Don’t expect delusions about Trump to vanish

Sticking to our guns is more admirable when “we” do it than when “they” do it. That’s why the Greek historian Herodotus praised the 300 Spartans slain in 480 B.C. for bravely refusing to surrender to King Xerxes’ huge Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae, and Americans still memorialize the suicidal courage of outnumbered Texans massacred by the Mexican army at the Alamo in 1836.

It’s said, “History is written by the winners,” which is why Americans are unlikely to remember fanatical death cults such as ISIS or the kamikazes as heroes. However, history is not always written by the winners. After the Civil War, Southern historians mythologized the Confederacy’s failed insurgency, promoting the malignant legend of the “Lost Cause,” which Ulysses S. Grant called, “one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.” That Cause was “states’ rights” — specifically, their God-given right to enslave, abuse and sell one’s fellow human beings.

The godliness of this cause was reinforced by the powerful, proslavery Southern Baptist church, which had formed in a schism with Northern abolitionist Christians. The Rebels could cite Old Testament guidance on how to treat one’s slaves, as well as St. Paul’s admonition, “Slaves, obey your masters” (Ephesians 6:5). And Jesus, who often spoke out against social injustice, never once condemned slavery. (The Confederates were also convinced they couldn’t be beaten by the North, because one Southern gentleman was worth 10 Yankees, which made their surrender at Appomattox an unbearable outcome.)

Germany’s defeat 50 years later in World War I engendered a similar lost-cause mentality. Appalled at being crushed militarily by the Allies, many Prussians came to believe in “The Stab in the Back,” which blamed the debacle on spineless politicians and, of course, the Jews. Exacerbated by the punitive armistice (aka the “Diktat”) imposed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, anger at this alleged betrayal abetted Hitler’s rise in the 1930s.

The Nazis would come to worship a messianic Fuhrer who vowed never to allow them to be humiliated again. This cult of personality and the lust to make Germany great again kept them fighting long after their cities had been razed and their defeat was inevitable. At the Asian end of the Axis, the Bushido code, based on Japan’s militaristic Shinto religion and the cult worship of Emperor Hirohito, made giving up unthinkable, even with Japanese cities in ruins, and its once-invincible military routed worldwide.

A few decades later, we adopted a lost cause of our own. Based on the fallacy of American exceptionalism in which the United States wins every war it undertakes, we blamed our defeat in Vietnam on the politicians, as well as the liberal media. The myth that “they wouldn’t let us win” surfaced in Reagan-era movies of the 1980s, such as the “Rambo” series. During the past four years of phony hyper-patriotism, the pendulum has swung. I’ve heard Vietnam vets who once regretted their tours in Southeast Asia and envied the draft dodgers, now boast proudly about their service and condemn those who had denied the United States a victory. This stab-in-the-back attitude toward lost causes can make one’s grasp of reality dubious.

Just in case he lost, Donald Trump insisted the 2016 election was rigged before the first votes were cast. Despite winning the electoral college, he pretended the popular vote, which he lost by 3 million, had been stolen. In 2020, he claimed, “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.” After losing it bigly, it became obvious the KoolAid of “Cult 45” impairs the critical thinking of those who have drunk it.

Logic is a major casualty of what deluded right-wingers call “The Steal.” Typical is this Facebook meme, repeatedly posted by Trump cultists: “133 million registered voters in USA. Trump 74 million. That leaves 59 million. So how did Biden get 81 million?” (The implication is Biden’s tally must have been fake, but, to no one’s surprise, a Reuters fact check showed there were actually 206 million registered voters.)

The total number of ballots aside, that addled meme makes no sense anyway, because this formulation is necessarily equally logical: “133 million registered voters in USA. Biden 81 million. That leaves 52 million. So how did Trump get 74 million?” I have no trouble believing that, although the amoral liars and traitors in the Trump camp were in a better position to rig the 2020 election than the Democrats, they could still lose in a landslide. Nonetheless, despite the recounts and lost lawsuits, including those decided by Trump-appointed judges, the “MAGAts” still can’t bring themselves to concede defeat.

With legal avenues exhausted, this lost cause metastasized into the first insurrection led by an American president against his own country, and the first-ever siege of the Capitol. However, even inciting treason was not enough to make deplorable cult warriors and Trump-fearing politicians hold their Dear Leader responsible. As a result, he also became the first president to be impeached and unpunished twice, even though not even the bootlicking leader of his toadies, “Moscow Mitch” McConnell, considers him exonerated.

Trump still publicly claims his presidency was stolen by an implausible coalition of liberals, moderates, the media, the Deep State and even some disloyal Republicans. Whether he actually believes this or it’s just one more grifter’s scam to raise money for a future army of defense attorneys remains to be seen.

But what’s most daunting is the damage this lost cause can do to our democracy. Even 75 years after Hitler’s demise, neo-Nazis remain a powerful force in America, and 150 years after Reconstruction, white supremacy is again on the upswing. With their messianic zeal, such delusions, both old and new, are unlikely to be abandoned anytime soon.