By Greg Tafel
Diogenes was a Greek philosopher best known for holding a lantern to the faces of Athenians, searching for an honest man. I understand his motivations as I, too, am searching for an honest Republican politician (apologies to Sens. Romney and Sasse.) This lame duck administration continues its legacy of lies with its total refusal to accept the legal results of our recent election thus making things very difficult for the rightful president-elect. President Trump has lost 55 out of 56 lawsuits in his attempts to get the election results overturned. Judges across the country have used terms like “frivolous,, “unfounded,” “unconstitutional,” “crazy” and “far-fetched” to describe Trump’s strategy to declare crimes first then look for proof afterward.
The Washington Post surveyed all 249 Republican members in Congress, and 27 have accepted Biden’s victory, two believe Trump won, and an astounding 221 stated that the results were “unclear” or had no response. Meanwhile our country is experiencing the largest expansion of COVID cases and deaths since last March and April. Unemployment benefits are running out, people are hungry, and businesses are going under. Yet Trump fiddles while America burns. Let’s not even talk about the almost $210 million Trump has raised since the election (accountability?). Let’s talk about the incentive behind the silence: to de-legitimize Biden’s victory and to make things as difficult as possible for his administration to get off to a good start. Mitch McConnell stated in 2010 that “my number one priority is to make sure that Obama is a one term president.” So much for bipartisan cooperation in doing what’s best. That philosophy carries to today, where it is clear that Republican leadership values power over country. President Trump has proven the theory that led to his defeat: hHe cares more about himself than he does for the nation, and his enablers (McConnell, Graham, Cruz, Hawley, Rubio) have not stood up for the obvious truth that Joe Biden will be our next president.
Moving forward, who are we to believe and how do we re-establish confidence in finding truthful sources of information? Trump’s “fake news” strategy has succeeded in creating two realities that have divided our land. Fox News personalities (Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, not Fox reporters) are a sham when it comes to reporting the truth because they are one-sided and tell you what to fear. Their practice of spewing disinformation has done our republic a great disservice. Mainstream Democrats are characterized as baby killers when factually many are personally anti-abortion yet do not believe that the government has the right to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her own body; that they support protest violence when truly they do not; that they want to defund the police when actually they are in favor of reforms that will help police do a better job; that they want open borders when frankly they desire just and humane immigration policy; that they are Marxist socialists when honestly they want our government to give a hand up not a handout; that they favor the abolishment of the Second Amendment when actually they want reasonable and necessary limits placed on gun ownership; and that they are not patriotic when, indeed, they love this nation and the ideals upon which it was built.
These untruths and warped viewpoints espoused by the Trump administration have led me to metaphorically hold up a lantern to the faces of Republican leadership in hopes of finding, in the words of Diogenes, “an honest man.” We need unity now more than any other time since the tragedy of 9/11 if we are to succeed in overcoming the serious problems that face us all in the near future.
Greg Tafel is a retired St. Vrain Valley Schools social studies teacher. He has lived in
Longmont for 35 years.
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December 14, 2020 at 08:18PM
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Greg Tafel: In search of an honest man - Longmont Times-Call
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