Last updated on 2021-01-09
Guest Column! Intrepid newspaperman Dave Baumeister returns with this commentary on the Presidential election. Our friend Dave composed this essay before Trump’s insurrection yesterday at the United States Capitol:
GREETINGS BLOGOPHILES!
I’m sorry for my year-long absence, but I think we all need to just pretend 2020 didn’t exist!
Actually, I was really hoping my New Year’s resolution would be to never mention Donald J. Trump again. While I haven’t been on the DFP blog, I have been writing a weekly op-ed piece for the Minnehaha Messenger.
As I did here, I like to write about local politics, and I believe that is what you all want to read, but our president has done too many things I felt needed to be addressed.
In fact, I am sure many people think I am an extreme “liberal” and Democrat, but the truth is I am neither…
I just don’t like Donald Trump and what he has done to our country.
As to other legitimate political ideologies, I am always willing to hear, accept and/or debate a variety of positions, but can anyone HONESTLY say they think America is better than it was four years ago?
Our country is a much less safe place to be.
Because of politics, we have fewer friends now. In some cases, relatives aren’t even speaking to each other.
Our position among other world governments is much less than what it was.
People have even made a world-wide health crisis political, making it much harder to deal with.
(Finding ways to make COVID political is no different than saying only Democrats get the flu, or only Republicans get the common cold. Both statements are ridiculous, so adopting philosophies like that would just be inane.)
Again, can anyone HONESTLY say what my cousin and our former President Ronald Reagan did when he compared the United States to the “shining city on a hill” from the Sermon on the Mount?
Do we really think the rest of the world sees us that way, when most of the people who live here no longer believe that?
Up until recently, the United States was tops on the planet when it came to the Constitutional Democracy of our government.
Last weekend in Sioux Falls, there was a “Stop the Steal” rally for Trump.
First of all, nothing had been stolen from him, as around 60 court cases, many presided over by judges he appointed, all said there was no basis for any of his lawsuits.
In fact, the presidential election of 2020 was probably the most secure and accurate election that has ever been held in this country.
The people who are complaining about that are upset because their candidate lost.
However, in every election, one or more candidates lose. That is the way elections work.
And that is the way elections will always work. If people don’t want to accept that, it simply means they are against free elections.
By the way, if any of my readers believe that, then North Korea, Russia, China or Venezuela would love to have you move there. In fact, if you give me a call, I’ll help you pack and load the moving van.
Voters determine elections. Not courts, not Congress, and certainly not other candidates.
To insist on another outcome is to deny the democratic system our country is based on.
At the aforementioned rally, South Dakota Speaker of the House Steve Haugaard (R-Sioux Falls) was present. He is also pushing an agenda in Pierre to have millions of legal votes from other states declared invalid, just because his candidate didn’t win.
How could the people of Sioux Falls been so blind as to elect a person who truly hates democracy, free elections and the United States Constitution?
However, Haugaard’s actions at Sioux Falls rallies and in Pierre are meaningless.
But maybe the Speaker of the South Dakota House of Representatives isn’t an evil democracy-hater, but he just needs to take a civics class that Gov. Noem was trying to push two years ago in order to learn how American democracy and states’ rights work.
However, I am afraid it is more likely that Haugaard thinks his own personal beliefs should hold sway over everything and everyone else.
Either way, if he really thought he was going to accomplish something through his actions, it seems that Rep. Haugaard may not the brightest bulb in the strand of Christmas lights.
How did we get here? What I’ll call legitimate Republicans foolishly tried to tap Trump’s power base, but propaganda blogs and “news” sites are just as much to blame. A few years back I said, “Activist Journalism” was dangerous because people would simply go to their favorite bias factory and not read hard news. My concern was tossed aside by commenters, I was told “everybody knows,” but this is what’s happened. We don’t have an honored and trusted news source we all watch, no Walter Cronkite, but Breitbart, PJ Media, etc, on the crazy right. I’ve directed plenty of criticism toward Cory and far-left sites all of which have contributed to extreme polarization. Shame on the Republican establishment who tried to harness Trump, an obvious psychopath called out by his own family, but also shame on clickbait propagandists, fake news sites, social media companies like Facebook who have benefited, Twitter who let Trump rouse his troops for way too long, and any media source whose main purpose is to agitate by grievance, provide opinion mixed with news and not accept the role they’ve played in dividing this country, for it’s nothing to be proud and you’re part of the problem.
What use was it for wingnuts to demand kids be forced to say the “Pledge” every day when they, themselves, don’t understand its meaning?
Happy give it a rest.
138 House Republicans — 65.4% of the GOP caucus — voted to disenfranchise Pennsylvania notwithstanding what happened on Wednesday.
Propagandists on the left are just as much to blame. You called these people deplorable and pushed them into Trump’s arms so of course they became loyal to him. The new, “progressive” Democratic Party didn’t want them. Not all these people are bad people, but operating under many false beliefs. Now Cory The Propoganist is saying they should stop being stupid – talk about hypocrisy – they were simply swayed by other propagandists. You better look in the mirror before it’s too late and make sure you’re happy with what you see.
What part of what we witnessed yesterday in our Capitol was not “deplorable”?
Well Mr. Baumeister, there’s another guy from Sioux Falls that made the news in DC yesterday to mingle with the mob. Jason Bjorklund is the boys name, who said “he just felt compelled to be here”. He also said there were ” mountains of evidence of fraud” Now apart from his ignorance it would be nice to know if he illegally broke into the capitol wouldn’t it? I’m sure with that sense of stupidity he’s already made a name for himself in South Dakota
MAGA is a cult. To the near demise of this nation, we have treated it as a political entity; it is not; it is a cult.
Persuasion, rational discussion, facts, all mean nothing to the MAGA follows; only the words of President Trump matter. His word IS fact for them. Finally, those followers mean NOTHING to President Trump; they are only tools to his personal advancement.
At a time when political discourse has become inflammatory and only the most radical find the air to be heard, it is unfortunate that the warnings about Trump were regarded/dismissed as so much histrionics.
Is anyone really surprised how this Presidency is ending?
Come on Happy, most people don’t like getting run over in the middle of the road.
Saying both sides are to blame is the same as saying there are fine people on both sides. It is not that difficult to distinguish media that operate with accuracy, honesty, integrity, and decency from those that don’t. False equivalency is just a way of condoning those that don’t.
It also is clear that unlike Lincoln in the Civil War, the President of the Union is not for the Union, he is with the traitorous secessionists.
Did President Trump and his administration open the Capital to this attack?
I am with Happy that news sites aren’t really in the business of news anymore and that hurts the country. Where he goes completely off the rails is saying they are equally responsible for yesterday’s insanity.
Surprised drumpf hasn’t bragged about the size of his insurrection crowd, yet? Biggest ever? Bigger than Obama’s?
I’m not off the rails you have to step back and look at the dynamics. It actually doesn’t take that long to become brainwashed. Read the science. If you are immersed you will no longer be able to “distinguish media that operate with accuracy, honesty, integrity, and decency from those that don’t.” That’s why propaganda works. That’s why it exists. These people at the bottom were thrown away, Trump embraced them, told them he would bring their jobs back, told them he loved them. Without propaganda from the left, constant finger-pointing, calling them ignorant yet full of white entitlement, these people of lowest means had nowhere else to turn. None of you will accept them. On this blog I’ve never seen an ounce of understanding given to their concerns, just hate, so what did you think was gonna happen?
Oh happy, its not hate you see. How can I hate fools who give me so much pleasure and joy in pointing out their utter ignorance. A proper gander I will always be, in the original sense of the term. Read the story.
“These people at the bottom were thrown away” and “these people of lowest means” seems an accurate description of people seeking safety for their children and family, some sort of economic opportuntiy, and a measure of freedom who came to the United States in hope of finding those things and being accepted as contributing members of the US population. My recollection, as flawed as it is, is that most on this blog argued that these people deserved acceptance and compassion. Trumpublicans, however, demonized these people, labeling them with the hateful derogatory name “illegals” and supported arrest, incarcaration and banishment for the alleged misdemeanor/administrative rule violation of not having “papers” that Trumpists need not carry due to the mere serendipity of where they happened to be born.
“These people at the bottom were thrown away” and “these people of lowest means” seems an accurate description of people like 12 yearold Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, and so many others killed by law enforcement. My recollection also is that most on this blog argued that these people did not deserve to be killed. Trumpublicans, however, demonized people protesting these killings.
“These people at the bottom were thrown away” and “these people of lowest means” seems an accurate description of people who were brought to the United States by immigrant parents as children, but lacked certain paperwork. My recollection also is that most on this blog argued that these people deserved acceptance as Americans. Trumpublicans, however, demonized these people and argued that because of the perceived crimes of their parents these young people deserved to be uprooted from the only homes they have known and forcibly banished from the borders of the United States.
“These people at the bottom were thrown away” and “these people of lowest means” seems an accurate description of children seperated at the border from their parents and caged. My recollection also is that most on this blog argued that these people deserved to be reunited with their parents and released from the cages. Trumpublicans, however, argued these young children deserved such treatment followed by banishment because of the perceived crimes of their parents.
And then there is this:
https://medium.com/@omeara.17/trump-voters-arent-who-you-think-they-are-1cb0051d20f
It seems a stretch for anyone, Trumpublican apologist or otherwise, to now attempt to describe such Trumpublicans as “people at the bottom [who] were thrown away” and “these people of lowest means. ” And if the attiude openly expressed by Trumplicans toward the people making up each of the above groups of men, women, and children who simply sought a better life or to be left alone to live in peace doesn’t qualify as “deplorable” then I don’t know what the hell does.
It would have helped If Thune paycheck Rounds and the slow Dusty would have spoken up earlier .They put themselves first over country, now were starting to hear a little chatter. then the Covid Queen campaigning in Georgia how embarrassing.
Secretary of State Pompous A-O said these criminals need be brought to justice immediately. I remember him saying a week or so go he would help preside over a peaceful drumpf second inauguration. He is as much responsible for the chaos and assault on the capitol as drumpf and the Prowd Boys.
As far as wingnuts having been thrown away, they suffered the same fates as millions of others in America who didn’t deify drumpf’s attempts to tear America apart for drumpf’s personal gain. They are still showing the willingness to believe every lie drumpf tells them about the election, the pandemic, whose taking their jobs, the state iof the union, and America’s failing stature around the wortld.
Welcome back, Mr Baumeister. Your previous columns got pretty good feedback, if memory serves.
Bau Bau Bau. Rubber biscuit.
This guy is a real piece of shi…work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENlL-Uru-cM
drumpf sounds like he had nothing to do with riots in the capitol.
While bcb, in my opinion, provides fitting examples to the phrases happycamper used, as I ponder the many people who voted for Trump and since then regretted it and withdrew support for him, whether the day after his election or as late as yesterday, I fear a disconnect between the two commenters likely exists. While immigrants and their offspring suffer much, so too have many citizens given US birth certificates upon birth long suffered in ways that made them susceptible to propaganda as happy describes, and I would agree much language in DFP comments in the last four years (hell, including my own for all I can remember) could easily look to such people like hatred, derision, nonacceptance, etc. I’d suggest we all wonder how we would respond to anyone speaking of us in ways we speak of those we don’t know.
And I hope everyone will consider the main points in this article about yesterday: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/01/lets-remember-how-authoritarianism-takes-hold
I do think happy has falsely equivocated various sources as fitting together under the term “propagandists”, however. Anyone promoting a particular perspective can be considered a propagandist, but I think Cory tries much harder at accuracy and honesty than sources like Breitbart, for example. I haven’t looked at Breitbart in a while, though, so accept it may look different now.
Thanks, Mike! Good to be back. I am thinking my next column should generate a few comments too…
This Atlantic article explains Cumulative Extremism. One side, let’s say the Far Right, mobilizes the Far Left, the dynamics flow back and forth, the divide deepens and forces normally apolitical people to take sides as rhetoric reaches fever pitch. “America’s Left and Right radicalize each other,” remaining a centrist becomes very difficult, but they are all bad, we are all good is childishness, dangerous, and you know it’s not true. Love your fellow Americans even if you don’t agree with them. Written in October, her words are worth consideration.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/left-and-right-are-radicalizing-each-other/616914/
I just finished that Atlantic article. Anne Applebaum appears to have attempted gatekeeping what is and is not “radical”, “extreme”, “acceptable”, etc. For example, like “political correctness” before it, the right has made cancel culture a bogeyman, some of them to massive profits (think Jordan Peterson, who rose to prominence on a false premise regarding university policy). Like many others, she also draws false equivalence between the far left and far right. The left and right do not share the same blame for certain types of violence, and unlike those in the far right Boogaloo Movement, I know of no leftists who advocate civil war, let alone insurrection. My point is: I think any “cumulative extremism” happening here isn’t quite analogous to her examples of events in other countries.
Also, her pride in signing onto that Harper’s letter drives further suspicion, especially given how she so casually dismissed that letter’s critics. Please consider: https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/news-brief-the-harpers-letter-and-our-extremely-narrow-self-serving-definition-of-cancel-culture
I’m with you in loving our fellow people, though, not just fellow Americans. The more we approach each other with humility and a keen ear, the more likely we are to reduce our tensions and resolve issues, I think.
I tend to concur with Caleb’s post after reading Applebaum’s opinion piece. I have continually searched for a credible factual source for the “equivalency” argument that the cause of today’s discord comes just as much from “the left” as from “the right.”
So far, this seems to be the only credible claim for such an argument:
I have searched for modern examples of the left attacking or suppressing or in any way trying to harm some weak minority or some group because of characterics beyond that group’s control, such as skin color, place of birth, etc, but to no avail. The exact opposite seems to be true with the right as it is relatively easy to find the right advocating for harming such relatively weak groups or assisting the strong.
But I remain open to any credible information that contradicts my findings so far, whether I find it by searching further or whether someone can assist me by directing me to some credible example.
I will point out that without actually researching the matter I have a strong suspicion that people from both the left and the right have been serial killers, bank robbers, thiefs, rioters, vandals, insurrectionists, etc. Simply identifying someone who has arbitrarily broken the law, whether they claim to identify as right or left, is not credible evidence in my view to support the claimed “equivalency” of the left and the right. So finding some bozo that claims to be a Democrat and advocates killing the police or destroying property will not serve as evidence or an example of equivalency.
And on one other hotbed issue – abortion – I have not found any credible evidence that the left seeks to encourage or force women to obtain abortions. The idea that the right is protecting innocent fetuses from the left is a fiction. Instead, the right is trying to protect innocent fetuses from women regardless of political affiliation who have become pregnant against their wishes or who have had a pregnancy go terribly wrong and want to exercise their existing Constitutional right of privacy from the state to decide for themselves the fate of their own bodies. Hence the left’s position that these women should be left alone or that they should be able to get medical help does not strike me as evidence of an attack of innocent fetuses, and as such is not in my view credible evidence of any equivalency between abhorent behavior by the left and the right.
But that said, I am certainly willing to consider extremist views of left leaning groups targeting the helpless or weakest among us as credible evidence of the “equivalency” between the right and the left so often claimed.
C’mon, bcb, the left always targets the weak billionaires for more taxes. In reality, billionairers are nmore endangered by wingnut magats trying to make them trillionaires.
Sad moment in real journalistic history. Gentleman who broke Pentagon Papers story in NYT, Neil Sheehan, has passed away.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/07/neil-sheehan-pentagon-papers-reporter-vietnam-author-dies-456144
What a time to be alive and into news.
FBI says no evidence of antifa in Wednesday’s armed insurrection of capitol bldg. Blame white scumacysts..
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/533432-fbi-no-evidence-antifa-involved-in-capitol-riot
4112 covid deaths Thursday. New one day record.
happy camper, I believe some leftists are violent and a bit deluded, but I still don’t believe the far left is very comparable to the far right. I just spent about an hour looking at various videos and reading comments under them on BitChute. Please check it out (if you haven’t), and let me know if you can think of any leftist outlet where users seem so absolutely detached from reality. I’m genuinely interested in finding out the extent of crazed leftists.
I am again with Caleb and “I’m genuinely interested in finding out the extent of crazed leftists.” I join Caleb’s in request that Happy, or anyone else, would please ” let me know if you can think of any leftist outlet where users seem so absolutely detached from reality.”
Yup, Caleb and Bear Creek are right. Just the nature of the “left” and “right” explains it. Yes, there are crazy people at every point of the political spectrum that are violent, but they are not crazy because of a political slant, they are just crazy to begin with. The meaning of being on the “left” or liberal is that a person embraces change. People who are on the “right” or conservative don’t want change. But the world is always changing, whether people like it or not. People who don’t want change are more likely to be violent to keep things as they are (or were). People on the left who might be violent are that way because they and theirs have been treated poorly by the people on the right for so long that they erupt. Think about it. If there are people who don’t want change, then they are the ones who want to keep the “downtrodden” in the same state as they have previously been in. They only way for the downtrodden not to be downtrodden is to fight back. But those who are downtrodden are not the one starting the fight.In fact, they are only fighting because they are being treated so poorly. This would have been seen in Colonial America. People here did not want to fight the British until the British made things so intolerable that they had no choice. The reason they fought is because the British wanted to abuse (tax) the American colonists so their lives in England wouldn’t change. The violence didn’t come from the “left” (the Americans) until those on the “right” (the British) forced it on them. But today, others on the left, are never going to be violent. As a whole, people don’t invade government buildings when they want less CO2 in the atmosphere or college expenses to be reduced.