It Happened on Epiphany

3 Comments January 7, 2021 Steve Wiggins

Photo credit: Martin Falbisoner, via Wikimedia Commons

Can you spell treason? It does begin with the letters “T-R-.” The events of yesterday made it difficult to sleep securely in “the land of the free” as thugs took over the capitol building in Washington, and even after that Republicans still contested the electoral votes from Pennsylvania, preferring a treasonous president to a democratically elected Joe Biden. As all of this was playing out, Georgia gave control of the senate to the Democratic Party. Like many Americans born in a democracy, I stared at the news aghast yesterday as Republicans, fully in the public eye, tried to dismantle the very system by which they themselves were elected and even went so far as to claim they were patriots for doing so. They draw the evil courage to do this from their “Christian” faith.

Yesterday was Epiphany, a Christian holiday. To see Republicans—claiming the name Christian—attempting to overturn democracy on that very day was sickening. To my mind it will live on like 9/11 as one of the most dangerous days in US history. When asked to get the crowds that he personally incited to disperse, Trump released a video on Twitter telling his followers that the election was stolen and fraudulent but they should go home. Pouring gasoline on a fire he himself lit, sending both houses of congress into hiding, his snakes-in-the-grass continued to support the myth that Trump hadn’t been defeated. When the smoke clears this American thinks it’s time to dust off laws about treason and start applying them again.

Congressional leaders, and the president, swear to uphold the Constitution—hand on the Bible. In the most closely watched election in history, with no evidence of fraud, when the loser wouldn’t concede his party backed him. The Republican party has been infected with evil, I fear. Even after seeing the turmoil that their posturing caused, they tried to discount the votes from my state just to keep a very dangerous man in power. Our democracy didn’t die yesterday. It died four years ago. Claiming the name “Christian” without ever reading the Bible or attending church or caring about their fellow human beings, the Republican party has gone down in infamy on the feast of Epiphany. The electoral vote count by congress is a mere formality, and I, a native and resident of Pennsylvania, am outraged that anyone claiming the power of a democratically elected office—disputing the very process that gave them any influence at all—questions my right to vote. Why hasn’t treason been invoked? Four years under the influence of the Evil One has shown its effects, and it happened on Epiphany.

Favorite Color

1 Comment November 8, 2020 Steve Wiggins

Blue has always been my favorite color. Even growing up Republican, I preferred it. Like many Americans I awoke last Wednesday to a national map mostly red and pink, and watched gradually as more and more states turned blue. I don’t mind confessing I wept when Biden took the lead in Pennsylvania. These past four years have been torture against all that’s descent and humane. White people killing blacks and being told there are very fine people on both sides of the issue. Watching a virus run out of control here like nowhere else in the world because one man can’t be bothered with the troubles of 330 million (stop and think about that number) people. A man personally enriching himself while not paying his own taxes and getting breaks for those wealthy like himself. Endless lies. Loud, brash, and crude. Groping women as if they are commodities to be owned.

We have, at the embarrassingly late age of 244, finally elected a female vice-president. Many other nations have realized that gender should not be the basis for electing leaders. Poisoned by various forms of Christianity that assert male superiority, our culture has feared female leadership since it has become a real possibility. I voted for Geraldine Ferraro as much as for Walter Mondale in that fateful year of 1984. We’ve actually reached Orwell’s vision of it in 2016, but now it seems there might be legitimate hope. I could never have imagined a presidency that would make me think Nixon, Reagan, and Bush weren’t so bad after all. (And they weren’t good.) This reconstruction of the Republican Party has been courtesy of the religious right, which is really neither.

Today, however, I’m enjoying my favorite color and thinking that hopefully we’ll have some peaceful years to work on true equity and the ideals on which this nation was founded. I’m hoping it will signal to the other fascists of the world that gaming elections only works if people with consciences are complacent. I’ve been told that many Trump supporters think Democrats incite violence. The Dems I know are tree-hugging, owl-saving, vegan types. We value all people, even Republicans, and ask only that all people be accepted. We don’t tote weapons to state houses or threaten those who are counting ballots. Yes, we may fear election outcomes—we’re just humans—but we believe in the process. The many protests in which I’ve marched over the past four years have all been peaceful. And I breathe, as I tear up again at the sight of blue, dona nobis pacem.

State of the Nation

Leave a comment November 6, 2020 Steve Wiggins

It has been a long week. With an incumbent who refuses to tell the truth, we’ve faced three days of knuckle-biting so far and each day stirs up the butterflies of election day. How we could’ve become a nation that is so easily duped into following a man who’s told a record number of bald-faced lies in the West Wing (and anywhere he appears, in fact) is an inscrutable mystery. I guess many people don’t read. Or think critically. This should’ve been barely a contest at all. The Associated Press national map is seared into my eyeballs like a computer monitor left on the same page too long without a screen saver. Going back every few minutes to check for a touch more blue. A sign of hope. Meanwhile, 45 is doing his best to prevent votes already cast from being counted.

We’re a nation under extreme stress. Whoever wins will need to bring deeply divided people back together, but here’s the rub. We know from four years of terrible first-hand experience that Trump can’t do it. Won’t even try. He’s already compared himself to the greatest leaders we’ve ever had. He has no reason, and no capacity to change. Joe Biden is about as mild a Democrat as they come. In saner times he’d likely have been considered a closet Republican. Still, 45’s supporters rail as if he’s some socialist seeking to overturn the American system. Excuse me, but look at the past four years—what precisely do you think was overturned during them? The coronavirus rages, hitting record numbers. The response from the White House? Absolutely nothing.

Even with this there’s uncertainty in the air. I wonder what America’s collective blood pressure is right now? I know my systolic doesn’t feel too good. Any legitimate leader would never fear an honest election. One who tries to tamper with the results has already shown his true character. And priorities. And so we wait. Yesterday the lines from V kept going through my head—“Remember, remember, the fifth of November.” I finished the poem somewhat differently but the word “treason” remained. I could use a little fantasy just about now. As I write this the counters are all asleep. Biden leads in the popular vote by almost four million, a greater lead than Hillary had just four years ago. And it is now November 6, but just barely. At least it’s Friday. We need to appreciate the small things as they come.

Propaganda

1 Comment September 13, 2020 Steve Wiggins

“[F]or the most part, thinking is inherently and irrepressibly liberal.” As much as those who’ve drunk the Trump Kool-Aid (watered down, for sure) might want to deny it, these words by Jeff Kripal are true. Thinking itself is nearly always a liberal activity. This election has become one of propaganda versus thinking. Propaganda is, according to Oxford Languages, “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” People who, I know for a fact, were taught about propaganda in high school (lots of little heads were nodding yes that they understood what propaganda was and then nodding no that they were never fall for it) have now jumped onto Trump’s propaganda bandwagon, claiming that facts are “liberal hoaxes.” Thinking is liberal. Thinking hoaxes, I guess.

Liberals, as I’ve stated repeatedly, don’t take anyone’s word for it. We fact-check. Herein lies the difference. If Joe Biden were to state that Democrats couldn’t win without cheating in the election, liberals would be all over this, fact-checking. Where did he get this idea? Did he cite his sources? Does science concur? And then if he were to lie about having said it, liberals would point out the contradiction. Trump’s followers, who have nearly four years of massive lies, well documented, taped, and public, to draw upon, simply deny he said them. The “liberal hoax” they cite is propaganda, by definition. It is not to be fact-checked because they might not like what fact-checking reveals. In high school we were taught about Nazi propaganda. We all understood. Now we conveniently forget.

This election is about trying to bring a deeply divided nation back together again. Trump’s lies from day one (biggest inauguration ever, although those of us actually there could see the lie clearly) have been about dividing and conquering. Most Trump supporters have no idea what liberals are. The very definition of liberal concerns broadening knowledge. Higher education teaches us not to take anyone’s word for it. Not only do Trump supporters accept his lies about liberal hoaxes, they simply dismiss the fact that liberals’ greatest critics are other liberals. We don’t sit around coming up with hoaxes—we hardly agree with one another! The most insidious thing about all of this propaganda is that Trump supporters distrust those who’ve seen behind the screen. They won’t, however, look for themselves. All the news from all the world lies, they say, if it doesn’t support Trump. Thinking back to high school, I can imagine no better way to illustrate propaganda. At least to those who were willing to pay attention to their teachers. For those who refuse to learn, education itself is all a hoax.