Author: admin

In early July 1854, Abraham Lincoln took some time to prepare for his upcoming campaign by writing down some thoughts he could use in speeches on the campaign trail. At the time, Lincoln’s political philosophy of the purpose of government was considered radical in comparison to his contemporaries. No other president before him took such an activist approach to governmental purpose as Lincoln did.

It is believed that the following fragment that was written in early July 1854 was composed in preparation for a lecture, although there is no proof that such a lecture was ever given. What is known is that Lincoln never shared these thoughts as part of a campaign speech while running for president, or in campaigns prior to his presidential run.

This is what Lincoln wrote about the purpose of government:

“The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves—in their separate, and individual capacities.

“In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.

“The desirable things which the individuals of a people can not do, or can not well do, for themselves, fall into two classes: those which have relation to wrongs, and those which have not. Each of these branch off into an infinite variety of subdivisions.

“The first—that in relation to wrongs—embraces all crimes, misdemeanors, and non-performance of contracts. The other embraces all which, in its nature, and without wrong, requires combined action, as public roads and highways, public schools, charities, pauperism, orphanage, estates of the deceased, and the machinery of government itself.

“From this it appears that if all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government.”

Before Lincoln, most politicians, including presidents, felt that the purpose of government was to not intrude on the life of the individual, other than to protect them from foreign invaders and provide them a freedom from government interference. Former New York Governor, Mario Cuomo, who was a well-regarded Lincolnphile, had this to say about Lincoln’s thoughts on the purpose of government:

 “Some said government should do no more than protect its people from insurrection and foreign invasion and spend the rest of its time dispassionately observing the way its people played out the cards that fate had dealt them. He [Lincoln] scorned that view. He called it a ‘do nothing’ abdication of responsibility. ‘The legitimate object of government,’ he said, ‘is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they cannot, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves. There are many such things…,’ he said.  So he offered the ‘poor’ more than freedom and the encouragement of his own good example: he offered them government. Government that would work aggressively to help them find the chance they might not have found alone. He did it by fighting for bridges, railroad construction and other such projects that others decried as excessive government. He gave help for education, help for agriculture, land for the rural family struggling for a start.  And always, at the heart of his struggle and his yearning was the passion to make room for the outsider, the insistence upon a commitment to respect the idea of equality by fighting for inclusion.”

As I said, Lincoln’s approach to government was fairly new and out of the ordinary. In his life, Lincoln’s philosophy never got a fair hearing. He was too busy running a government engaged in a civil war, and he didn’t live long once the war was over. However, his words found a home with Theodore Roosevelt who became the father of what is generally known as “progressive Republicanism,” a term that seems like an oxymoron to us today, but which was popular with conservatives in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

Just as Theodore Roosevelt borrowed his philosophies from Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt borrowed his philosophies from his cousin, Theodore. In other words, the philosophy of government that led to the New Deal, found their origin in a fragment that Lincoln wrote back in 1854.

I’m really interested, not only in Lincoln’s philosophy of the purpose of government, but also in the way that philosophy inspired Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, and how it led to one of the most progressive policy proposals in our country’s history. If you have any suggestions on readings (books, articles, etc.) that deal with this topic, please let me know in the comments.

The violent, bloody siege of the Capital on 1/6/21 was the logical conclusion of the big lie Donald Trump has been telling in one form or another since last summer. The big lie, that the election was stolen from him, has been amplified by Republicans and right-wing media incessantly since Trump first broached the subject. The claim was ramped up following the election, and was bolstered first by frivolous lawsuits, then by calls to ignore or replace certified electors from swing states that voted for Biden, and finally by an attempted takeover of our government by extremists who heard the big lie, believed it, then acted on it.

During yesterday’s House impeachment debate, Republicans, one after the other, stepped up to the microphone and continued lying to the American people. They claimed that Trump didn’t incite the crowd and that it wasn’t Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol. They re-hashed arguments from the first impeachment, saying that the Mueller Report exonerated Trump and that it didn’t find any evidence of collusion.

On the way to his speech in Alamo, TX yesterday, Trump told people on Air Force One that he won the election in a landslide. Then this morning, Trump aid, Peter Navarro, told Fox News morning propogandist, Maria Bartiromo, that Donald Trump won the election, and he excused the insurrectionists who took over the Capitol last week, saying that they were simply standing up for election integrity.

Can we just stop with the lies already? Millions of Trump supporters are all ginned up because they think that their chosen candidate had the election stolen away from him. They believe this despite there being no evidence to back up their belief. They believe it despite more than 60 election-related lawsuits that were dismissed for lack of evidence. They believe it despite the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security conducting investigations and both finding there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

So, why do they believe the big lie? They believe it because Trump says it, Republicans amplify it, and right-wing media repeats it, over and over again.

The facts are not in dispute. All evidence indicates that the election was free and fair. Chris Krebs, former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within the Department of Homeland Security, stated that the 2020 presidential election was the fairest and most transparent in our country’s history. That didn’t square with Trump’s position, so he fired Krebs and doubled down on the big lie.

According to Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale University and expert on authoritarianism, this is how the big lie works:

“The claim that Trump won the election is a Big Lie.

A Big Lie changes reality. To believe it, people must disbelieve their senses, distrust their fellow citizens, and live in a world of faith.

A Big Lie demands conspiracy thinking, since all who doubt it are seen as traitors.

A Big Lie undoes a society, since it divides citizens into believers and unbelievers.

A Big Lie destroys democracy, since people who are convinced that nothing is true but the utterances of their leader ignore voting and its results.

A Big Lie must bring violence, as it has.

A Big Lie can never be told just by one person. Trump is the originator of this Big Lie, but it could never have flourished without his allies on Capitol Hill.

Political futures now depend on this Big Lie. Senators Hawley and Cruz are running for president on the basis of this Big Lie.

There is a cure for the Big Lie. Our elected representatives should tell the truth, without dissimulation, about the results of the 2020 election.

Politicians who do not tell the simple truth perpetuate the Big Lie, further an alternative reality, support conspiracy theories, weaken democracy, and foment violence far worse than that of January 6, 2021.”

We all want unity and healing. Our nation is hurting, and we need to come together to address the many challenging issues we face. But unity can not happen, and healing can not begin, until the people responsible for the attempted coup on our government are brought to justice. They must be held accountable before we can move forward. That accountability starts by telling the truth.

If Republicans’ calls for unity and healing are to carry any weight, they must first accept that the election was free and fair, and that the results are credible and accurate. They must announce this fact to their followers, and they must do it in a way that their followers can hear and accept.

They must denounce the terrorist attack on the Capitol, and they must announce that it was right-wing Trump supporters, not Antifa, that carried out the attack.

They must accept that Trump and many Republicans in Congress shared the big lie and incited the insurrectionists. The only way to undo the horrible damage done by the big lie and all of the lies that were told to support it is to tell the truth.

Telling the truth is just the first step, but it is necessary for other steps to follow. We cannot have a strong democracy and a thriving nation when half the population lives in a fantasy world devoid of verifiable facts and disconnected from reality. They trusted Trump, they trusted Republicans, they trusted right-wing media, and they were fed one lie after another. It’s understandable why they believe what they believe, and it’s logical (although unforgivable) that some acted on the lies they were fed. The only way to de-escalate the situation, to bring us all together, and to move forward as a unified nation is to provide all citizens with a shared reality. That can only happen when the lying stops, and the truth-telling begins.

In the hours after terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center in New York, I was sitting at my home in Wisconsin watching it all unfold on TV. At the time, we were hosting a foreign exchange student from Germany. She was a pretty cool customer, but I could tell by her fascination with the images on the television, that she was concerned, maybe even frightened, by what had happened earlier that day.

As we watched the news coverage and listened to journalists and pundits try to dissect the attack, Sophie, our foreign exchange student, asked me the question that was on everyone’s mind.

“What’s going to happen now?”

I was sitting in my favorite chair, holding my young son, and I remember thinking how badly I wanted to tell Sophie that everything was going to be alright. After all, she was just eighteen years old, and in the middle of a heinous, devastating terrorist attack, she was far away from home, far away from her parents, and far away from the things that anchored her in life. I wanted to reassure her, but I wasn’t willing to lie about what had happened that day.

“I don’t know what comes next,” I said. “But things will never be the same.”

That’s how I feel today about the insurrection that took place in Washington, DC this past week. I don’t know what will happen next, but I’m certain that things will never be the same.

Americans have been blessed with a stable, if imperfect, government for nearly 245 years. We’ve weathered depressions, pandemics, and wars, including a Civil War, but our country has survived, and at times, thrived. We can be forgiven if we’ve taken for granted the blessings of our enduring democracy, and the rights and freedoms that come with it. They are our birthright. What we’ve failed to understand is that these rights and freedoms are not automatic. They must be protected. If we don’t remain vigilant, they can be lost.

Because of our good fortune of living in a free, democratic country, we weren’t prepared for the rise of authoritarian sentiment. Many of us thought it couldn’t happen here. We knew the term coup d’état, but we thought it was reserved for other less enlightened countries. The thought of a coup in America never crossed our minds. So, when it walked up in broad daylight in the person of Donald Trump, most of us didn’t recognize it. Even as he violated democratic norms and bent the Constitution to the point of breaking, we still didn’t recognize, or couldn’t admit, that Trump was an existential threat to our country and our way of life.

Even now, after he incited a bloody insurrection that claimed the lives of five people, caused significant damage to the Capitol, and disrupted the workings of the Congress, many people still refuse to admit that what Trump and his supporters did to try to overturn a free and fair election was an attempted coup. These people make excuses, and lies, to deflect the fact that their favored president, on U.S. soil, called for an insurrection and led a bloody coup.

But there’s another aspect to what happened at our Capitol that I’m just now starting to come to grips with. It has taken a few days, but the emotions from the attack on our democracy are now running full speed.

I’m a proud American who loves our country and our democracy. I can be critical of our government, often harshly critical. But that’s only because of their failures to establish a more perfect union. I hate to see potential wasted, and often, our government fails to realize the potential that our American values and institutions promise. Even so, I am a proud American who marvels at our history (as flawed as it is at times) and has great hope for our future.

As a proud American, I was horrified watching our Capitol come under siege. It wasn’t just that insurrectionists had taken over the building. It was what the building represented. The Capitol is a symbol of freedom, a sanctuary of our republic, the cradle of our democracy. It is the People’s House, and represents, in all its monolithic splendor and architectural glory, our American ideals and the hopes of our nation. To see it overrun and desecrated by faux patriots, many of whom were hellbent on killing elected officials, including the Vice-President, was shocking and disheartening. This was not supposed to happen here, yet it was happening.

Since then, I have alternated between feelings of sadness, hopelessness, anxiety, and anger. There’s been a lot of anger, enough for everyone involved.

• I’m angry at President Trump, who has consistently violated his oath of office, has fomented chaos, division, and violence for four years, and who has diminished the presidency and our country in the process;
• I’m angry at the politicians who coddled the president, who lied (and continue to lie) about voter fraud, who worked to overturn a free and fair election, and who incited violence and insurrection;
• I’m angry at the traitorous seditionists who defiled our Capitol and threatened (and continue to threaten) our democracy;
• I’m angry at the law enforcement authorities who botched the job of protecting the Capitol;
• I’m angry at our government, who still, five days later, has not held a press conference to tell us what’s going on with their investigations and what they’re doing to prevent a similar attack in the future.

My initial thoughts upon seeing the insurrection was about what we should do about it. I became analytical and thought about how we should punish those involved and make sure something like this never happens again. It was only later that the shock of what had happened wore off and I began to allow my emotions to come out. I know that seems backwards, but that’s how I’m built. Once the emotions started to flow, they flowed like a torrent.

I suspect it will be a long time before my emotions subside. As long as politicians keep trying to avoid responsibility for their actions and right-wing extremists continue to threaten our country and our democracy, I will remain angry and persistent in my hostility to their efforts and goals. They are antithetical to the values and ideals that built this country, and it is imperative, if we are to save our democracy, that we remain keenly on-guard to protect it from these anti-American, traitorous hordes.

Just like our nation, I want to know what comes next. Of course, that answer isn’t forthcoming, not anytime soon. But the one thing we can be sure of is, no matter what the future holds, things will never be the same.

Leading up to the 2020 Presidential Election, I wrote a Facebook post explaining socialism. I was frustrated that so many people labeled almost every proposal they opposed as socialist. It had gotten so bad that TV news interviewers were beginning to question Democratic politicians as if they were socialists.

After making my first post on socialism, I thought of a different way to address the issue, so I wrote a second post on the definition of socialism. I’ve re-printed those posts below in hopes that it will help anyone who reads them better understand that not everything called socialist is actually socialist.

WHAT IS SOCIALISM (Part 1)

A few times in my life, I have converted to a keto diet. If you’re not familiar, a keto diet requires the dieter to eat little or no carbohydrates. This high protein, high fat, low/no carb diet goes by a few different names, but they are all essentially the same.

I like the idea of the keto diet. About 15-20 years ago, I tried a keto diet for the first time and it worked well. I enjoyed most of the foods I was eating, so it wasn’t too hard to stick to the diet. In more recent years, my results haven’t been quite as good, even though I’ve stuck to the diet very closely.

One of my main concerns about a keto diet was not being able to eat pizza or pasta, two of my favorite foods. But surprisingly, that wasn’t the part of the diet I found most difficult. The part of the diet I struggled with most was breakfast. I love bacon and eggs, but I don’t love it every day, and I don’t love cooking every morning. More than any other food, I missed breakfast cereal.

I haven’t been on a keto diet for quite some time, so these days, I’m enjoying eating breakfast cereal again. Earlier in my life, I was a big fan of Lucky Charms (They’re magically delicious) and Fruit Loops. Neither do much for me anymore. At various times I’ve enjoyed Frosted Mini Wheats, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Frosted Flakes. More recently, I’ve tried Reese’s Puffs, Hershey Kisses (the cereal, not the chocolate), and Cookie Crisp. They are all loaded with sugar, and I try my best not to overdo it on any of them.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite cereals was Life (“Hey, Mikey! He likes it!”). But in those halcyon days of my youth, the reason I liked them so much was that I would liberally coat them in refined sugar. The cereal was delicious, as was the sugar-milk that was left in the bowl when the cereal was gone. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

As an adult, I wasn’t going to coat my cereal in sugar, and I was afraid, because of that, I wouldn’t like Life anymore. I was wrong. I love Life cereal, even without the added sugar. It is now my “go to” breakfast food.

But not all is well in the world of breakfast cereals. As an adult, I have gotten into the habit of looking at the side of the cereal box for nutrition information (It’s not as exciting as it sounds). A serving of Life cereal contains 33g of carbohydrates, 8g from sugar. As far as breakfast cereals go, that’s not bad, until you consider how big they say an individual serving is. In an 18 oz box of Life, there are 12 servings. Really? Do you know anyone who only eats 1.5 oz of cereal when they have breakfast? I can get 3.5 (not 12) servings out of an 18 oz box of cereal. Each of my servings come out to about five ounces. Does that seem excessive to you?

Breakfast cereal is not the only food that reduces their serving size to a ridiculous level in order to make their nutrition facts seem more reasonable. Manufacturers do this with several types of food. But for some reason, it bothers me more with breakfast cereal. Most people eat about the same serving size when it comes to cereal. Granted, it may be less than my 5 oz helping, but it’s far more than the manufacturer’s made up 1.5 ounces. As best I can tell, most people eat about 4 oz per serving of cereal. That seems like a reasonable amount, but when you multiply the nutrition info out, the picture becomes pretty bleak.

For instance, a 4 oz serving of Life contains 88g of carbohydrates, 21.34g from sugar. That doesn’t sound so healthy, does it?

I’m not planning on changing my eating habits. Life is better (i.e. healthier) than a lot of cereals. But healthier isn’t the same as healthy. I just wish the cereal manufacturers would be more up front and honest about their product. I’d continue to eat it, and I wouldn’t feel like I’m being lied to. Unhealthy I can deal with, but I will not tolerate being lied to.

Oh, who am I kidding. Lie to me. Just keep the cereal coming.

I have heard that it is a fool’s errand to try to understand Trump voters. Some say that they defy understanding. Others say there’s nothing to understand, that they are just deplorable human beings filled with hate and rage. I can’t accept either of these points of view. I know too many people who support Trump who are decent, well-intentioned human beings, both friends and family members.

For me, there is a disconnect between the people I know and the support they have for Donald Trump, a man who has defiled the office he holds, diminished the reputation of the nation in the eyes of the world, has attacked and degraded anyone who doesn’t agree with him, especially woman and people of color, and has moved our nation rightward toward authoritarianism and fascism. The type of person Trump is seems like everything a decent person should oppose, yet I know many people I consider decent people who support him. I want to understand why.

Understanding Trump voters is especially difficult considering who the alternative was in our recent presidential election. By all accounts, Joe Biden is a profoundly decent man, the opposite of Donald Trump. He has a long history as a moderate Democrat who worked across party lines often. The Democrats couldn’t have run a more inoffensive candidate.

I know some Trump supporters will point to Kamala Harris and accuse her of being too liberal. But is that really a reason to support Trump or is it just a weak justification. I mean, she was candidate for Vice-President. Did 70 million Trump voters really support Trump because of their fear of the opposing vice-presidential candidate? I find that hard to believe. Every study I have ever read on the subject indicates that people don’t choose a presidential candidate based on the candidate for vice-president, let alone 70 million people. So, why did 70 million people support Trump?

By and large, Trump voters are non-college educated whites. Obviously, that is not true of every Trump voter, but it does describe Trump’s largest voting block. Non-college educated whites (men and women) made up 63% of the votes Trump received in the 2020 election, about the same as he received in 2016.

Even among non-college educated whites, they have various reasons for supporting Trump. One person may support Trump because of his tax policies, while another may give him their vote because of his embrace of white supremacists. Every voter is different. Having said that, non-college educated whites have had a similar experience living in the United States over the past 30-40 years.

Pre-1980, if you were a white person living in the United States, there was a good chance that you would make more money than your parents made. Consequently, there was an excellent chance that you would live a better lifestyle than the generations that came before you. That began to change in 1980.

One of the things the Reagan Administration did to change things for non-college educated whites was weaken the influence of unions. As Governor of California, Reagan opposed strikes by the United Farm workers, and later, while president, he busted PATCO, the union that represented air traffic controllers. He also appointed three members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) who flipped the Board’s traditional support for collective bargaining. Unions began losing a disproportionate share of cases in front of the NLRB, and union busting consultants, firms hired by companies to get rid of unions, began popping up across the country.

These efforts resulted in lower wages for union workers, most of whom were non-college educated whites. In the early 1980s, wages routinely increased 7-9% per year. Those increases slowed beginning in the early days of the Reagan Administration, and today, America’s working class is seeing wage increases of just 2-3%. At a time of very modest wage gains for the working class, executive pay has skyrocketed. Since 1980, executive pay has increased more than 900%, while working class pay has increased about 14%.

At the same time, tax policy has increasingly favored the wealthy. This trend hit its zenith under President Trump, who’s tax policy, for the first time in American history, helped billionaires pay a lower tax rate than the working class. This change, in essence, worked to transfer wealth from the middle- and lower-class to the upper class.

These changes, whether having to do with the government’s stance on unions, tax policy, or the stagnation of worker’s wages, fell particularly hard on non-college educated whites. That doesn’t mean that it didn’t impact other members of the working class, like blacks and Hispanics. Of course, it did. The difference was that non-college educated whites were not used to the pain caused by these changes. For the most part, blacks and Hispanics were. This was a new experience for non-college educated whites, who, since the end of World War II, were used to reaping the benefits of government and economic changes, not paying the price for them.

Going back once again to 1980, most working-class non-college educated whites belonged to the Democratic Party. The Democrats were viewed as the party of the working class, while Republicans were viewed as the party of business and upper management. But in 1992, the Democrats nominated a different kind of Democrat. Bill Clinton was much more closely aligned with big money donors from Wall Street, not the working stiff who paid his union dues and expected Democrats to look out for him. Democrats also began to shift their focus from the white working-class voter to more marginalized and disadvantaged groups, such as minorities, gays, lesbians, and others. They began to support non-traditional family units, like single mothers and gay adoptive parents. The non-college educated white voter felt abandoned.

It was at this point that Republicans did something very smart. They reached out to the non-college educated white voter. They pointed out that illegal immigrants, primarily from Mexico, were coming into the country and stealing their jobs. They said that welfare cheats were stealing their hard-earned tax dollars. They said that Muslims were threatening their safety and security. They convinced the non-college educated white voter that the alienation and injustice they felt was caused by the poor, illegal immigrants, and Muslims. As a result, non-educated whites felt heard, and they began to leave the Democratic Party in favor of a Republican Party that understood them and had their back.

Of course, none of this was true. Illegal immigrants aren’t stealing anyone’s job (unless your job is to pick fruit or clean rooms in one of Trump’s hotels), the poor are not defrauding the government and stealing taxes paid by non-college educated white voters, and Muslims as a group do not pose a risk to the United States. Even so, non-college educated whites became Republicans, initially during the George W. Bush Administration, and then became the driving force behind a Trump presidency.

It’s unlikely that this change from Democrat to Republican would have been nearly as universal and would have stuck so completely without another change that took place beginning in the 1990s. The rise of conservative media, with radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy began what would become a conservative media industry. They were staunch conservatives, dedicated Republicans, and they mixed in just enough conspiracy theory to keep things interesting.

Fox News Channel (FNC) began broadcasting in 1996, and from the beginning, had a conservative bias, but was not the committed conservative mouthpiece we see today. In the early days of FNC, they broadcast 20-minute long single-issue news segments during the day, and in the evening presented opinion shows, such as The O’Reilly Report and Hannity & Combes, a political talk show that examined issues from both a conservative and liberal point of view.

As time went on, Fox News morphed into a full-on propaganda platform for Republicans. They were instrumental in getting Trump elected in 2016, and 90% of the time during his presidency, they operated as state TV. For four years, Trump lied, and Fox News amplified the lie. For non-college educated white voters who overwhelmingly got their news from FNC, they believed the lies. Trump created an alternative reality, FNC broadcast that alternative realty, and non-college educated white voters believed that alternative reality.

One example of this is a poll that was conducted of likely Trump voters prior to the 2020 election. The poll found that:

• 95% of likely Trump voters believed Donald Trump would win the 2020 election;
• 70% of likely Trump voters believed Donald Trump would win a landslide of Electoral College votes;
• 48% of likely Trump voters believed Donald Trump would win a popular vote landslide

Objective reality indicated that none of these outcomes was likely. But, FNC was pushing the idea that Trump would win the election, and many of their guests indicated that his win would be an easy one. Non-college educated white voters believed what they were being told. Most either ignored objective reality or chose not to expose themselves to it at all, limiting their consumption of news and information to FNC and similarly biased sources. As a result, they believed a reality that didn’t exist, and were unprepared when actual objective reality intruded with a Biden victory.

What we are seeing now by both Trump and his supporters is the shock they are feeling to learn that their beliefs did not match objective reality. They’re still coming to grips with Trump’s loss, convinced that it had to have been caused by voter fraud, despite the fact that there is no evidence to support such a belief. The Trump camp is going to court claiming one theory of fraud or another, but they have been unable to provide any evidence to back up their claims. So far, as of this writing, the Trump team has filed ten lawsuits and they’ve lost all ten. Trump supporters, including non-college educated whites, have been unable to grasp the disconnect between their reality and objective reality. It is a hard pill to swallow when you learn that everything you’ve believed for four years or more has been wrong.

Of course, FNC and similar TV, radio, print, and digital outlets, are largely a response to conservatives’ belief that mainstream media has a liberal bias. I think it is fair to say that most mainstream media DOES have a liberal bias, but that doesn’t mean that the news they report isn’t truthful. In fact, independent research indicates that most mainstream media outlets provide reliable and factual information, although it may be presented with a liberal bias.

Conservative media is very different. In addition to having a conservative bias, they provide questionable information from unreliable sources. There’s a reason for this difference.

Matthew Sheffield is a former conservative activist and journalist who was co-creator of NewsBusters, an anti-media website, and founding online editor of the Washington Examiner, a conservative website and weekly magazine. He has a long history of complaining about mainstream media being unfair to conservative views. But when he started providing news from a conservative perspective himself, he was surprised to learn that his readers felt he wasn’t being anti-liberal enough. What he learned was that conservative consumers of news, in large part, weren’t interested in journalism. They wanted anti-liberal propaganda. In fact, Sheffield contends that conservatives don’t understand the purpose of journalism.

According to Sheffield, conservative media outlets are much more biased than outlets run by liberals. The reason is that, while liberals view the purpose of their work to be dissemination of truthful, well-sourced information, conservatives view their purpose to be making liberals look bad. In colloquial terms, the purpose of conservative media is to own the libs.

Matthew Sheffield: “While I was enmeshed in the conservative media tradition, I viewed lefty media thinkers like Jay Rosen from NYU as arguing that journalism was supposed to be liberally biased. I was wrong. I realized later that I didn’t understand that journalism is supposed to portray reality.

“This thought was phrased memorably by Stephen Colbert as “reality has a well-known liberal bias” which is an oversimplification but is more accurate than the conservative journalist view which is that media should promote and serve conservative politicians.

“I also discovered as I rose through the right-wing media ranks that most conservative media figures have no journalism training or desire to fact-check their own side. I also saw so many people think that reporting of information negative to GOP politicians was biased, even if it was true.

“I eventually realized that most people who run right-dominated media outlets see it as their DUTY to be unfair and to favor Republicans because doing so would somehow counteract perceived liberal bias.”

Is it any wonder that Trump voters, particularly non-college educated white voters, see the world very differently than the rest of us? I had a friend tell me once that he lives in a “red world,” meaning he restricts himself to a diet of conservative information and doesn’t poison himself with information from sources he views as liberal. He admitted that he got his information from just two sources, one of which was FNC. It should be no surprise then that what he believed was happening in the election was completely wrong. And why those beliefs now lead him to believe that if Trump lost, there had to have been voter fraud. There may not be any proof of voter fraud, but if what he has believed for months is correct (obviously, it isn’t) what other explanation could there be?

So, where does that leave us? I understand that Trump voters have felt forgotten and abandoned for years. I understand the government has shafted them and the Republican Party has lied to them about who they should blame. I also understand that the news sources they have relied on have been lying to them for years, feeding them a steady diet of anti-liberal, anti-Democratic lies that have turned them into conservative zealots. Their misinformed views may have been self-inflicted, yet I empathize with them. It must be difficult to develop beliefs over several years only to find out that they are based on lies and misinformation. For many, it’s easier and less painful to maintain the misinformed beliefs than it is to learn the truth.

And yet, even knowing all of this, I’m still having trouble understanding how anyone can support a man who admits to being a sexual abuser, who uses his power to separate children from their parents and then puts the kids into what amounts to a concentration camp, who cheats on his pregnant wife with a porn star, who says racist things and embraces white supremacists. Shouldn’t some of these things have opened their eyes and driven them away from Trump?

As I said earlier, I know a lot of Trump supporters who I like and respect. Their support for Trump is an outlier in their personality. If not for their support, I would be convinced that they are not racists, not misogynists, and not hateful. And yet, they do support Trump, and I have a hard time reconciling the people I know with their support for a man who possesses most of the personality traits we try to avoid. I want to understand them. I want to understand their support for Trump. But at the moment, I’m afraid I don’t.

I’d like to add my voice to the chorus of people saying the President should be prohibited from nominating, and the Senate should not be allowed to confirm, a Supreme Court justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I’d like to, but I can’t. Here’s why:

The Constitution gives the president the right to nominate candidates to the Supreme Court. It further gives the Senate the duty to confirm or decline that candidate. That’s our system, and there’s nothing in the Constitution or law that indicates any period (i.e. just before an election) when this process is limited or does not apply.

Now, I can hear you screaming, “But what about Merrick Garland?”

For those not familiar with Merrick Garland, he was nominated for the Supreme Court to replace Justice Antonin Scalia by President Obama in 2016. The Republicans, who controlled the majority in the Senate, decided they were not going to hold confirmation hearings on Garland, claiming that it was too close to an election. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that the American people should have a say, and with the election just around the corner, the next president should decide who to nominate.

There was no legal reason not to hold confirmation hearings, but it was within the Senate’s rights to withhold their confirmation. Garland’s nomination wasn’t officially declined, but it did eventually expire.

Not holding confirmation hearing caused quite an uproar. Democrats in particular were outraged that McConnell wouldn’t at least hold hearings, but there was little they could do.

When speaking about the Senate’s refusal to take up Garland’s nomination, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said “I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.”

After the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, Graham further stated, “I’ll tell you this – this may make you feel better, but I really don’t care – if an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait until the next election.”

Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, ““It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated and confirmed in an election year. There is a long tradition that you don’t do this in an election year.”

Several other senators, including Cory Gardner (R-CO), John Cornyn (R-TX), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) all went on the record saying the Senate should not hold confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court justice in the lead up to an election.

But within hours of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, McConnell, Graham, Cruz, and several other Senators have chimed in to say that Donald Trump should submit a nominee and the Senate should hold confirmation hearings before the election (or perhaps between the election and the inauguration in January 2021).

So, it’s clear. Republicans are hypocrites. Is that news? Not really. The days of statesmanship and fair dealing have been over for some time with these guys. They are liars and conmen who routinely choose party over country, but they are not abusing their power by holding nomination hearings.

In a more perfect world, Republicans would be true to their word and the commitments they made back in 2016. But that’s not the world we live in.

Will any Republicans show some honor and dignity, and refuse to confirm any nominee until after the election? Maybe. Senators Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have both voiced their reluctance to hold confirmation hearings. Susan Collins (R-ME) might join that group. If no more than three Republicans refuse to confirm Trump’s nominee, the Republicans will still have enough votes to seat another Supreme Court justice.

For Democrats, there is some light at the end of this particular tunnel. In the coming days, I expect Sen Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and others to announce their intention to take the following actions should the Republicans move forward with the confirmation:

1. Democrats will move to admit Washington, DC and Puerto Rico as the 51^st and 52^nd states in the union. This will add four new senators, and with both areas being heavily Democratic, those new senators will also likely be Democratic.
2. Democrats will vote to end the Senate filibuster, an arcane Senate rule that allows the minority party to hold up legislation not to their liking.
3. Democrats will vote to enlarge the Supreme Court. There is no law that says the court has to have nine members, so if Democrats increased the court to 13, they could add enough liberal judges to swing the court to a one vote liberal majority.

In order for this to work for the Democrats, two rather big things have to happen in November:

1. Joe Biden (D) has to win the presidency, and
2. The Democrats must take back control of the Senate

Both things appear to be doable. Biden is leading in the polls at the moment, and Democrats are likely to pick up several seats in the Senate. Will it be enough to carry out their threat? Only time will tell.

I should point out that Democrats would rather not do any of the three things I listed above. They’d like to add Washington, DC and Puerto Rico as states, but they’d prefer to do it in a slower, more deliberative fashion. Ramming through statehood for Washington, DC and Puerto Rico is not anyone’s preference.

In addition, the filibuster is a long-standing process in the Senate, and members are reluctant to get rid of it. However, Democrats would have to get rid of it in order to prevent Republicans, who in this scenario would be in the minority, from blocking their attempts to enlarge the Supreme Court.

In fact, enlarging the court is something Democrats would rather avoid. Nobody wants to mess with the court for political reasons. That’s just not something either party particularly likes to do. The Supreme Court is supposed to be above politics. But, if the Republicans are willing to play politics with RBGs open seat, then the Democrats would likely be willing to respond in kind.

If Donald Trump is smart (I know this is up for debate), he’ll decide not to submit a nominee. Why would he do that? Think about it. If he wins in November, he’s going to have another four years and will have plenty of time to nominate someone to the Supreme Court after he starts his next term.

On the other hand, if he loses, or if the Senate switches to Democratic control, he’s no worse off than he is now, with a conservative leaning court. Replacing Ginsburg with a liberal justice will only maintain the court’s status quo, not flip it.

Of course, this presupposes that Democrats won’t go forward with their threats if Trump plays nice, but honestly, I think that’s a pretty good bet. The threat the Democrats would be making is distasteful to them. They don’t want to do it, and will likely only follow through with their threat if they are forced to.

I agree with all of those that say the Republicans shouldn’t confirm a candidate this late in Trump’s term, but I understand that they are well within their rights to do so. If Trump nominates a candidate and the Senate holds confirmation hearings, the Democrats will be forced to take aggressive, steps to counter the Republicans, which will be ugly, divisive, and utterly necessary.

There is a way to avoid this possibility, but I honestly don’t think that Trump or the Republicans are capable of doing the smart, right thing when it comes to Supreme Court nominations. They’re like a heroin addict being offered free dope. Even if they can think clearly enough to know taking the dope is a bad idea, they’re craving will override their brain and lead them to take it anyway. And when it comes to the Supreme Court, the Republicans have an insatiable craving.