History teaches us the past can help predict the future. It is said “if we don’t learn from history we are destined to repeat it”. It is also said “history repeats itself”? Truths we often choose to forget. 

We have the luxury of knowing the history of Germany and the rise of Hitler. How an advanced Western Christian country could in a few short years fall pray to a madman who led the country to some of the greatest crimes in human history. Years from now we will see the history of how a man like Donald Trump could take the worlds greatest democracy – also largely Christian – to the brink of turning that democracy into an authoritarian state. And, like Germany, the starting point was a democratic election. Perhaps some history will cover foreign influence via the internet – false stories planted the Russians or Chinese or others. But that will only be a small part of the story. Much more time will be devoted to the reality that Trump was supported by others along the way – others who gave that support for their own reasons that enabled Trump. In fact if that support had not been there Trump would never have succeeded. The same was true for Hitler.

Much of the blame has been directed towards the Republican Party and “enablers” like Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Jim Jordan and the like. As history will show is that was only one side of the equation – and not the most important side in my view. Worse was the media that supported Trump as that also supported the Republican Trump supporters. If that media had not been prepared to fuel the Trump band wagon and help spread the exaggerations and outright lies, the Republican supporters would have moderated their support accordingly. So the real blame must go to the media that stood to gain – largely a financial gain – from Trump. Rupert Murdoch will not come out unscathed. Nor the architect of Fox “news” Roger Ailes who correctly identified a potential audience that the mainstream media was not covering. The fact that the mainstream did not cater to that audience was simply that it was an audience of grievance, open to conspiracy theories and NOT of news. Ailes was right and Fox made a lot of money out of it. And still does.

Then comes the happy Fox stooges who made out like bandits. Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and the like. Hannity will be one of the figures who will suffer the worst disgrace as he was an unabashed supporter even after the Capital insurrection of January 6, 2021. Though not the brightest tool in the shed, one has to admit that supporting lies can generate substantial personal gain. It will be interesting to see how the Newsmax people come out – and of course internet platforms as well.

Also history will show that there was a prelude to all of this. Extreme right wing pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin who made a nice living fueling gradience, anger and making wild accusations. They laid the groundwork for the Trump era. They proved there was a market for nutty views, conspiracy theories, and general bullshit. Blame also has to be laid on them.

Watching the impeachment hearings today I agree with the gentleman from Wisconsin,  A Republican. He is right. Most of the people at the Trump rally on Jan 6 were protesters who did not invade the Capital and who fear what a Joe Biden government will do versus a Trump win. The problem is WHAT do they fear and WHY? Just listen to Hannity, Ingraham, Dobbs, Limbaugh some members of Congress etc. and we are told that the Democrats are a bunch of commies who want a totalitarian dictatorship and remove all freedoms from the American people. The Democrats will take everyone’s guns, etc etc. These should be obvious lies but as they are repeated over and over again on places like Fox news and now Newsmax and all over the internet they are believed. That President has stated the same lies as the truth AND continues to attack the electoral process saying he won the election when he did not. He has built a house of lies and now it is falling in upon him. He has himself to blame.

Meanwhile the Democrats have a dilemma. They have a bigger base than Trump and that base wants action taken. It’s not just Trump that has a voter base.  AND do they just let slide the obvious seriousness of what Trump and his followers have done? Should there not be consequences? Trump has gotten away with so much that past norms are no longer today’s norms. They may be right that the only way to correct the rot is face it head on and impeach. The problem America faces is places like Fox STILL throw out attacks and lies that do not help the situation. The divide is still encouraged by the media – both right and left. BUT they are not equal because the right wing media is the one telling the vast majority of the exaggerations and outright lies. NO the USA is not going to become a communist state. No the borders are not going to be wide open, no guns are not going to be taken away and the second amendment is not going to be ended. Freedom is not going to end. China is not going to take over America. However what might happen is more healthcare options, focus on climate change, better covid response, respect for our allies and a host of things that do not amount to a dramatic change in the life us Americans have been living for so long. All this talk of “radicle socialist” plots are just right wing bullshit that have as much truth to them as that the election was stolen.

The real tragedy of America – and perhaps the world – is that bullshit is so easy to foster and people believe some pretty crazy things. No matter what we do – who is right and who is wrong – we are stuck in that reality.

Trump is impeached. His support base has not been. Worse, the lies are still being promulgated on social media, and media like Fox and Newsmax. It is still being promulgated by certain members of Congress so the cancer is still there. QAnon still exists as the rather stupid congress member from CO Lauren Boebert has made clear with her crazy tweets. Matt Gaetz from Florida still makes false claims. Trump has not conceded nor corrected the false claims he has been pushing. There are still nutcases keeping the nonsense going.

Fox is under attack from the even more right wing conspiracy platform Newsmax. Interesting if not so damaging to the country. Meanwhile Hannity proves that if Trump is a shit so is he, and just as ignorant. I guess he is stuck having supported Trump for so long its hard to change now – especially when another network is trying to steel your audience. He never had a moral compass anyway nor a sense of patriotism for his country so he keeps on with Trumpish positions and his attacks on anything associated with the Democrats. One has to wonder when and if Rupert Murdoch will at some point realize the damage his Fox channels have helped foster and pull the plug from the Hannity types. Perhaps the advertisers will wake up and pull their ads. That would definitely get Rupert’s attention. Money talks.

Spin Spin Spin, The fallout from the Trump insurrection will offer great educational lessons to the marketer, political pundit, and anyone interested in branding. As I discovered from the days working with big stars like Sting, The Police etc, major companies are super concerned NOT to get themselves into potential consumer loss by being seen as supporting anything that might be considered negative or controversial. There is a lengthy clause in every sponsorship and endorsement contract between stars (music, sports, TV, movies, whatever) and a corporation. There are famous stories of drink companies, shoe companies etc cancelling contracts due to associations that the brand might consider as potential problems.

Banks, PGA and an array of brands cancelling Trump after the Capitol situation is very much that. It is NOT some conspiracy on the left to silence those on the right. In fact many big CEOs, company directors, are Republicans and many probably voted for Trump as he was the Republican candidate. It has always been the case that these corporations donate huge funds to both parties. Many are known to donate more to the Republicans as that party has always been seen as more sympathetic to the rich than the Dems. The Trump mantra of cutting regulation was aimed at pleasing the corporations – so were the tax cuts. So it does not fly to say Corporations are anti Trump – or anti Republican. 

Meanwhile, whatever happened to the “drain the swamp?” Many of Trump hires came from what he called the swamp. One of the great mysteries is how the Trump base (largely of the lower incomes) could go for a guy who was so obviously out for the rich of which he was personally a great example. How he got people to vote against their own interests will be studied for years to come.

Meanwhile the problem is that in so many cases “you are damned if you do and you are damned if you don’t”. Like the current debate over impeachment. If no action is taken does that mean one inadvertently gives license to political figures knowingly spreading falsehoods and paying no price for it? Or does it further divide the country? In fact it does both so what is one to do? There are good arguments on both sides and there are therefore no good answers.

The Solution to the current situation is simple. If Jim Jordan, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruse and other strong Trump supporters came out and said “we had reason to believe the election had serious problems, perhaps significant fraud happened but after looking deeply into the situation found that no claims were serious enough to change the result of the election and we are therefore sure that Joe Biden did in fact win the election fairly and we support the decision of the majority of the American people – the threats and the divide would soon dwindle. Of course if President Trump said the same that would be what is really needed. That President Trump has not, nor it seems will not say that is the fuel that is driving the anger against him from the Democrats, some Republicans and the Corporations.

Fox news, Newsmax and the Trump base can point fingers all they want, spin all they want, offer equalivancies to Black Lives Matter or whatever but in the end the truth is that unlike elections in the past that were far more close, in all cases the looser conceded and the peaceful transfer of power happened with no fear of riots and insurrection.  Trump has neither conceded nor admitted his loss. In fact he continues to say he won. By doing so he continues to feed the lies and maintains the divide in the country. No matter how you cut it – spin it – it is Trump that is the divider.

Fox and Newsmax are claiming the social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook are restricting speech from the right. From what I see that is not the case. Right leaning views are all over the internet with no restriction even on Twitter. What Twitter has done is restrict speech they consider potentially dangerous. The point is that claiming the election was fraudulent with no credible evidence – evidence that has been dismissed over and over by over 60 courts of law – does not constitute right wing views. Such views are lies that may lead to violence. Views that support traditional Republican values, small government, strong military, law and order, etc are on the internet right now and suffer no restrictions.

Meanwhile if a left wing group encouraged violence it too would be taken down. The issue is responsibility. Both right and left can encourage violence.  Free speech can go too far. The danger for Twitter and Facebook is the potential of laws coming in that open them up to being sued. Meanwhile there is plenty of media for any point of view to listen to or watch. If you are right wing there is Fox, right wing pundits all over radio, Newsmax and other outlets. Plenty of places to go to hear what you want to hear with little to make one believe there are other views that one should consider.

One of the great tragedies of the human experience is that it is rare that difficult decisions are made until a disaster happens that makes it patently obvious to everyone that a difficult decision has to be made. In the past people knew that buildings were not built to withstand an earthquake but the cost of making them safe was expensive so most preferred to put it off telling themselves it will all be ok. Then a big one hit and many were killed then building codes were passed. Many regulations of today were created to deal with death and disasters that could no longer be put off. Climate Change will be one of the next ones. It will take a disaster that cannot be denied or conspiracy theoriyed away to finally make us wake up to what should be obvious right now. Today opposition is correct that it will cost tons of money, meaning probably higher taxes, more government intervention AND of course it hits certain big company pocket books (like coal and oil).

The events of the Trump insurrection looks like it will be one of those disasters that finally made people wake up. So many books came out by reputable journalists and the like – and even major Republicans spoke out in the 2016 election including Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruse, Mitt Romney etc. The last four years saw many hide concerns and bury their heads in the sand or simply looked out for their own career or money making interests thinking it will not be so bad. It’s just what the Germans did in the early 1930s, Who wants to think things wont turn out alight if some of what you believe in happens like trains running on time in Germany and conservative judges appointed to the bench in the USA?

One thing that often happens with autocrats is they begin to believe their own bullshit and begin to think they are above the law and can do no wrong, and then go a bridge too far. Hitler did it. If he had not invaded Russia, or turned the German army towards Stalingrad instead of taking Moscow history might be very different. Japan did it. Pearl Harbor was a mistake and a bridge too far that ended that regime. On January 6 Trump did it. Many of his supporters finally woke up. History books will say that his bridge too far saved democracy in the USA.

At the heart of the problem dividing the United States is down to the definition of terms. As Lenin once said ‘if you can define the terms you are 9/10ths of the way towards winning the argument. I have thought of myself as a “conservative”. When I lived in England I was often accused of having “extreme right wing views”. Those views were a belief in “free enterprise”.

Channel 4 TV even did a documentary on me and my views where I said just that. Meanwhile as a journalist of the music paper Melody Maker once explained to me – you believe in free enterprise and Capitalism so that makes you a Nazi. We know that Nazis hate Jews so that makes you anti sematic. In England in the1970s-80s they too got their definitions mixed up. Actually that journalist could not define either Socialism or Capitalism, she just knew one was bad and the other good – or that was what she thought she was supposed to believe. It took a strong willed Prime Minister like Margaret Thatcher to change that and reclaim the language.

Being a conservative normally means small government, lower taxes, strong defense, etc. It has come to include anti-abortion, Climate Change denial, anti gun control and various religions beliefs- and more recently pro Trump and such things as not wearing a mask to counter Covid 19. These new elements are not right-left issues. In the process the word “Conservative” has been changed. At the same time the word “liberal” changed as well. In the USA many now see the word “liberal” as something bad. Strange indeed for a country that calls its political system a “liberal democracy”. We also now see the reverse of what I experienced in England; Socialism was now bad and Capitalism good. As it is now defined I am now not a conservative.

So when we hear various media outlets talking about Socialism or Conservativism, radical socialist views, conservative views depending on ones position on the political spectrum those words have completely different meanings. So of course we are a divided nation. We speak different languages thinking we are talking the same one.

For instance, the latest banning of tweets was NOT against “conservative views” – they were against views that could lead or encourage those that might resort to violence. Whatever one’s view of Trump, one can not deny that his denial of the election results and pushing dangerous untrue lies about that election led to the Capital invasion of January 6. The shock of what he encouraged – or more bluntly – incited, caused many to rethink and see what they had chosen not to see. Unfortunately some media still have chosen not to see and still see the world in a different language. They choose to believe (or say they believe even when they know its not true) “alternative facts”. Until we speak the same language – believe and SPEAK the same facts – we will remain divided.