Friday January 20, 2023; 8:02 AM EST
- The thought crossed my mind that Trump's lies about 3-4 million fraudulent votes having been cast in the 2016 election might have actually cost people their lives. Here's my thinking:#
- Bad actors elsewhere in the world know that the U. S. sometimes puts pressure on them to lay low, to cool it, to cease and desist. They also know that the U. S. is fully capable of looking the other way, intentionally or unintentionally giving them the green light for their predations on the people and economy of their region.#
- Seeing Trump stir the U. S. media and population into chaotic waves of angry discourse over his provocations and pronouncements, and seeing nobody find a way to shame him or shut him up in those years, some of those bad actors elsewhere in the world might rightly have assumed that the U. S. media and political system would be fully distracted by Trump and his backwash for years to come.#
- If so, those bad actors would reasonably interpret that as an opening--intentional or accidental--and they'd get back to doing the devil's work more boldly, more often, even in the light of day.#
- Once they remembered how much they enjoyed their jobs, these bad actors would probably see a need to kill regional opponents who tried to restrain and inhibit them. Some of the bad actors would likely have some of their opponents killed, knowing that the U. S. was busy with Trump's intentional distractions.#
- And thanks to that line of reasoning, if there was actually a way to check those uncheckable facts, I'd be willing to bet money on this: Trump's hogwash about the 3-4 million fraudulent votes in 2016 election almost certainly cost some people their lives, and cost others their hard-earned money, in other parts of the world.#
- His lies and our country's inability to do anything about them. Our institutions, feeble and teetering.#