Burke: You’re entering a dimension of fakery, The Gaslight Zone
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, September 13, 2023
By Tom Burke / Herald columnist
Let’s talk elections; specifically two: November ’23 and November ‘24.
While I’ll be writing more about them in the future I thought it might be useful to take a trip now into a land of fantasy, like the one described by Rod Serling (and yes, somewhat adapted) as he introduced his iconic TV show in 1959:
“You’re traveling though another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a not-so-wondrous MAGA-land, whose boundaries are fascist imaginations and assertions completely untethered to truth. That’s the signpost up ahead – your next stop, the Gaslight Zone!”
Now, as they once asked on home-front World War II, “Is this trip really necessary?”
Yes, gentle reader it is.
Because campaigning Republicans will be gaslighting — the politically-correct term for lying — you more than ever over the next fourteen months.
You’ll hear their falsehoods; distortions; untruths.
It will be about Democratic party positions, Trump’s trials, Democratic candidates, the economy, the war in Ukraine, immigration, the budget, abortion, racism, guns, elections, Joe Biden, books, LGBTQ+ issues, schools, the Constitution, diversity and a lot more.
And by taking this brief sojourn into the Gaslight Zone now, it may save you later from being duped by the crap that Republicans will be shoveling out to win your vote.
We can start with the biggest gaslighter of all, Donald Trump, and his legal defense against his Mar-a-Largo documents indictment:
“I’m allowed to do whatever I want.”
No, he’s not. And that’s why he’s facing three additional indictments, 91 felony charges, two pending civil cases, and another big financial hit for defaming the woman he sexually abused.
Which makes him a disgusting liar when he says: “In the end, they’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you; and I’m just standing in their way.”
Horse manure. They’re coming after him because he’s a criminal. That’s all.
But Republican gaslighting isn’t just Trump’s practice.
There are others who spin equally wild lies.
Take Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green when she says, what happened at Burning Man with people trapped by a flood is a plot by the Deep State to force 75,000 people into one place to brainwash them on climate change, adding, “…tornadoes and flooding were sent by God to punish them for the mock sacrifices they performed.”
Right. Brainwashing. God. Punishment. Q?
And Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Ky., is just as goofy, when she recently said, “Don’t forget that if the left had their way, they’d take away your grill.”
No, they wouldn’t. That’s just silly, senator. And stupid.
But the Republicans transcend goofy; they are life-threateningly dangerous.
Miki Witthoeft, MAGA mother of the Jan. 6 Trump-inspired insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by Capitol Police while attempting to break on to the House floor, has called for the execution of Nancy Pelosi and Michael Byrd (the officer found to have not violated any federal laws in Babbitt’s fatal shooting): “The Capitol Police need to be abolished. … Michael Byrd needs to swing from the end of a rope, along with Nancy Pelosi.”
And Kari Lake, Arizona’s election-denier extraordinaire and vice president wanna-be, is promising even more violence. “If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and 75 million Americans just like me. … And most of us are card-carrying members of the [National Rifle Association]. That’s not a threat, that’s a public service announcement.”
There’s more in a continual stream of threats of civil war; lies about Democrats wanting abortion up to the moment of birth and after; lies about the 2020 election; lies about Hunter Biden, lies by George Santos; lies about, about, about … everything.
And why are there so many “believers?”
Because Trumpism is a cult, and the cult leader says the media lies. And because Fox News actually lies (it cost them $900 million). And because MAGAs don’t care about anyone else but themselves, and if their leaders lie to achieve their goals, it’s OK to lie.
But mostly it’s because the MAGA crowd think the give-and-take of democracy is War; and Trump knows the war he’s fighting is to stay out of prison.
It’s their war against the Democrats. War against ignorantly labeled “communists, Marxists and fascists.” Against the LBGTQ+ community, liberals, Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and Muslims. It’s a war against books and ideas and justice. It’s war against anyone who ain’t white, “Christian,” or who doesn’t want to turn back the clock to Jim Crow racism or an America where women can’t make their own choice about their bodies.
And because it’s war, there are no rules, like those in the Constitution, says Trump about his Big Lie,
“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
Now I was going to give the last word to a very conservative Republican, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who isn’t gaslighting when he said: “In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.”
(And the sycophants, enablers, coat-tail-riders, wanna-be dictators, MAGAs, and cult members who believe his every word.)
But instead, I’ll let Rod Serling close, unedited, as he closed a “Twilight Zone” broadcast,
“Any state, any entity, any ideology which fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man … that state is obsolete.”
And the Trump-MAGA cult is as obsolete as the tail fins on a ’57 Chrysler Imperial or a “Whites Only” drinking fountains in Birmingham, Al.
Slava Ukraini.
Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.
