DENYING REALITY

Recently during his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump announced that he was giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom award to one of the audience members: right wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh.  The president's own daughter gave him the award right then and there.  The moment was timed for maximum pathos as Limbaugh had just recently disclosed that he had late term lung cancer. 
It might have been moving if not for the fact that Limbaugh has a history of making bigoted and misogynistic statements on his radio show, which in many ways paved the way for Trump's own hate filled speeches.  But beyond his politics, which I find repulsive, there is another reason that it is hard for me to feel much sympathy for Limbaugh: over the years he has repeatedly downplayed the dangers of tobacco smoking while promoting his own love of cigars. 
Limbaugh's denial of the dangers of smoking is part of a pattern that the right wing media has been following for years: the denial of reality.  Put simply, the right wing media promotes the ignoring of basic facts, pushing the notion that because whatever they (and their audience) want to believe is true, is therefore true.  While all human beings engage in some kind of self denial just to deal with getting through our day, the modern conservative movement in this country has reached the point in which it  often seems completely divorced  from reality.
Sometimes this manifests itself in the denial of evolutionary science and other times in the party's dogged faithfulness to Trump, no matter how offensive his statements or obvious his corruption.  It can certainly be seen in Trump's own behavior, from his assertion no less than six times that he was once given the Michigan Man of the Year award (no such award exists) to his claim that the leader of the Boy Scouts told him that his speech to the Boy Scouts Jamboree was the best ever given (he said no such thing). 
On the one hand, ignoring facts and going with strongly held beliefs is often harmless (and, speaking from experience, almost impossible to shake in Trump supporters).  Obviously, people have a right to believe that the earth was created in a week, and as long as you don't use the country's tax dollars to promote the idea, I'm fine with that.  Heck, you can believe the earth is flat if you really want to.
But there are other ways that it can have devastating effects on the world.  Just look at Limbaugh: while we have no way of knowing how many people took up smoking(or refused to quit)  because of him, but given how many listeners he has and how loyal they are to him, it's easy to say that he has had a definite negative effect on some people's health.  And then there are those who think that vaccines for children cause  autism, despite numerous studies to the contrary, that has caused a resurgence in certain illnesses in the country (and to be fair, this is a brand of idiocy that has landed on both sides of the political fence).  And as Nicholas Kristof once pointed out in the New York Times,  right wing denial of reality had lethal consequences  back in 2009 when, during an outbreak of swine flu, right wing commentators (especially Glenn Beck) questioned the Obama's administration's desire to get people vaccinated.  Around 18,000 people died in that outbreak, some of them surely did just out of spite against Obama.
But to me, the single most dangerous denial of reality lies in the Republican party's rejection  of climate change science.  It seems inconceivable that anyone could continue to deny the reality of climate change, given the record high global temperatures and increased droughts and wildfires happening all around the world.  But, according to The Guardian, a few years ago  Sondre Båtstrand at the University of Bergen in Norway published a study looking at conservative party platforms from around the world and found that the American Republican party is unique in its blanket denial of climate change.  Part of this is because oil and coal companies give far more to their party than to Democrats, with the billionaire oil barons Charles Koch and his late brother David spending massive amounts of money spreading disinformation on this issue.  But another reason is that Republicans have branded it as an issue only for Democrats to care about.  It's seems insane that one party in one country can single handedly move the entire world in the wrong direction on such an important global issue, but that's just how big and influential America is.   And there is no indication that the party will ever change its mind, so the only way for the country to move in the right direction on this potential disaster is to vote out as many Republicans as possible.  And that may prove difficult, and even then conservative judges that have been given lifelong appointments may strike down environmental legislation for decades to come.  I hate to just throw up my hands and say that there's nothing that can be done about this issue, but it will be hard, no doubt.  The Republican war on science and reality has been going on for decades, and for now, the party is winning.

HIGH OR LOW?

Former first lady Michelle Obama's most famous quote is a simple and powerful one:  "When they go low, we go high!"  It's a perfect illustration of how Barack Obama won two terms by ignoring the blather of the right wing media and its name calling (Kenyan!  Muslim!  Communist!) and delivering a positive message to the American voters.  But what worked so well for him didn't exactly pay off for the Democrats in 2016, and with Trump as president the wisdom of those words may be called into question.
With the impeachment trial is in the rear view mirror and the November election  looming, the country is not facing a horrifying truth:  Donald Trump may very win a second term in the White House.  With his aquittal, good economic numbers, his highest approval rating ever (49%), and a state of the union speech full of attention getting moments that tried to portray our psychopath in chief as a generous man, not to mention the Democrats chaotic campaign start in Iowa, Trump appears to be running high.  True, a 49% approval rating should be nothing to brag about, and Trump's constant stream of offensive tweets and statements could hurt him during the campaign. but all he needs to do is repeat his election performance from 2016 to win.  Quite frankly, he may go down as the first president in history to win two terms without ever winning the popular vote.

The difficult question for the Dems is how exactly to run against a man who has only run one political campaign in his life and improbably won.  How exactly should a candidate respond to a man who openly lies and spews nonstop childish insults?  There's no easy answer: during the Republican primary contest, Senator Marco Rubio briefly attempted to fight fire with fire, even going so far as to joke about Trump's genital size (no kidding!).  Needless to say that failed.  But then so did Hillary Clinton's attempt to take the Obama route and mostly ignore his bullying and braying.
This is becoming an issue again, as former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has recently entered the Democratic primary.  Trump, who ran into Bloomberg several times over the years, (and who appears intimidated by the fact that Bloomberg is a real billionaire and not  a fake one like him), clearly is worried about Bloomberg's attempt to win the Democratic nomination.  And because the leader of the free world is now a schoolyard loudmouth, he attacked Bloomberg's height, dubbing him "Mini Mike" and going to far as to claim that he wanted to stand on a box during the debates!  Rather than shrug this off, Bloomberg's campaign spokeswoman Julie Wood responded by saying, “The president is lying. He is a pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity and his spray-on tan.”  This is a clear attempt to use Trump's own childish methods against him, attacking not only his honesty but also his bloated vanity.  But if he continues in this kind of attack, will it work?  Personally, I think this may help the Democrats, because while Bloomberg's candidacy is almost certainly going to fail, the billions of dollars he has pledged to spend to fight against Trump in the election means that there will be a stream of powerful negative attack ads aimed at the president while the actual candidate can take the high road, which may prove to be a winning combination.
But what of the Democratic candidates themselves?  My personal favorite is Elizabeth Warren, who has the intellect, charisma and experience to be an effective, progressive leader.  But while I think she would make the best president,  I don't think that she would make the best candidate.  In interviews, even her own supporters worry that the country may reject a female candidate yet again, finding her "unlikable" and "bossy".  The idea that a man accused of sexually  assaulting over twenty different women may beat two female opponents is certainly demoralizing.     That's why I think the best chance for the Democrats is to nominate Bernie Sanders.  Yes he's too old, and he just survived a heart attack, but there's no other Democrat in the field that fires up his base and appeals to young voters  like Bernie does. While I think his followers are often too loyal, with many so called Bernie Bros not voting for Clinton in 2016, the simple fact of the matter is that it may take a leader with a cult like following to defeat another leader with a cult like following.  The crazy thing is, big political differences aside, Sanders and Trump have a similar style on the campaign trail: they are both gruff, tough talking men who rant against a rigged system.  And the genuine desire Sanders clearly has to improve the lives of the poor and the working class in this country contrasts strongly with Trump's fake sincerity for them.  And while the overall economy is good, many districts that Trump won in 2016 are not doing so well, meaning that voters who went with him last time may want to try a different angry white guy who says he wants to upend the system.
In any event, one thing is certain: the bitter ugliness and divisiveness of 2016 is about to repeated, and this time it will be even worse as an unbound Trump will inevitably use every lever of power that he can to win, along with usual lies and insults.  The next eight months will a low point for American democracy, but then America has been sinking lower and lower ever since a reality TV star and failed businessman somehow became a serious candidate.