A few thoughts about what ‘they’ have to say

The hypocrisy is breathtaking. The illogical rationalizations. The huge generalizations. The substitution of insults for arguments. Some recent examples:

[Letter writer] Gerald Holland says the Dreamers come from “semi-civilized countries.” (You might think that a nation with a school shooting every second day was semi-civilized.) Twelve countries from Mexico to Chile had universities before Harvard was established in 1636.

Dan Schillinger misuses Orwell’s concept of Newspeak — a brainwashing language used by an all-powerful regime — to describe weird propositions that nobody ever put forward, such as “Antifa is protecting the Second Amendment.” Schillinger may not have noticed that Republicans, who control all three branches of government, are in the best position to impose Newspeak.

So many examples. Obama was the worst president ever, they said. Why? Because of too many executive orders, too much golf, too many expensive vacations. But Trump in his first year has already outdone Obama’s eight years of executive orders, golf, vacation costs. Silence.

OK, but Trump is a businessman, they say. We need to be led by businessmen. Business is always good, whether it’s Enron, Monsanto, Peabody Coal, Goldman Sachs, or 19th century robber barons. And we know Trump is a successful businessman, because he told us so. We don’t need to see his tax returns.

Our president may be sleazy and racist but they say “so what?” Other presidents weren’t perfect either. Besides, he appointed an anti-abortion justice. They pretend there was no abortion before Roe vs Wade, no back-alley tragedies, no well-to-do women going abroad. They like to use circular arguments, defining abortion as murder, and, of course, all the world religions oppose murder. Strangely enough, for so important a sin, the word abortion never appears in the Bible.

They say we actually like him because he acts macho and has to pay off porn stars. He uses filthy language and dumps on our favorite scapegoats. What a man!

And then they say, “well, he’s our duly elected president, so just deal with it.” Forget about the CrossCheck voter suppression, gerrymandering, an election decided by 100,000 votes, the way the recount was squelched, the Russian intrusions into voter files.

Do they know a lot of dictators started out by being elected? Mussolini, Marcos, Mugabe, Hitler, Assad, Putin, etc. Elections alone are no guarantee. Have people forgotten history or did they never learn it?

CORALIE KOONCE

Fayetteville