Letter: Threat to America

I had been in agreement recently with those who believed the violent mobbing of our Capitol to stop the certification of our election was as close to overthrowing our democracy as any of us had ever actually witnessed. But after having a conversation with two people I have known for many years, both fellow conservatives, I’m not so sure. One is a local pastor, the other is the husband of a well-known elected official here in the Mat-Su.

Both have told me with conviction, if not glazed eyes, that all was not what it seemed. They say it was people who hated Donald Trump who actually provoked and carried out the insurrection. I tried to take them seriously, although I’m not sure why. Civility, I suppose, warded off an attack of my bile glands. Of course, we had all heard similar delusional blather, early on, from chat room trolls who spin tales for the paranoid and the gullible. But that was then. This is now.

It is hard to fathom how this meme continues after Trump’s own FBI established there was no basis to the craziness, after Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, dismissed it as nonsense and, most telling of all, after those arrested and charged testified as to their motivation. After the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the ragtag procession of myriad backyard militia cranks and red-hatted malcontents each testified, in handcuffs, that it was Trump they supported and on Trump’s specific invitation they acted, it could not be more clear who did what, and why.

Piles of evidence, from the perpetrators’ social media posts, emails and the like, lay it out beyond anyone’s doubt. One would think. But never mind that. In the echo chamber that these two men I spoke with inhabit, facts just get in the way of what they would like to be true. Of course, they only need to turn on the cable TV and search around a bit to find fellow travelers that say all the evidence for this vast left-wing conspiracy “will be coming out soon, just you wait.” They can find a station where everything in their world makes sense, where they can confirm they were right all along, that it was in fact a grand plot by the left, or people who don’t look like them, or if all else seems too patently illogical, the Antichrist.

One thing’s for sure: After all that spirited dialogue, I changed my opinion, which I do from time to time when I get new information. I now think the biggest threat to our democracy is people who are mentally incapable of sorting fact from fiction. This is the cancer that could doom us all.

— Bob Lacher

Wasilla

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