PEOPLE REALLY DON’T KNOW HISTORY AND WHITE REPUBLICANS WANT TO KEEP IT THAT WAY

By Ruth A. Sheets

Americans in general really don’t know US history.  History is hardly taught in elementary school in lieu of extensive emphasis on math and reading (you know the subjects that are covered on standardized tests).  History is too often seen as that throw-away class in middle and high school that many students groan over as they enter the classroom, despite talented enthusiastic teachers. 

I never understood that negativity about history.  It was my favorite subject from 4^th grade on (yes, we did have history in elementary school 60 years ago).  I loved all the interesting people and places we learned about.  When I was away at camp after 4^th grade, my parents sent me a history activity book to work on when I had down time.  I was thrilled!  I even got some of my friends interested in it.  Each two pages covered one bit of American history, English-American history.  The only activity I remember was about 1619.  There were three small pictures on the page:  several Black people, some white women, and white men sitting in a room together.  The story was that in 1619 three important things happened that changed life in the Virginia colony:  a ship load of women arrived as servants and potential wives for the mostly male Jamestown settlement, the first Black people were sold to planters as indentured servants, and a formal government was established called the House of Burgesses. 

I do not know why this is the lesson I remember except that I somehow felt for the women and Black “servants.”  Even as a 10-year-old, I knew that Black people would only be servants for a short time.  After that, any Black people brought to Virginia and America in general would be enslaved.  I also knew a bit about what it might be like for those women.  They would be married to a man, maybe by choice or sold to him as a servant if they didn’t have money to pay their passage.  I knew the men were in charge, but they didn’t interest me.  The activity was to write about what I thought it would be like to be a member of one of those groups.  I chose to write about a white woman indentured servant.  There was only room for a couple of sentences and I don’t know what I wrote, but I didn’t forget that concept.  As a high school junior, our History teacher gave us a similar assignment, a slave or indentured servant in or around Jamestown.  I again chose the servant because I don’t think at the time I could imagine what it would be like to be Black or a slave.  Those activities helped me to see that history was not just events as it had been for me and most students in 7^th through 9^th grade.  It was people living their lives, quite different from mine, but also somewhat similar.    

Right now, history is in the news.  It’s not a discussion of ways to better involve American citizens, especially students in learning history.  It is because some white people, mostly men want to rewrite American history to delete people, policies,  and events that don’t fit with the way they want history told.  They claim it is to protect their (fragile) white children from the discomfort they might feel when learning what actually happened in our past.  They claim it is not wise to look back on difficult times. 

One of the biggest movers in this rewrite is Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.  He, a non-educator descendant of Italian immigrants, and the sycophants he has gathered think they know what a US history curriculum should include, even in Black history.  He even found a couple of Black people to go along with this whitewashing.  One wonders what he had to pay them, and naturally, out of taxpayer money.

What do they think should be included in this “new” US History curriculum?  Well, as much as I have read and studied history over the years, I learned some “new” things.  The DeSantis rewriters decided to tell us all that enslaved persons got to learn skills they were able to use when they were free.  They neglected to identify actual people for whom this was true, nor did they mention what would have happened to any of those “apprentices” who didn’t learn the skill to their master’s satisfaction.  Then the new curriculum claims Black citizens were as much the cause of the “riots” as the white people in what have hitherto been correctly referred to as “massacres” of Black citizens.  I understand the team included in the curriculum a few well-known Black leaders but rework how they are presented and their positions on the issues of the day like abolition and equal rights.  Frederick Douglass almost seems white in their telling.  The curriculum resources are from a right-wing company that has already whitened their materials so much as to be unrecognizable as actual history, fantasy is more like it.  Those materials are expensive, but districts will be forced to buy them with their limited funds.

Some very important pieces are conveniently left out of their curriculum for high schoolers. 

• - Enslaved children and other family members were sold away, often without warning.

- Horrors were committed on the ships that brought enslaved persons here from their homes in Africa, an utterly inhumane process.

• - Slave catchers roamed the roads all over the north and south to snare any Black person whether free or not.
• - Our Supreme Court ruled that Black persons could not be citizens so could not sue for their freedom.
• - Many thousands of Black soldiers fought in all our wars including the Civil War where it was clear to them they were fighting for freedom for themselves and their people.  They were rarely respected or thanked for their service.
• - After the Civil War, white gangs and mobs like the KKK were able to terrorize Black individuals and communities with impunity.  In Wilmington, NC in 1898, such a mob killed or drove out the whole city government because it was mixed black and white.
• - Massacres took place in many communities:  Tulsa, East St. Louis, Rosewood, to name a few, just because whites were mad some Black people had more than they had.
• - Over 3,400 known lynchings took place in this country between 1883 and 1968.  Nearly all of them “at the hands of persons unknown.”  In fact white folks were rarely held accountable for anything they did to people of color (or women).  The government rarely intervened until after 1955 when the modern Civil Rights Movement forced the government to pay attention, a little.  The attacks and bad behavior of white southerners could then be seen on television.

Then, there’s the police.  Police forces learned a lot of their tactics from slave-catching bands.  The entire police culture in this country is bathed in hatred of people of color and bullying.  Putting those factors together has left us with police departments that frequently abuse Black citizens, even killing them when they think they can get away with it.  Their favorite line, “I feared for my life.”  That reality will not appear even in college courses in Florida and other red states.

And, of course, the courses won’t discuss the small and large incivilities against Black Americans and other people of color every single day that were and are never expected to be corrected.  White folks have watched the slights and insults from infancy and have learned just how it is done and practice frequently.  Those white curriculum designers and their approvers don’t want to be called racist, but alas, there is no other term quite as fitting.

So why is this curriculum twist happening now.  There are several reasons, the most obvious, DeSantis is running for President of the US  and wants to make a mark with the Republican base that is incapable it seems of thinking for themselves.  They are mostly white or white wannabees and want to be reminded daily just how special their whiteness is, and how superior it is and has always been compared to everyone else’s skin color and culture.

The problem those ultra-right-wing Republicans have now is that this nation is diverse and becoming more so.  Black women in particular and people of color in general are finding positions of significance in our society and some white people, just as in Jim Crow days,  are angry and scared that someone they don't like and feel is inferior to them has something they don't have.  Red state legislatures are giving those scared white people voting superiority as they try to suppress everyone else’s votes.  They permit police to murder Black citizens with impunity or near impunity (qualified immunity).  They refuse to pass sensible gun regulations and are OK with people carrying guns around, “for protection,” they say, but I could find no reference to anyone who has recently done any protecting with a gun they are openly carrying.  Besides, it is really only open carry for white men, whatever the law says. 

The rogue Supreme Court has even further weaponized white folks by overturning Roe v. Wade so the white male state legislators could wreak havoc on women, particularly women of color in the Confederacy and confederate wannabee states.  Affirmative action can no longer be used by colleges and universities in their admission process, I am guessing it is, despite claiming otherwise, because too many people of color are taking the slots those scared privileged white people think belong only to their children, their kind.  Maybe fewer people of color in college courses on history, will mean fewer challenges to their white-centered curricula, a win-win for them. 

So, white Republicans are deciding what will be included in US history classes concerning the role of Black Americans in our history.  White people will be deciding that AP Black history classes are only OK if they include what they want included and ditch what they don’t like (the Black Lives Matter Movement is out, for example).  White legislators get to decide  what will make their little white kids uncomfortable so they can purge it from the education of all children at the same time they are banning books that would tell a different, more accurate story.  As far as I can see right now, they are doing it with impunity since our government again is doing little or nothing to stop them.  Unless we halt this encroachment on our right to teach and learn the truth in our public schools, anger and resentment among privileged white children will continue unabated and Black people and other people of color will again, be marginalized in this nation’s story.  That should be unacceptable to every American.

TRUMP INDICTMENT FATIGUE SYNDROME – DON’T GET IT!

By Ruth A. Sheets

By now, probably most of us are feeling worried, possibly overwhelmed with Donald Trump taking center stage again and again with his unamerican, anti-democratic actions and the legal responses to them.  Robert Reich, Labor Secretary under President Clinton, Professor at UC Berkley, and economic activist wrote about a dangerous condition he calls “Trump Indictment Fatigue Syndrome” (TIFS).  It is a condition that can bring on bouts of inaction, weariness, fear, frustration, anger, each individually or all at once. 

A fourth Trump indictment has been handed down by the Fulton County, Georgia prosecutor, Fani Willis.  The indictments are clearly serious because they are all about undermining our system of government, our way of life, but they are also a "true crime" story, the kind so many people love to watch, read, or listen to. A series of crimes have been committed, there are a massive number of clues that must be sifted through by the detectives and others involved, and the criminal is identified and at the end, prosecuted. I am thinking this could be an acceptable way for us all to look at what is going on, maybe even a way to make it less disabling and even activating.  The problem, unlike a TV episode or even short series, this one never seems to even get to the climax before some other impossible event happens.  It just goes on and on and the Trump indictments are like plot points that bring out more of Trump’s alleged crimes with reminders that this has never happened before, a president has never been indicted and that we are on untrodden ground. 

It is ridiculous for any human being to have been able to commit so many crimes in his life and get away with nearly all of them as Donald Trump has. That in itself is remarkable, but knowing that this particular human being was made President of the United States is even more startling.  While president he continued his crime spree, and there are a lot of people who want him back in the White House, indictments be damned!

The most despicable person to become president in my opinion was Andrew Jackson, the 7^th president.  He committed countless crimes against the American people, Native Americans and enslaved persons in particular, yet came off as the man of the people.  I guess Jackson fit the "white male hero" so well that what he did was considered "just faaan." (Translating Southern, fine)

Nixon used to be the second most appalling president on my all-time crime parade, that is until now.  Trump’s lying, insulting, threatening, manipulating, gaslighting, etc. never stop, and our media just love it. When any human being lies in public while in office more than 30,000 times about important as well as trivial things, and Trump did that all in only 4 years, something is wrong.  When there is a sizable portion of our population that wants to re-elect that rather ignorant authoritarian serial liar to our highest office, that indicates a society in trouble.

Since the 4^th indictment came down from Georgia on Monday, August 14^th, coverage of what the indictment includes, the 19 defendant players, and the 41 alleged crimes has been nearly non-stop.  Coverage of the horrific wildfires in Maui and the arrival of a tropical storm in Southern California are the only break from Trump and those are so heart-breaking they bring no relief.  

Then, on top of the newest set of charges, more revelations are delivered almost daily about some additional bit of information learned, a defense lawyer’s claims, a demand any trials be set far into the future, and Trump’s frequent threats, despite a judge’s order that he cease such threats.   

Judge Aileen Cannon of the stolen documents case is proving herself as ignorant of the law and inexperienced as everyone knew she was from the day she was assigned the case.  We all should wonder how she ever obtained a life-time appointment to any federal court, but no one has to wonder for very long.  The Trump Judge-appointing merry-go-round during his administration spun through a whole lot of young, partisan, pretty ignorant judges assisted by the Federalist Society, a shady ultra-conservative group that does not have the best interests of this nation at heart (or anywhere else).  The Republican Senate essentially approved whatever was sent their way, particularly the attractive ones.  I am guessing that since Trump needed a few women on board in case people properly called him a misogynist, he picked a few pretty, ones he could count on to rule in favor of Trump and his minions indefinitely.  So far those judges and justices are doing quite well for him, and we hear about it regularly.

News reports that do not mention Trump are rare.  Just as from before his 2015 escalator ride through to the present, it is almost nonstop.  Some now actually hint that these criminal indictments are serious and that Trump is in trouble.   They mostly will not say the word “lie” when Trump has clearly told one or ten, but are no longer quite so glowing in their coverage.  They still do interview Trumpers and Trumpettes who fondly display their general ignorance of our democracy, but it seems fewer of such interviews are being shared.  That number could rise as the campaign advances. 

It really is getting exhausting and rather repetitive and many of us are on the verge of coming down with TIFS.  This is an anti-democratic condition that people living in a democracy should avoid and for which the only cure is fair legal intervention.

I have been thinking about this condition for at least 8 years but over time the name of the “illness” has changed according to events.  At first it was “Oh God Not Trump Again Syndrome (OGNTAS).”  Than it evolved or rather devolved into the “What The ___ did Trump Do Now Blight” (WTFDTDNB).  I named the conditions for the phrases people moaned every time the national news hit the papers, airwaves, or internet.  

We really do not want to catch this debilitating syndrome.  Here are a couple of things that might help us all avoid TIFS and its debilitating effects as well as the various conditions brought about by listening to Republican candidates who have absolutely nothing positive to offer our nation should they ever get elected: 

• - First, limit the amount of time spent reading about, watching, or listening to the reports from Trumpland.  Walking away after the first 5 minutes each day is a good start.  
• - Get the basic facts related to the various indictments.  That can help with filtering out things that are off target and definitely not worth your time. 
• - remember that Nothing, and I mean nothing serious is going to happen now until Trump shows up to the Georgia courthouse in the next few days and it is unlikely extreme quantities of new information will come out before then, but the 5-minute recap would catch it if it does.
• - minimize how much you want to see Trump with his entourage walking into the courthouse in Atlanta.
• - play a game with the five minutes, getting a different news source each day and note the slants, the hype, the number of times they have to replay Trump's blurts and whines. I have heard as many as 5 blurts in about 6 minutes, I think it was on MSNBC.
• - Talk with others as a check to see if you or they have been infected.
• - Go for walks, read some fluff, take several deep breaths every time you think of the orange monster, - -
• - Sign petitions to be sure the upcoming trials are televised.
• - Vote in every election you possibly can for people who have a well-developed moral compass whose needle always points to rights for all people, honesty, respect for the beings that share this planet with us, and the other positive virtues.

A lot of Republicans would love it if Democrats, progressives, and caring people in general were to become infected with TIFS as the Trumpers and Trumpettes work to spread the affliction.  They are banking on Democratic and Independent apathy and we don’t have to practice it for them.  We don’t have to catch TIFS, but we will need strategies and determination to avoid it.  Good luck to all of us/US. 

VALUED TRAITS OF REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP PART III: USE AND ABUSE OF RELIGION

 By Ruth A. Sheets

Christian Nationalism is a central focus of the current Republican party, even if they don’t call it that.  Of course it is and has been for a long time.  It may be helpful to have a definition for Christian Nationalism as if the name itself isn’t clear enough.  It is the belief that the United States of America was founded as a Christian nation (white of course too).  The founders were all Christian and wanted this to be a Christian nation, just didn’t say so.  It means that whatever is done nationally will have a Christian bent. 

This idea showed up periodically throughout our history when there were national stresses and people’s fears drew them into a conservative Christian movement that had to justify itself and its desire to impose its precepts on everyone else.  If one could claim the Founders wanted this to be a Christian nation, then we have to enforce it, right?  

To be clear, this nation was not founded as a Christian nation, a white one, for sure, but not a Christian one.  If the founders had wanted that, they would have enshrined it.  They didn’t.  Among the founders were some Christians like John Adams, but he was not in favor of imposing his religion on the nation.  He believed that once out from under the yoke of Britain and its established religion it would not be a good idea to reimpose such a thing no matter which branch of Christianity was chosen.  There were numerous deists like Jefferson and Franklin who believed God set the worlds in motion, then stepped back to note what happened.  Even Washington thought one’s faith was personal. 

There were “Christians” like the slave-owners who tried hard to find a means in Christianity to justify one human being owning another for the purpose of making the one rich and the other a victim of whatever violence or kindness the owner chose to impart.  They did find a few biblical passages and the book of Philemon that worked for them, so they created a church that ignored the “love your neighbor” parts when it came to African-Americans, or twisted it to mean loving them was making them work hard as God commanded.  It worked best to pretend Black Americans were not even real human beings, more like animals.  One has to work pretty hard to do that when it is clear the enslaved persons were as human as and probably more humane than the owners.

The current batch of Christian Nationalists got wound up around the time of Richard Nixon (a "true" Christian, you know).  He and the men around him saw their approval of the violence against Vietnam War protesters as their Christian duty to those who had already sacrificed so much in the war, or something like that.  Covering up crimes they had committed against the American people was OK too.  Nixon hobnobbed with Billy Graham, a popular evangelical minister who dished out an easily-digested form of Christianity that beyond verbal “acceptance of Jesus as one’s Lord and Savior” there were few demands except for issues related to sex, of course.  The word “sin” appeared often, but didn’t really mess with the good feeling gospel too much.  It was about being saved.

Over the years, that self-centered brand of Christianity began to morph into doing  what the preacher said was right with certain scripture (mostly Psalms, some parables,  and Revelation) thrown in.  It kept evolving  and forcing itself into the lives of people who are not Christian.  The evangelizing moved a bit away from the church onto the TV screen, involved a lot of blaming others for the mess the world was in, an intense begging for money , which would bring one closer to salvation.  One could prove oneself worthy by giving most of one’s money to the evangelism leaders who lived in style while the donors often lived from paycheck to paycheck. 

The guys (and it was mostly guys) knew this kind of Christianity could not last forever.  They needed it to evolve even more.  They wanted “causes” to insert regularly into their message.  There were plenty of people around they disapproved of, targets.  They needed “respected” evangelical preachers to clamp onto a cause or two and push for condemnation.  Men like Pat Robertson of “700 Club” fame and Jerry Fallwell of Liberty University jumped in.  As southern white men, they naturally resented Black Americans, poor white people (I guess because they couldn’t send in enough money), women (the bastions of sin), and gay men, Sodomites.).  At the same time, they wanted rich white people to believe that their wealth was a direct gift from god for their personal “righteousness” (Oooo, that word is used a lot).

Then, a woman, they had to have a woman to prove to women this Christianity was legit) Phillys Schlafly told women that God’s will for them had three parts:  first, their purpose in life was to care full time for hubby and the kids; second, abortion is murder; third, not having children is a sin against God (or something like that).  The hypocrisy was right in your face, a woman lawyer,  constantly on the road, spreading her gospel of patriarchy, male supremacy, and the cult of the little wifey.  Gotta love it!  Nearly all of these “new” Christians were Republicans desperately pretending Nixon wasn’t a crook and that Ronald Reagan would save our nation from something (it wasn’t clear from what since Reagan wasn’t a practicing Christian.  They said he was, though.

Something happened in the 1980s that fueled the fires of Republican fear and hatred, AIDS.  Since it showed up first in the gay male community, the TV preachers claimed it was God’s punishment against gays.  That crew liked to claim “God’s will” or “God’s punishment” for a lot of things that happened, 9/11 being one of the best examples (that was supposed to be punishment for homosexuality).  Floods and fires in northern states are God’s punishment, but somehow, not the disasters in the South, those were just nature.   

TV Christianity did not stay on TV.  It moved into political meetings, campaigns, and non-religious gatherings.  While schools and other public institutions were getting away from prayers at events because of more inclusivity, Republicans made sure every one of their gatherings had a super Christian prayer that had to emphasize that what they were doing was God’s will and should not be questioned.  Even Democrats were “bullied” into saying “God bless the United States” at the end of speeches and appearances.  

This increasingly oppressive brand of Christianity I and others, call "Pseudo-Christianity" because it has very little to do with the Christianity of scripture, but a lot in common with some historic flavors of Christianity that were used as clubs to beat into submission, anyone who didn’t go along with the state's pronouncements and cruelties.

Right now, Republicans all over the country are hefting their clubs ready to strike down anyone who does not agree that this is a Christian nation and that Republicans have the ear of god and have the right to hurt anyone who will not go along.  They want to put “The  Ten Commandments” in every public school and building even though they themselves can’t follow, recite, or explain them, or even which ten (there are several in Hebrew scripture).

Catholics, white evangelicals, and other believers in this pseudo-christianity, hold misogyny as almost a sacrament.  They make up all kinds of laws they say are Christian particularly about abortion, even birth control, when their real aim is to control the lives of women.  They assume Jesus was ignorant of abortion and of homosexuality and transgender persons, which he would not have been, living in a crossroads of the world like first century Palestine.  If Jesus were so against these practices, he would have said so; he didn’t.   He did tell people to love their neighbors as they love themselves and reminded people that our neighbor is everyone.  And beside loving God, loving one’s neighbor is the greatest commandment.  If these points are presented to pseudo-christians, they claim we don’t know what we are talking about or that we are somehow heretics (maybe witches), just as their ancestors did.  It seems some people choose not to learn from history.  In fact, Roman Catholic American bishops are rebelling against Pope Francis’s points like, “who am I to judge?) related to LGBTQ persons, and the Pope is supposed to be infallible, but I guess, not when he is preaching Jesus’s message.

our current Supreme Court shows us why no religious group should have a majority anywhere perhaps except, maybe in their own churches.  On the Court there are 6 Roman Catholics, 5 of them conservatives (there is one high Episcopalian there too who was raised Roman Catholic).  They have tried to rewrite our Constitution, taking away people’s rights to bodily autonomy (they have no medical expertise, but rule as though they do).  Their brand of Christianity also sees white men as superior to everyone else and anyone who tries to challenge that will be ultimately crushed:  right to abortion care, Affirmative Action, voting rights, gun safety, etc.  One Black  and one female justice are on board with this racism and misogyny.  Those justices act as though everything they do to warp our Constitution they swore to uphold and defend is god’s will.  Pseudo-christian institutions are permitted to stop covering birth control on their insurance plans, not bake wedding cakes for same-sex couples, and deny same-sex couples a wedding website (even though there was a fraudulent case with this one).  Abortion was overturned even though it was a near 50 year precedent well, because the Catholic Church doesn’t approve of it, no matter what other religious entities believe, even in a democracy.   

Republican religionists are continuing to rework Christianity to suit their own personal comfort. There is little of the gospel, but a lot about wealth being from god and deserved by whoever has it. There is a lot about fear, hatred, anger, and the negative emotions that can be used to control and manipulate vulnerable people. There is a deep lack of understanding of anyone who is not rich, white, "straight," and male. The desire is there to control the movements of everyone so they can be sure that the power-grabbing of the Republican religionists is not questioned, kind of like what happened in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy in the 1920s and 1930s.  Remember, both countries were very Christian and the "church" often participated in the cruelties. Pseudo-Christians say they don't like hearing themselves positively compared to the Hitler crowd in Germany and the Mussolini contingent in Italy, but I think, they doth protest too much. I think they secretly love it and are trying to live up to the comparison. They are pushing laws that are clearly unconstitutional: book banning (1st amendment), anti-trans laws (14th amendment personhood), voter suppression of non-white, non-Republican voters (ignoring the 15th, 19th, & 26th amendments), pushing the use of "The Ten Commandments” (1st Amendment freedom of religion), arresting and harming journalists (also 1st Amendment freedom of press), planning to take trans children from their parents (kidnapping), "letting" children work at dangerous jobs (the child labor laws), and on and on. Where are our Dept. of Justice and our courts? Have the Christian fascists infiltrated so deeply they can't or won’t respond on behalf of our democracy?

Pseudo-christian bullying is raining down on people who will over time become helpless to stop it because the targets as usual, are vulnerable people, “the least of these.” White male legislators and their female, Black, and Latinx surrogates just can't help themselves. They are so desperate for power and so scared they might have to share it with OMG! women, people of color, trans persons, LGBTQ persons in general, poor people, Muslims and atheists, immigrants, young people, they just have to participate in Hitleresque behaviors. They don't want their racism, misogyny, homo/transphobia, antisemitism, and xenophobia publicly attributed to them. They are comfortable with being those things but don’t want those words attached to their names.  After all, their comfort is paramount, isn't it?

Yep, pseudo-Christianity, AKA Christian Nationalism, has taken over the Republican party. It is now just out in the open for all to see. What are We the People going to do about it?

VALUED TRAITS OF REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP PART 2 – THE REIGN AND REIN OF IGNORANCE

 VALUED TRAITS OF REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP PART 2 – THE REIGN AND REIN OF IGNORANCE

By Ruth A. Sheets

Ignorance is the lack of knowledge on a specific subject.  It has also come to be an insult for someone who doesn’t understand proper behavior for a particular group or situation.  Republicans today highly value ignorance (first definition).  They want their followers to be ignorant of what is really going on in the world and of what their leaders are doing.  The top leadership wants to elect candidates who are mostly ignorant of “the big picture,” and in the case of “the ‘freedom’ caucus,” ignorant of almost everything except what makes them angry and hateful because those emotions can be useful to the leadership.  I define Republican leadership as those who control the Republican money sources and political power, thus the actions of the party.  

It seems clear the less knowledgeable Republican legislators are, the more valuable they are to the party.  If a legislator doesn’t know much about the important issues, they are more easily directed to respond “appropriately.”   When they don’t, they are reined in and quickly informed they will suffer what has happened to others who didn’t comply; their time in power will be over if they don’t straighten up.  Those who have integrity and actually think, are also expendable. 

 Repeating talking points so as to appear “informed” to constituents is essential.  The candidate or legislator could get overwhelmed with the many elements of a complex topic, but no problem, talking points can simplify everything, and little to no knowledge is necessary.  In fact in the modern Republican Party, knowledge is an obstacle.

 Donald Trump, the reigning Republican standard bearer,  is ignorant on many topics, in fact, most topics.  But, there is one thing he is very knowledgeable about and skilled with, how to con folks.  He knows very well how to get some people to believe he is quite a genius who has become very rich by his own talent.  His blustering lets them think he is courageous and his claims “I love you” seem genuine to them.  Once they have latched onto him, they rarely stray because they just know they are right about him.  It takes an enormous talent for a mostly ignorant old man to get so many people to believe such utter nonsense.  He counts on his fan club to be ignorant and pliable.  He has learned over time by sending up test balloons, just which lines connect with most of those followers.  Anything he says that does not get a big cheer first or second  time around is dumped.  A new phrase, slogan, insult, or whine will be sent up later in the rally or at his next public event.  Three word slogans work best.

I often wonder why people are so willing to go along with such outrageous manipulation.  It seems to me people would be highly insulted, and want to get away from someone who would treat them so cavalierly, but I have seen little evidence of it among Trumpers and Trumpettes.  Maybe ignorance of the true nature of someone who seems exciting and who spews the anger, hatred, resentment, and fear they are feeling is irrelevant.  Wanting to belong is an intense human need.  Trump uses that “need” to foster and demand loyalty from his supporters that he can’t reciprocate.  The less his fans know, the better for Trump, his handlers, and the Party.  I believe there is no more depth than that to Trump.

 A character who depends even more on ignorance for his “work” is Ron DeSantis.  He uses a different approach, but is successful, at least in Florida.  He knows a little about a lot of things but is sure of his own brilliance and everyone else’s ignorance.  After all, he graduated from Yale and Harvard!  He has learned that the Florida legislature is made up of rather ignorant Republicans.  DeSantis pretty deftly uses their ignorance to encourage anti-American, often unconstitutional cruelty into bills he wants them to vote on, frequently with little or no discussion. (How can they discuss what they don’t really understand?  They can’t and they don’t!)  Any Democrat who dares challenge what the legislature is doing is shouted down, ignored, or insulted, all according to plan.  DeSantis wields cruelty with a minimum of discomfort to himself.  After all, he can blame the legislators who passed the bills.  He just signed them.  Neat, huh!  Even better, the legislators’ ignorance lets DeSantis convince them they have done a great service to the people of Florida, and god’s will too, a twofer! 

DeSantis can hardly stand to be around people and regularly shows his distaste.  He seems to be OK, though watching people suffer while he does nothing to help. People may try to fight his cruel actions, but of course, with minimal success.  DeSantis appears to see himself as a genius that is untouchable.  Everyone else is, well, not.  Democrats even helped him out last year, staying home, letting him be elected governor so he’d do even more damage in a second term. 

 Much of what DeSantis has done would not have passed if ignorance were not at the center.  Our Ronnie knew that.  His big first move was during COVID when the best defense we had included :wearing masks, social separation, and washing hands.  Then vaccines came available and DeSantis sent up a test balloon about COVID vaccine, wearing masks, and getting kids back in school.   It is hard to know if he is really ignorant of how to stop viral infections or if he didn’t care and just lied to a population stuck in a kind of COVID isolation stupor.  He lied about COVID vaccines and got the legislature to disallow mask mandates,  and Kids had to be back in the classroom.  He played even more on general ignorance when he made fun of wearing masks and ignored the risk of kids in multi-generational homes bringing COVID home from school to their grandparents.  We know people died due to these breaches in trust, but we will never know how many because no specific public records of it were kept, and DeSantis doesn’t care that some minions happened to die.  Yes, he is that heartless and believes he is untouchable by people who question his actions, and so far he has been proven right in Florida. 

After last year’s election, DeSantis now thinks he has a mandate to do whatever he wants to certain Floridians.  Again he preyed on people’s ignorance of issues of gender and race and went for banning books on topics he knew Republicans could be manipulated into wanting banned.  He made up a series of claims/lies about transgender young people and the “terrible” parents who would use DRUGS on them.  His ignorance on the topic is deep, but it doesn’t matter.  He has the Republican Party’s cruelty generator on his side as well as the pathetic Florida legislature.  So, he and a bunch of ignorant red state legislatures will hurt a lot of vulnerable young people and their caring families.  What kind of people go after vulnerable kids for no honest medical reason?  Not people with integrity!

Then, DeSantis, a white men, descendent of Italian immigrants, has decided he has the right to dictate US history related to African-Americans.  He began by condemning Critical Race Theory which is a graduate school subject, lying that it was being taught in K-12 schools so had to be stopped.  That was not sufficient pain for Black Americans, so he forced an AP course on Black history to cover topics the way he would do it.  Again, not enough, so he pushed for banning books about Black heroes like Rosa Parks and Frederick Douglas.  That wasn’t enough either, so he and his “Department of Education” decided they must rewrite the US History curriculum to minimize the contributions of non-white Americans.  The new version claims slavery provided benefits for the enslaved people, and the examples they cited were not even people who would meet that criteria.”  The truth, there were no benefits for enslaved persons!  DeSantis’s excuse for all this anti-Black American activity; he doesn’t want little white kids to feel uncomfortable.  When I first heard that, from his own mouth, I laughed out loud.  What blatant ignorance and cruelty.  DeSantis in his own ignorance is telling the world that little white kids are far more fragile and incompetent than the African-American kids whose families had lived the history he wants to set aside. 

 Women’s right to bodily autonomy was another target of our Ronnie.  He has no idea what women experience related to reproduction (despite his wife having had kids).  His 6-week ban proves his cruelty and ignorance as well as that of the rest of the Republican leadership.  Every American should be asking, how is it that untrained white men have any right to make medical decisions for women, trans youth, or anyone else?  I await the next steps DeSantis will take to further devalue the contributions of people who are not rich, white, “straight,” pseudo-christian males.

 Our Supreme Court conservatives are on board with such white male ignorant incompetence, and appreciate and practice it.  OK, ignorance has worked well for conservatives on the Supreme Court and some lower courts for decades, but 13 years ago it was made very clear.  The Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizens United is one of the most ignorant rulings of the Roberts court.  It claimed that money is speech and corporations are persons, and that corporations should be able to contribute as much money to political campaigns and candidates as they choose.  They don’t even have to report it if done right.  Johnny Roberts was and is so desperate for white Republicans to be in power everywhere, he and his majority gave permission for white-owned, even foreign corporations to buy elections.  Was he ignorant of what that would do to our political system or was he along with his conservative cronies deliberately undermining our democracy?  It would be fun to think “ignorant” but I am pretty sure it was about undermining too.  

Then, there’s Samuel Alito, writing in the Dobbs case that overturned a 50-year precedent, Roe v. Wade, for no compelling reason.  The ignorance in his written decision is appalling.  He clearly had no concept that abortion has been part of (women’s) history for millennia.  Then he cited ignorant Medieval and 17^th century British misogynists to make law in this country.  Of course, the other conservative crew were on board.  They compounded their cruelty by giving pregnant persons’ bodily autonomy to red states where they knew ignorance reigns, where many legislators don’t even know what their state constitution says about abortion, human rights, or probably anything else.  Amazing!  The Reds jumped in to quickly pass cruel abortion bans and fight every challenge.  

Republican ignorance goes on:  global warming, vaccines, science in general, US History, our Constitution, economics, elections, etc. etc.  Ignorance is the theme of Republican governance.  Their pride in their ignorance is astounding.  I bet Republicans are proud of their cruelty too, which complements their ignorance.  That’s a potent form of power that Republican leadership is fostering these days.  They rarely have to explain the off-the-wall laws they are coming up with; I’m guessing they couldn’t even if asked.   One thing that is certain, they have nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with taking away rights and doing harm to the most vulnerable Americans and for what?  Maybe it’s that vulnerable people often make easy targets.  It’s happened before.  Cruelty is their point, yoked with ignorance.

It is hard to have a democratic system when one of the major political parties sees ignorance as a virtue, both the ignorance of their leadership and that of the underlings who either serve their masters in legislatures on the courts, or in other party positions.  Then there is the cultivated ignorance of the followers who are being groomed to ask few questions, to believe and do what they are told, and to blame everyone but themselves and their masters for whatever negative happens to them while collecting kudos for the things that are positive, even if they had nothing to do with or actually opposed them. 

We who still value knowledge must make it a gem to be sought after, and ignorance a temporary condition that should be corrected through knowledge.  We need some smart people working on how to do this.