade Germany but their forces had been repelled.

At least a few reporters noted that the so-called invaders appeared to all have been shot in the back, and that there was no evidence of the general mobilization that would necessarily precede an invasion, but that was drowned-out by the clamor for war.

We all know how that worked out.

The moral of the story is plain: An awful lot of people will believe any insane thing that’s put in front of them, so long as it comes from an authority figure, and they won’t be turned by facts once a stampede is underway.

That’s why it is so important to keep our heads and resist Trump’s cynical demonization of the press; to, in fact, support the press. Competition keeps the legitimate outlets honest. The administration of Donald Trump is building its casus belli right now, and if he succeeds it will culminate in the comprehensive abrogation of our liberties.

History is now, and right here.

“Any negative polls are fake news”? Seriously? It is beginning to appear that a squalling babyman occupies the office, and an unelected coterie are actually running the country.

UPDATE:   And then comes this; maybe The Donald reads this site.